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Preserving Family Memories with the LyveHome

Sponsored - #LyveMoment

By Laurie Corbett, Publisher Mom, South Shore Boston September 11, 2014
I always love visiting my parents and going through the shelves of photo albums full of all of the images on my childhood in Vermont. The pages are weathered with age, but still contain all of the wonderful memories of growing up with my sisters in the small town we lived in, adventures we took to other parts of the country and world, and special events. I will never forget the time we all got new, fancy winter coats to be in my uncle's outdoor February wedding, or when my grandmother made me a skirt to go with my Superman costume so I could be Supergirl like my younger sisters despite the Supergirl costume not coming in my size, or the time we went hiking through caves in New York. Other memories have faded with time, but the ones captured in those albums are the ones I remember and my family recounts when we get together.


My husband and I remarked the other day that we have very few photo albums of our children. We attribute part of this to just not having the time to sort through the mountains of images digital photography now allows us to capture, have them printed and placing them in albums.Enter the LyveHome and the answer to the case of the disappearing memories! Lyve is a very cool new cloud device that lives in your home and helps you preserve, view, recollect and enjoy your memories through the hundred, if not thousands, of photos you take every month. You simply take the LyveHome device out of the box, plug it in, connect it to your Wi-Fi and set up an account. The entire process took me a few minutes when I set mine up a few weeks ago. Then you download the Lyve app on your mobile devices including your phone, tablet, and even your computer, log in and your phones are automatically downloaded to your device whenever you open the app.


It is so simple and I don't worry about what will happen if I loose my phone, or someone decided to stick it somewhere it should be - like the toilet! All I do is open the app, on each of my mobile devices, each day and Lyve automatically does all of the backing up and copying of my photos, videos and memories for me!


Even better is the fact that I can access all of the photos, and videos, from the app so I always have all of my memories with me everywhere no matter what device they were taken on, and without taking up a ton of space in my phone or tablet's memory! I no longer have to worry that I will miss my little guy's first steps, or a silly song the girls made up because the memory on my phone is full.

The LyveHome device also has ports for a SD Card, USB, HDMI, and Audio Out so you can collect up all of the photos around your house and keep them all in once place.


Your photos are automatically sorted by the date they were taken for easy retrieval, and viewing, from the device or app. My girls LOVE watching the screen saver of photos on our device, and seeing the old photos have triggered some awesome conversations and memories for our entire family. It is simple, and sleek and fits nicely onto a shelf in our hallway for everyone to see. 


More than the scrolling memories on the LyveHome device I love opening the Lyve app on my phone to see images, from whatever month we are in, from years past. It brings be back to that day= for minute and puts a smile on my face. I can't believe how fast kids grow!

 

I have also used the app to pull up photos, or videos, of the kids when I run into someone who hasn't seen them in a while. I love that I can store thousands of images and videos of them without clogging up my phone's memory, or from whichever mobile device I have with me at the moment since we have my phone, my husband's phone and both of our iPads connected to our LyveHome. It has also proven useful to pull up silly videos in waiting rooms, and on long car trips! And I love hearing the kids sweet voices when I am away from them. I used to go scrolling through my phone to find videos of the kids when I was away from them, but since Lyve separates my photos and video, but combines them with my husband's, and sorts them by date, they are easy to find, watch and remember. The app also captures a few images from each day in a small collage which are really fun to scroll through and reminisce. 


For the sophisticated photographers, and computer people, out there Lyve supports a wide range of file types including .jpg, .jpeg, .jpe, tif, .tiff,.gif, .png, .bmp, .mov, .m4v, .mp4, .avi, .3gp, .mpeg, .mpg, .mpe, .mod and .mkv. It contains 2 terabytes of storage space which is HUGE (the new computer I am looking at has 1 terabyte!) and is compatible with a variety of operating systems. I love that the Lyve has so much space because I felt like having our photos on all
The LyveHome device also tells you how many photos, and videos, you are currently storing on it, how much available space you have, and if you have a VIZIO Smart TV you can enable it to stream your photos directly to your TV.

I also love that once you own the device you don't have to pay for anything else. There are no monthly hosting fees like you often find on "the cloud", and updates are done automatically through the wi-fi that is connected to your device. 

Want to learn more? Check them on at www.mylyve.com. They are on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube too!

Note - I received a LyveHome for the purpose of this review. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.