Eye-Fi. . . Got a new toy

[apostolakisl]

Just bought an Eye-Fi. Liking it a lot so far. It is an SD card that has wifi built into it. It is primarily meant for digital cameras but could be used for anything I suppose. It has a small USB device you plug into your computer and install the drivers. Then you pull the sd card out of the device, leaving the device plugged into your computer, and put the sd card into a camera or other sd device. Whenever a new file is loaded onto the sd card, it is transfered via your wifi to the device plugged into the usb on your computer which loads into a folder on your computer.

It would appear that the computer with the usb recevier plugged into it and the camera both need to be in range of the same wifi signal.

I have used it for my digital camera only so far. It takes about 10 seconds or so after you shoot a picture for it to show up on your computers hard drive.

The SD card is also a regular SD card. In otherwords, the images are still on the sd card just like normal and you can still pull it out of your camera and plug it into a normal sd reader and the files are there like normal.

They also have options for automatically loading the images to a webservice like facebook, costco, flickr, and a whole bunch of others. Also it can load to an ftp server.

For $40 on amazon, this is pretty awesome.

 

[hagak]

You do not need to leave the sd card reader in the computer. It is just for setting up the card. I leave mine in my camera bag

 

[hagak]

Also if you have an iPad iPhone or andriod device you can send photos directly to the device even without a wifi network

 

[jay]

How large is the storage and how fast is the response? I.E., single frame bursts and video capability?

 

[apostolakisl]

How large is the storage and how fast is the response? I.E., single frame bursts and video capability?

I got the 4gb card. They have a bigger one, 8gb I think. I

It's an SD HC with a 6 inside the c. But that just refers to the local storage on the SD card. It would definitely fall behind on video transfer since it is just going via wifi. I think it would be OK for just storing video locally on the hd card

You do not need to leave the sd card reader in the computer. It is just for setting up the card. I leave mine in my camera bag

Thanks for that info. It didn't say, so I assumed it needed to stay in the computer.

ONe thing, it keeps sending me emails every time I upload a photo. I really don't want that and I am not finding a spot to turn that off.

 

[tmbrown97]

Those little things are pretty cool - I've had 'em for several years now - first the original one, then the 2nd generation one.

A couple things - you can set up several access points that the card will connect to - so it's not limited to the one at your home (I think it was about 8 it could remember); also your computer and the Eye.Fi do not need to be connected to the same wifi - it will transfer just fine over the internet. You can add your work and home ones and it'll transfer them whenever; Also there is a subscription service (comes free for the first year on certain models) that enables it to automatically connect to many public hotspots, including AT&T, McDonalds, and many others. I took mine to Lake Tahoe and took a bunch of pictures and was looking at them while driving through town... and without me even realizing it, they were transferring to my home computer the whole time (saw them via logmein). You will need the eye.fi software running on your computer for it to transfer. They have two options - direct or via intermediary. For direct the computer and camera must be on at the same time; for the latter, it can transfer online whenever the card is online, and then transfer to the computer when the computer comes on (great if you keep the software on a laptop).

The card is a Class 6 in terms of normal SD Card speed ratings; so it'll write to the card pretty fast; then it will transfer pictures as long as it's getting power - if you go off for a week vacation then come home, it'll take a couple power cycles of the camera to transfer them all. Many newer digital cameras have firmware support for the card and can leave the power on longer for the pictures to transfer.

The X2 (2nd generation) cards also support a feature called Endless Memory which lets you set a percentage to keep free on the card, then as you take pictures and it gets confirmation that it's successfully transferred them, it'll remove them from the memory card - so a less savvy person can put this in their camera and never have to think about it again - their pictures will just be on their computer, and they'll never have to know how to take the card out of the camera. This is an awesome feature I've set up for people.

As mentioned above, it can automatically post to a whole host of online services, including facebook, twitter, and many others. You can either have it transfer everything, or you can set it to use the Protect mode in your camera that you've probably never paid attention to; it can look for that protect flag and see that as a sign to post to facebook or wherever.

The little USB to SD reader is nothing special - it's just an adapter. I used the normal built-in slot in my desktop to set up my cards. And I'm pretty sure it only supports known video/image formats; it won't sync word docs or other things stored on it; they'll just sit on the card and be ignored.

 

[apostolakisl]

I'm trying to get it to work in my Olumpus E-410. It has a CFII slot but no SD slot. I got an adapter but it is not working. The camera does not recognize anything. I can plug the adapter with the eye-fi card in it into my computers cf reader and it does work. But the camera fails to recognize that anything is in there at all.

