It *could* have been the coolest product of the year…

It could have been the coolest product of the year…

November 1, 2007

…but…

I’m talking about the new Eye-Fi SD card. Normally I don’t get particularly excited over a memory card, but this one has wi-fi transmission built in – cool huh?

Now of couse, as soon as I saw this the gears started spinning. Ignoring the touted “auto-upload to flickr” type features, I began thinking…

What if you set up a local wifi network using a laptop, and set to card to push to that? could you then start shooting and have the pics auto-upload to your laptop *as you shoot*?!?! kinda like a universal wireless tether! How awesome would that be?

Unfortunately I emailed them, and they said it won’t work as it actually needs a “live” wifi connection (ie to the internet) as the pictures run through the eyefi servers first (don’t ask me why- if they are only going to my laptop…)

also, it only works with .jpg images and I shoot exclusively in .raw.

If they implement these features with v.2, I will buy one for each of my cameras in a heartbeat… but for now I’m holding off.

Blogged with Flock

Tweet This Post Stumble This Post

There are 4 comments in this article:

November 19, 2007Jeff says:

Went to the link listed and it says you can download direct to your computer. Did they update it? Still only JPEG though which doesn’t help. It works with a Cf adapter which is cool. If they get RAW in there this could be useful.
November 27, 2007tom says:

you can do what you describe… you just need to setup your own local network: laptop, camera w/eye-fi, and then a wireless router. Dlink makes a usb-powered router, that can run off of a usb battery pack. so you configure your eye-fi to push to your laptop, turn on your laptop and then have your router within distance. the usb powered router is actually small enough, that you can keep it and the usb battery in your pocket!
December 27, 2007Larry says:

The Eye-Fi Card works in one of three modes.
1. Upload to Web
2. Upload to Web + Computer
3. Upload to Computer

If choose Upload to Web or Upload to Web + Computer, your computer does not have to be on. The Eye-Fi Card will upload through your wireless router, up through your broadband, to the Eye-Fi Service, and from there, to your online destination (Facebook, Flickr, etc…) and back down to your computer if you chose Web + Computer.

If you choose Upload to Computer, your computer has to be on because the photos will upload to your computer via your local wireless router.

So to clear things up, The Eye-Fi Card only requires a wireless network connection to solely upload to a computer. I hope this clears things up.
May 16, 2008F/1.0 » Blog Archive » Eye-fi redux! says:

[...] this year I got rather excited over a new product from a little company called “eye-fi” – it was basically a SD card with a wireless transmitter built [...]