Aura introduces a $499 e-ink digital photo frame that lets you go cordless

Summary

Aura is introducing its newest model, the $499 Ink frame, which brings a 13-inch color e-paper display to the company’s otherwise LCD-based lineup. The technology, similar to that found in the Kindle Colorsoft e-reader, uses a six-color ink system to create the illusion of millions of tones. More importantly, using e-ink technology allows the frame to finally go cordless. That makes it ideal for hanging in your home in places where a corded display may look bad, like a living room wall, stairwell, or anywhere else a cord would ruin the aesthetic. The company, founded by early Twitter employees, has wanted to work with e-ink technology for some time, but it wasn’t yet up to the task of sharing colorful photos taken on your smartphone. But as e-ink systems have advanced, Aura has changed its mind. The new frame uses Spectra 6 technology that delivers six primary colors — white, black, red, yellow, green, and blue — with better saturation and contrast, making it more adept at displaying photos. Image Credits:Aura In addition, Aura added a front light to the frame, taking a cue from the Kindle Paperwhite. This helps improve the contrast, notes Eric Jensen, Aura co-founder and CTO. “It’s a very subtle light compared to an LCD. It’s maybe a sixth of the brightness of an LCD,” he told TechCrunch in an interview. “People often don’t even notice it has a light until they’re in a dark room and it turns off,” Jensen adds. On top of the Spectra 6 technology, Aura built its own proprietary dithering algorithm, which uses error diffusion. Techcrunch event San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025 “We had to go back to the ancient dithering algorithms from like newspaper technology, where you had to figure out how to blend these dots to simulate other colors,” Jensen says. A closeup of Aura’s E-ink rendering systemImage Credits:Aura Though the e-ink technology means you can go cordless, the frame still does need a recharge at times, which means you’d have to take it down from time to ti...