Real-Time for birthdays
Use Snapr real-time for your birthday. Simple, free, and no app — perfect for collecting guest photos and displaying them live on the big screen.
- 200 photos free — no registration
- QR code guests scan with their phones
- Live slideshow on the big screen in real-time
- Works on all devices without an app
No registration required
How to get started
Three steps, no app and no sign-up.
Step 1
Create event
Name your event and get a unique QR code in seconds.
Step 2
Share QR code
Display the QR code or print it. Guests scan with their phones.
Step 3
Watch photos live
Photos appear on the big screen in real-time as guests upload.
How real-time works for birthdays
Snapr makes real-time for your birthday simple and effortless. Create an event in seconds, get a unique QR code, and share it with your guests. They scan the code and upload photos directly — no app download needed.
The big screen holds an open subscription to the event's photo list in the database. When a guest's upload finishes, the record is written and the screen is pushed the change over that connection — no polling, no page refresh. The photo is preloaded, then slotted into the running slideshow.
Everything is included in the free tier: up to 200 photos, live slideshow, QR code, and 14-day storage. Need more? Premium keeps the photos a full year, with original-quality downloads and unlimited uploads, for a one-time payment.
Setting up Real-Time
- 1Open the event's slideshow page in a browser on the machine driving the screen or projector, and leave that tab open — the live connection lives in the page.
- 2Press F for fullscreen. The controls fade out after three seconds of no mouse movement, so the room only sees photos.
- 3Leave the QR code visible (Q toggles it) so late arrivals can join without anyone having to explain how.
- 4Check the small wifi icon top right: green means the connection is live. Adjust slide time with + and − if photos are arriving faster than five seconds a slide.
Real-Time — the specifics
- How updates travel
- Open subscription to the event's media node in Firebase Realtime Database. The server pushes; the screen never asks.
- Typical delay, upload finished to on screen
- A couple of seconds. Nearly all of the wait a guest experiences is their own upload, not the screen.
- Page refresh needed
- Never. The slideshow can run all evening on one page load.
- Where a new photo lands in the queue
- Preloaded first, then inserted right after the current slide in single view, or within the next grid cycle in grid view.
- Slide interval
- 5 seconds by default, adjustable from 1 to 30 seconds. Videos play to the end before advancing.
- If the screen loses the network
- The wifi indicator turns red and the slideshow keeps playing what it already has; the subscription resumes and catches up when the connection returns.
When something goes wrong
Guests say they've uploaded, but nothing new reaches the screen.
Look at the wifi indicator in the top right corner of the slideshow. Red means the screen's own connection dropped — reconnect that machine to the network. Green means the photos have not finished uploading yet on the guests' side; that is upstream bandwidth, not the screen.
Photos arrive within seconds early on, then take a minute or two once the room fills up.
Twenty phones on one venue access point share the same upstream. Nothing is broken. If you know the room will be full, ask guests to upload a handful at a time rather than a batch of twenty, and expect videos to take noticeably longer than photos.
The screen goes black or the screensaver kicks in halfway through the evening.
Disable sleep and screensaver on the machine driving the screen before the event starts, and press F for fullscreen — fullscreen keeps most laptops awake but power settings still win. Plug the laptop into mains power too; battery savers dim and suspend the display.
What it is not good for
This shows photos as they finish uploading — it is not a live video feed, and on a weak venue connection a photo can take minutes rather than seconds to make it up from a guest's phone.
Why Snapr for birthdays?
No app needed
Guests don't need to download anything — everything works in the browser.
Free to start
200 photos free per event. Upgrade if you need more.
Live on big screen
Connect to TV or projector and watch photos arrive in real-time.
Secure & private
Only those with the link have access. Your photos stay private.
Related features
Built for the one evening where it has to just work.
QR Code
The QR code holds one thing: the guest upload address for a single event — a snapr.no link with the event id and a 64-character access key. A phone camera opens it in the browser. Every event gets its own code, and it points at nothing else.
Live Slideshow
A full-screen browser page at snapr.no/<language>/event/<event-id>/display that listens for new uploads and shows them as they arrive. It runs on whatever drives the screen — laptop, TV browser, Chromecast or AirPlay — and needs no software installed.
Photo Sharing
After scanning the QR code a guest lands on an upload page in the phone's browser: one button opens the camera, the other picks from the gallery, up to 20 files per go. The files join the event's shared collection and appear on the big screen.
Photo Wall
A photo wall is the grid mode of the display page: instead of one picture at a time, the screen tiles up to six guest photos at once in a fixed asymmetric layout, and the selection moves one photo forward on every interval as new uploads arrive.
TV Display
TV display means getting the event's display page onto the television at the venue. Three routes: an HDMI cable from a laptop, casting a Chrome tab to a Chromecast, or AirPlay screen mirroring. The TV runs an ordinary web page — there is no Snapr TV app.
Photo Booth Alternative
Using Snapr instead of renting a photo booth: guests shoot on their own phones, upload through a QR code, and the pictures appear on a screen in the room. There is no box, no camera, no lighting and no prints — only the live screen and the shared gallery.
Frequently Asked Questions
What guests and hosts ask about most.
Can Snapr help capture the surprise moment if it's a surprise party?
Yes — set up the QR code on tables or a poster before guests arrive, so the moment the birthday person walks in, phones are already out and every reaction gets uploaded straight to the live slideshow on the TV.
Do older or younger guests need to install anything to join in?
No — from grandparents to teenagers, everyone just scans the QR code with their phone camera and uploads through the browser. There's nothing to download and no account to create, so the whole age range can join without help.
Can we keep the photos as a keepsake after the party?
Yes, guests and hosts can download individual photos anytime, and with Premium you can download every photo from the birthday at once as a ZIP file — a full keepsake of the celebration to look back on.
All Events
Find the Snapr guide for your event.
Wedding
Wedding ceremonies, receptions, dinners and parties
Kids Birthday
Games, activities, themed parties for kids ages 1-12
40th Birthday
Milestone celebrations, surprise parties, dinner parties
50th Birthday
Big milestone celebrations, family parties, event venues
Confirmation
Confirmation parties, family gatherings, church ceremonies
Wedding Anniversary
Intimate celebrations, romantic dinners, vow renewals
Real-Time for birthdays
Create a free event in 30 seconds. Guests scan the QR code — no app required.
Create a free eventNo registration required