I tested a photo frame that animates your pictures like Harry Potter, and it’s almost magical

As Harry Potter walks through the halls of Hogwarts for the first time, one of the things he’s amazed by are the paintings which, unlike the static portraits in the muggle world, can move and talk to the students.

Thanks to AI, this one fantastical part of the wizarding world is now a reality, in the form of the Homture Magic Frame. While it’s a traditional digital photo frame like many others, Hometure’s app uses AI to animate static images, so the people or pets in them can wave back at you. It can even be used to restore and colorize old black-and-white photos.

But how does it compare to the best digital photo frames, and is this novel feature really worth it? I tested the Homture Magic Frame for two weeks to find out.

How much does it cost?

The Homture Magic Frame went on sale in October 2025 for $199. You can usually find it at a discount. For example, as of this writing, you could purchase it for $139.

In order to use the AI features, you’ll also have to cough up a bit of cash; When you first get the frame, you’re given 200 credits, plus another 2000 via a QR code that comes in the box. Each AI image costs 100 credits, so you can create up to 22 AI images for free. After that, you have to purchase credits, which cost $4.99 for 500 credits, 1000 for $9.99, and 2000 for $19.99. (There’s a one-time deal to buy 2,000 credits for $4.99).

What I like

AI images add a novel feature (though it’s not perfect)
The AI can do a few things. The first is to animate static images so that they’re waving at you — it only works for up to two people in an image, but you can also make it so your pet waves at you, too. It can also animate scenery, like a train moving through.

Another AI enhancement is called Dreamy Couple, and takes an image of two people and turns them into animated characters. Then there’s animating an old photo, and finally Wonderland.

It takes about a minute or so for Homture’s AI to process your image and turn it into a moving image.

As with most AIs, the AI “waving” photos were a mixed bag. In one photo of my wife and daughter, I was impressed that the AI created a shadow of my wife’s waving hand. However, the motion of her fingers moving back and forth looked a little jelly-like.

In another photo — this one of my daughter holding up her dress, the AI cleverly was able to animate her whole arm lifting up and waving, but her dress also remained pulled out to the side, as if held up by an invisible string.

It did a very good job of animating a photo of my cat; his head turned to the window and his tail swished; and all of the fur looked lifelike. However, part of my daughter’s face was in the background, which the AI turned into a cat’s head.

The “Old Photo Alive” took a black and white photo of my wife’s grandfather on a tricycle, and not only added color realistically, but also animated it slightly, so that he smiled and turned his head to the side.

There’s plenty of storage
The Homture frame has 64GB of built-in storage, plus unlimited cloud storage. There’s no expandable storage, but that should be plenty for most people. Some of the more recent photo frames I’ve tested — specifically, e Paper displays such as the Switchbot AI Art Frame — can only hold up to 10 images at a time, which is a real limitation.

The display is sharp and bright
As a photo frame, the Homture holds up. Its resolution (1920 x 1200) is higher than that of some of our other favorite photo frames, and while it’s as susceptible to reflections as any other glossy surface, my pictures were bright and colorful.

What I don’t like

No connection to cloud photo services
Unlike frames such as the Aura Aspen, there’s no way to connect the Homture to your Apple Photos or Google Photos accounts, so you have to manually upload all photos to the frame from the Homture app. You can invite others to add photos, but I’ve found it’s far easier to simply create a shared photo album and have people contribute to that.

Also, the Homture frame displays Live Photos as static images, so you don’t get to see the animation.

The rear is kinda ugly
I know you’re not going to look at the back of a picture frame all that often, but the Homture is less photogenic than most.

Rather than a uniform, tapered back, there’s one large protruding circle in the center, and a smaller one in one of the corners for the power button. One other corner has a small clip to attach a stand, so that you can prop it up on a table. There’s no way to wall-mount it.

Bottom line

Credit to Homture for trying something new to shake up the world of digital photo frames. While its AI-animating feature is still a work in progress, it looks like the company is planning to add more AI enhancements, so hopefully it will be able to do more than just make people and pets wave at you.

If you can get it for $139, that’s a pretty good price for a photo frame, regardless of its other features. The Aura Carver, another 10-inch frame we really like, costs around $179, but is also on sale, often for much less. While I wish the Homture Magic Frame worked with the best cloud photo services, its AI features are, well, almost magic.