Joy today announced the launch of the Joy Album, the world’s first interactive photo album that allows users to curate and share their favorite photos with friends and family. Designed to live on your coffee table and sit comfortably in your lap, the Joy Album makes your most cherished moments instantly viewable in gorgeous layouts, finally modernizing the lost art of creating a physical photo album. Designed by a team that hails from Apple, Sonos and Yahoo, the Joy Album aims to be the premium all-in-one photo solution for families. Joy has been in stealth mode since February and is now taking preorders for the Joy Album device, which will begin shipping in summer 2017.
The Joy Album is the only photo-sharing device with a touchscreen display, wireless charging, customizable photo and video layouts and real-time story sharing. The device costs $499 ($399 for preorders) and pairs with a mobile app that will launch in early 2017, easily integrating photos and videos via email, Facebook, Instagram and more. The Joy Album automatically backs up photos and videos to the cloud, so your precious memories are safe.
“As new parents with tons of pictures and memories to share, we missed the days of sitting with family members and flipping through physical photo albums,” said Joy co-founder and CEO Alan Chan. “The need for family members to connect in this way still exists, but our photos have become scattered across different devices and apps. We were inspired to solve this modern problem by creating one beautiful, easy-to-use device that allows users to curate and share memories with loved ones near and far.”
The company, co-founded by Alan Chan, Jacqueline Yuen, Joe Moak and Jonathan Rainey, is also announcing $2.5 million in seed funding from investors including Obvious Ventures, BoxGroup, The Chernin Group and Maywic Select Investments. Although 79% of photos will be taken with a phone by 2017 (according to InfoTrends), the sharing, organization and display of photos remains fragmented. Joy was created to solve this problem and disrupt several industries, including online photo printing ($2 billion), photo frames ($900 million), and personal cloud storage ($80 billion).
“I’ve been working on consumer photo sharing for almost two decades and I believe Joy is the first complete solution for family photos,” said James Joaquin, co-founder of Obvious Ventures and former co-founder and CEO of Ofoto. “As families take more pictures and videos across more devices, Joy comes to the rescue with a seamless combination of software and hardware that makes private photo sharing easy again.”
The Joy Album offers the following features:
Beautiful album layouts that showcase photos and videos on a large 13.3” HD touchscreen
Integration of photos from all the places you store them digitally, from your smartphone camera roll to Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox and Google Photos
Support for several file formats, such as HD videos, raw files, GIFs, 360 degree photos, panoramas and more
10 GB of free photo storage with optional upgraded plans
Proprietary magnetic stand for wireless charging and quick access, with a 5-hour battery life
Private sharing to allow you to select exactly who can view your photos at any given time
StoryTime feature that allows families to share photos and tell stories in real time on their own Joy Album devices
For more information or to pre-order the Joy Album, visit: https://joy.co/.
About Joy Inc.:
Joy is the creator of the world’s first interactive photo album that allows you to curate and share your favorite photos with friends and family. Designed to live on your coffee table and sit comfortably in your lap, the Joy Album makes your most cherished moments instantly viewable in gorgeous layouts, finally modernizing the lost art of creating a physical photo album. Designed by a team that hails from Apple and Sonos, the Joy Album aims to be the premium all-in-one hardware and software photo solution for families to share memories with loved ones near and far. The company was founded in February 2016 and has raised $2.5 million in seed funding from investors including Obvious Ventures, The Chernin Group, and BoxGroup. Joy is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
