Does anyone know of a digital picture frame product that is good, but doesn't completely rely on some proprietary service? I'd prefer not to get something as a gift and then in a few years it completely stop working because the company that produced it no longer supports it.
Dynaframe or the Pro version on Patreon. I've been using the Pro version for about 8 months and really like it. I have it setup with an RPi4 and a 15.6" portable monitor. I pointed it to my NAS pictures folder. It doesn't rely on any services beyond a local network. I'd recommend using Ethernet instead of wifi for stability. Only issue I've run into is the web UI to configure folders and settings can fail to load for some reason. I think this is a bug though, and I should grab the latest version to see if it's fixed.
I know you said no proprietary, but frameo is a digital frame app/service that is leveraged by various manufacturers. I recently gifted my parents some no name picture frames that use frameo, and they're extremely happy with them. I can add pictures from anywhere in the world, and multiple people can be added as contributors. It cost me around $50
Forc Digital Picture Frame WiFi 10.1 Inch Digital Photo Frame, Electronic Picture Frame, 16GB Storage, Auto-Rotate, IPS Touch Screen, Easy Setup and Share Photos and Videos via Free App from Anywhere https://a.co/d/9LJYELQ
This is the one I bought. Searching for frameo on Amazon will show a wide variety.
This brings up a good point. I think as long as I can default to using the SD card storage in case whatever service stops working it should be fine. Anything with an SD card slot like this one should work.
You can! We sell them and that is one of the selling points well tell people who don’t want to use the service.