Tuesday 12 November 2013

Custom Photo Frame Display From Multiple Android Tablets

Giant Interactive Photo Array Display

Photo frame mounted on the wall without cover in Floating Image App
Having taking many photos of my family, I've bought a large photo frame that has multiple cut outs which lets me put on some of the photos on the wall. These photo frames have always taken a lot of effort to update as I've got to get the photos printed and then take the frame down to change the photos etc. meaning this doesn't happen very often (or ever...). So I've had this idea for a while where you could get multiple displays mounted on a frame and set the displays to do a slideshow. At first I thought about these digital photo frames however they're weren't that cheap and the resolution are terrible, plus updating them with new photos would take some effort in getting the SD cards updated with new sets of photos so I put this idea to bed for a while.

With the rise of tablets and many of the entry level ones becoming much cheaper I thought it'd be a good idea to revisit this project. Using tablets also lets each display connect to the internet where I can keep the photos all in one place and update them all at once by uploading the photos. I stated to investigate the things I need to put this idea together and one thing led to another giving us the results above (without mount board cover and finished product at the bottom) which I think you'll agree looks awesome! I've decided to call this project Giant Interactive Photo Array Display (Giant IPAD), see what I did there? ;-)


Below are some of the steps that I went through in the hope that if someone is keen enough to want to attempt something similar they will get some tips from this.