I know that some people are having success with eye fi and cfII adapters. Any thoughts on that? Do you think I might have better luck with a different adapter? Clearly the adapter/card works since I can access it using my computer, but something is obviously different in the camera.


After playing with it, I have gathered that the usb card reader is just a plain old SD USB card reader. I am a little surprised that they bothered to even include it since most everyone already has an SD reader. I believe the photos are going from camera to eye-fi server then back to my computer. Correct? With the smartphone app, I believe it is a direct camera to phone?

 

[tmbrown97]

For your last paragraph, that's all correct; the SmartPhone app just uses the phone to take pics and add the geolocation and send via their server to your computer.

Forgot to mention that... some models include Geo Location stamping of your images based on Wifi APs around - and I've found it to be quite accurate unless you're just in the middle of nowhere at all!

Anyway - I believe mustangcoupe was using his through a CF adapter. I only use the cards in my point & shoots; For my Nikon DSLR I haven't used it because of the warnings about not being supported, possible image corruption, etc. It'd be worth some good googling if you haven't already for either known problems or proof of success by others.

 

[apostolakisl]

For your last paragraph, that's all correct; the SmartPhone app just uses the phone to take pics and add the geolocation and send via their server to your computer.

Forgot to mention that... some models include Geo Location stamping of your images based on Wifi APs around - and I've found it to be quite accurate unless you're just in the middle of nowhere at all!

Anyway - I believe mustangcoupe was using his through a CF adapter. I only use the cards in my point & shoots; For my Nikon DSLR I haven't used it because of the warnings about not being supported, possible image corruption, etc. It'd be worth some good googling if you haven't already for either known problems or proof of success by others.

I have googled it and read a bunch of comments on Amazon and Eye-fi's forum. You read of successes and failures, but none specific to my camera so far as I can find. A rare and random image corruption is not a problem. None of my photos can't be re-taken, but I wouldn't tolerate it happening a lot. I have yet to read where the camera completely ignored it (which is what mine is doing). I have also read that the old eye-fi works better with cf adapters (which I can't find for sale anywhere). I have also read claims from some ebay sellers of cf adapters that their device works with eye-fi x2, but I don't necessarily trust them.

 

[apostolakisl]

I orered a different CF adapter, one made by delock. I have read that this is one of the more preferred models.

From my reading, it seems that the connection to a smartphone is not via the internet but rather a direct connection to the wifi radio in the phone. Am I understanding this correctly? That would mean that you could send photos to your smartphone out in the middle of a cornfield provided the phone was not too far away from you.

 

[tmbrown97]

I had an original Eye.Fi 2GB that I gave to ph0n33z that he wasn't able to use; maybe he would be willing to pay it forward and send ti to you to test the theory. It could be that anything over that 4GB causes problems, as that's when it changes from SD to SDHC. If not, I'm going through all my old boxes right now - if I find one I'll send it your way to test.

 

[apostolakisl]

I had an original Eye.Fi 2GB that I gave to ph0n33z that he wasn't able to use; maybe he would be willing to pay it forward and send ti to you to test the theory. It could be that anything over that 4GB causes problems, as that's when it changes from SD to SDHC. If not, I'm going through all my old boxes right now - if I find one I'll send it your way to test.

Very kind of you.

 

[tmbrown97]

Found one - I have a 2GB Eye.Fi Explore I can send your way - just PM me an address.

Speaking of which - important note to all - whenever you buy/sell Eye.Fi cards, be careful - if a card is associated with someone's account, there is absolutely no way to get it registered to a different account... the old user MUST de-register it, which can only be done with it in their possession. Eye.Fi won't transfer for you - they'll make you buy a new one.

This one has been deregistered now

 

[damage]

this post is OT, but if you've got an android device, dropbox can auto-upload your photos as you take them providing a similar functionality free for your phone. http://goo.gl/iEprI

 

[apostolakisl]

So, to any and all wondering. The OLD eyefi 2gb cards do work on Olympus E-410 with the CF adapter that I own. The one I own came from Amazon, it is made in Taiwan, it doesn't seem to have a brand but the UPC says "ESDCFII: Exterme MMC, SDHC, SD to CF Type II Adapter". It is orange colored with a swoop of color rounding out the bottom left corner and some bubble looking things.

Thanks go to work2play for selflessly sending me this older model card. It is functioning perfectly in my application.