I worked at a TV station that would use these for monitor walls (more for the anti-glare than anything else). I remember seeing paintings on set being a sign something went terribly wrong.

So they use power 24/7, do they also listen to what happen in the room? because those brands sure like to spy on what users are watching (even the HDMI in on some of them)

My 75" Samsung The Frame (2024) uses 70w in 'art mode'. It has a motion sensor and you can configure to fully switch off after some timeout.

I see a lot of blocked requests in my OPNsense firewall (not sure what exactly) but I see that with almost all 'smart' devices (which I like to keep local).

This reads a lot like post CES submarine PR, having worked in this exact space.

To date the market for these things simply hasn't had traction, at all, despite it being a long term dream of many display manufacturers. They also cannot resist the urge to go all in on inevitable privacy invasion stupidity, because they believe all the others will do it and so undercut them.

Oddly the generative AI wave is exactly what the marketing people thought they were missing when I was involved, since they wanted you to be able to describe something and have it just appear. Now you actually could.

I love the idea of a TV designed to look like a picture frame - I might even mod mine, to have it blend better into the room.

But as for actually using it as a picture frame - no way. I think it's the reflection of modern rent culture where landlord put these things in along with generic Ikea furniture, allowing tenants to 'customize' their living spaces without being allowed to drive in a single nail.

TVs make much better windows than canvases. I'd much rather have my TV display a real-time "million dollar view" of Central Park than a backlit Van Gogh.

Everytime I see such TVs, theres a "No signal" popup on it. Why?!

When I first heard about these I thought eink had gotten cheap and good enough for that to be part of the display. The fact that it's just a regular tv displaying a painting was so disappointing.

"It's true that many younger buyers just don't have the same taste or sense of style as folks from previous generations. But also, young city-dwelling professionals are less likely to have the room to place a large screen in a dedicated area in their home, a pain point compounded by the fact that TV screen sizes have ballooned over the past decade."

If you find yourself in this position regarding taste or space, I'd encourage you to use a projector.

There is no 50+" black void hanging on your wall, so you don't need to have a nice picture to display instead. Sure, it can be more difficult to watch things during the daylight hours, but that's actually been a positive for me that leads to more intentional consumption.

Replacing my TV with a projector and muting my microwave are two actions that have had an unexpectedly huge impact on my quality of life.

>the experience of using a Frame-style TV in an otherwise well-designed room is legitimately quite nice

Legitimately quite nice. Is there any higher praise than this?

These will always look bad displaying art because they crop everything to 16:9.