Fact: Grandparents love photos of their grandkids. A digital photo frame, then, seems like a perfect gift. The problem? They… tend to go forgotten, once installed. You’ll go over 5 years later and it’ll still be rotating through the same four photos from Christmas 2010. This photo frame hooks intot to a Facebook, Instagram, or Dropbox account,u00a0allowing you to pull down new photos with little to no effort.nPrice:$129“Low on cash but have plenty of time? Your grandparents probably have album after album of photos that exist only in the physical world, never having made the transition to digital. Take a day to help them digitize them — it’ll keep the photos safe, and let them access them from their device of choice.
Plus, it’s a damned good opportunity for them to tell you all those stories you’ve never heard before. Use something like Heirloom (free for iOS) to make scanning fast, and store them on your favorite photo service (I’d use either Google Photos or my Amazon Prime account’s unlimited storage)
Price: Free!
Photo Credit: martinak15 on Flickr“If you’re like me, your parents/grandparents/etc. probably call you any time their computer starts doing weird things. If you’re like me, you… might not have as much time to help them as you’d like.
Bask is a remote tech support guy. $20 a month gets them all the help they need; they just call them up, u00a0explain their problem, and Bask remotely connects to their computer and patches things up.u00a0They’ll help them back up data and get rid of viruses/gnarly tool bars/malware, too.
Price:u00a0$10-30 per month, depending on what services you want”How much use this one actually gets depends on what sort of grandparent you’ve got.u00a0Teach them how to FaceTime the grandkids, though, and it’s pretty much guaranteed to be a hit.
Price: $399“Don’t think the iPad will get much use? Consider a Kindle Fire, instead. It’s got a front facing camera decent enough for Skyping, but it’s cheap enough that it’s no big deal if it doesn’t get used on the daily. Plus, Amazon’s remote tech help feature, “Mayday”, can helpu00a0them patch things up if things start acting wonky.
Price: $65, If You Buy The Ad-Free Version”If the grands are big readers but haven’t yet made the dive into eBooks, the Kindle Paper White is a fantasticu00a0way to help them get their feet wet. It’s not the highest end Kindle, but it more than gets the job done — and it’s super easy to just pick up and use, even if it’s your first foray into eReaders. The battery lasts for weeks, the backlight is bright enough for reading in bed, and it addressed my grandma’s biggest concern: you can scale the font to read sans glasses.
Price:$99“Losing stuff sucks. Fortunately, technologyu00a0can help with that, too.
Most of our readers are staring at their smartphones all day. Need directions? PHONE! Song lyrics? PHONE! Can’t figure out what the heck you know that actress from? PHOOOONE! For them, something like Tile’s bluetooth trackers are perfect.
Your grandparents, though, might not be so accustomed tou00a0unlocking their phone with every mild inconvenience.
MagicFly is a more accessible alternative. It only works in the home, but that’s good enough for things like keys and purses. Just strap one of the color coded locators on four items of choice, then tap the appropriate button to make’m sing.
Price:$25“It’s admittedly a bit low tech — but after hearing one of TC’s writersu00a0and my own grandmother rave about these, I couldn’t resist.
That picture over there should say everything, but the idea: fill a wine bottle with water, stick one of these on top, and pop it into a plant. It’ll create a nice steady trickle that’ll keep that plant watered for days.u00a0
Price: $17“
Used properly, tech makes life better. It can help us in just about every way; it helps us remember the things we’ve done, the things we have to do, and the people we love.
Buying tech gifts for grandparents can be tough, depending on how interested they are in technology in the first place. One of my grandmothers is using the same television she used in 1975, her cable box passing through a crazy series of converters to make it compatible. My other grandmother hits me up on FaceTime about once a week. Some grandparents read TechCrunch every day.
With this guide, we’ve tried to find a balance: things that just about anyone would like, but that grandparents on either side of the tech-loving spectrum should love.
Need more gift ideas for the rest of the family? You can find all of our Gift Guides right here.
Greg Kumparak was an editor at TechCrunch. Greg started at TechCrunch in May of 2008 as the editor of its sister site, MobileCrunch. Greg’s coverage primarily focused on consumer companies, particularly those involving gadgets, robotics, or augmented reality. Disclosures: Greg holds shares in ETFs/mutual funds and owns a small amount of cryptocurrency (ETH, ADA)
