Nixplay 10.1-inch Smart Digital Photo Frame with WiFi ($169.98)

My mom is not tech-savvy. She's the kind of person who leaves every single app and web page open on her phone. She doesn't even know how to close them or why you should. To call her tech-illiterate would be an understatement. And yet, the only gift she's ever genuinely loved is a tech gift I got her: a digital frame.

My mom is a bit picky when it comes to physical gifts. She prefers time spent together for her birthday and Mother's Day. For her 65th birthday, we went to New Orleans and it was one of her favorite trips ever. But if I try to buy her a shirt or a piece of jewelry, she gets a look on her face like I just handed her a dead mouse. Not to call her unappreciative, she is just picky.

I've bought my mom and dad basically every picture frame in their house. When the walls started to get so full, I decided to try and gift my mom a digital picture frame, in hopes that she'd get a kick out of the novelty of it. 

Nixplay 10.1-inch Smart Digital Photo Frame with WiFi

I lead into all of this by saying my mom is not big on anything tech to highlight the fact that she figured out how to use this all on her own. Obviously, a digital picture frame is far from a VR headset, but it is still more tech-y than most of the things she uses. Normally, she asks me or my 18-year-old niece to do anything that involves computers, phones, or the TV for her. 

The Nixplay digital frame is supposed to be easy enough for a grandma to use and it passed that test with my mom. Anyone can send photos and video clips directly to the frame when using the Nixplay iOS or Android Mobile App, or Desktop Web App. Hell, you can even email pictures to the frame. You're able to create shared playlists (my mom has not attempted that yet) that everyone can contribute to in order to relive special events and holidays.

The frame isn't always on. It has a niX-SenseMe smart sensor that wakes the frame when you're in the room and puts it to sleep when you're not there. Upon waking, the frame displays the most recently received photos/video. It'll even share photos if the frame gets disconnected from your WiFi.

My mom uses this frame to display her favorite pictures of her kids, her granddaughter, her beloved pitbull, her four cats, and just about every family member she has a photo of. 

Ana Suarez is the managing commerce editor for Hearst Newspapers. She is always on the hunt for good sales, but really, she just won't shut up about her senior dog, Tyrone.