Mobile-Enabled Digital Photo Frame Dropping Soon

This post originally appeared at BostInnovation on March 16; republished by permission.

If your grandmother is anything like mine, she’s probably still watching the same photos you loaded into the digital photo frame you gave her as a gift four years ago.

Last week, I got a chance to sit down with Matthew Growney, the CEO of Concord-based Isabella Products, to talk about Isabella’s first mobile-enabled gadget: The Vizit

What’s more, I got to play with a prototype version!

The Vizit is going to be released on March 23 at next week’s CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas, Nev. Essentially, it’s what digital photo frames should have been when they hit the market years ago in that it lets you send and receive fresh photos via the AT&T 3G mobile network in minutes.

Pics and images can be shared with a Vizit owner from mobile devices in about two minutes using Email or text message, and users will also be able to share photos through Flickr and Photobucket, or by uploading them to a browser-based account page called “VizitMe.”

That means you can snap a picture with your smart phone and fire it over to granny in no time at all. Here’s a quick video we made while Growney was in the house.

The Vizit will feature a 10.4-inch full touch screen display, and an unbelievably intuitive interface. Growney noted that the fact that all the options and lists are carousels so you can never get lost in the software. Plus, the Vizit will be able to receive photos from LIFE.com, so even if your family isn’t nice to look at, you can still load up cool pics regularly.

The screen is a matte finish, and, while it requires a bit of a harder touch than my iPhone, it should be pretty durable. Plus, it’s easy to detach from the base of the frame, which houses all the brains of the Vizit. That means upgrading to a different or larger screen in a few months will be a snap.

The downside?

It’s retailing for $279.99 plus you have to pay for the VizitMe account on a monthly or yearly basis. At $6 per month or $72 per year, that will add up. If you choose to opt out of the VizitMe account, it will remain active for a year so you won’t lose your photos. Plus, you’ll always be able to upload photos with the USB port and SD card slot whether you pay for the service or not.

Still, the fact that this thing can send and receive photos and retails at a price that competes with high-end digital frames with no connectivity makes it a really cool device, in my opinion. After tapping it for an hour, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much I’d like to have a set of feeds for image-based content on it: Imagine getting news, weather and sports fed into a device like the Vizit in real time. That would make a touch screen image frame like the Vizit a worthwhile addition to my work desk — not just something that makes me think about not visiting my grandmother enough when I see it.

For more on the Vizit and Matthew Growney, be sure to check out vizitme.com. Check back here for more of Isabella Products mobile-enabled devices coming soon… Shhhhh. The next one will be a childrens’ tablet called the Fable.