Eye-fi redux!

May 15, 2008
Earlier 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 in.

My master plan was to use a laptop to set up a ad-hoc network (meaning the laptop acts as wireless router, creating it’s own network) and set the eye-fi to auto-upload shots to it, in essence creating almost like a wireless tethering solution.

Unfortunately, speaking with eye-fi support, they informed me that this would not work, as the card needed an actual “internet connected” router to send the photos through. Bummer.

However, their new offerings are enough to make me look at them again. Notably they have 2 new models in addition to the basic eye-fi card the Eye-Fi Home, which strips out the internet functionality and just has “upload to computer wirelessly” and the Eye-Fi explore which adds *geotagging* to the photos.

The “Home” looks promising as it may finally do what I need (connect via ad-hoc network), and the “Explore” is simply cool. I love the idea of geotagging. Maybe it’s not a big deal for studio work, but it would be awesome to throw one of those in my G9 and tag my street/travel shots. From what I can tell it needs a wireless AP to do this, so it’s not as good as a dedicated GPS module, but still. very cool concept and definitely something new and cool in the world of photography.

And how often do you say that about a memory card!

Eye-Fi homepage

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There are 5 comments in this article:

  1. May 16, 2008lgonzales says:

    Ed,

    None of the Eye-Fi Cards support ad-hoc networking. While it is true that you can not use an Eye-Fi Card in an ad-hoc network, it is not true that you have to have and “internet connected” router to wirelessly transfer your photos to a computer.

    You need to have a wireless router and an internet connection to initially configure your Eye-Fi Home, Share or Explore Cards. However thereafter if all you want to do is transfer files to your computer over your wireless network you do not have to have a “internet connected” router. Once the card is set up all you need is for the Eye-Fi Card and computer to be on the same network created by a wireless router.
    Many Eye-Fi users want to use an Eye-Fi Card when there is no internet connectivity or Wi-Fi available. For these customers we recommend using a travel router. Here are a couple of links that you may find helpful.

    http://photojojo.com/uncut/2007/11/07/how-to-download-photos-with-eye-fi-without-an-internet-connection/
    http://photojojo.com/uncut/2007/11/07/maximize-your-eye-fi-range-for-event-shooting/

  2. May 16, 2008Ed Z says:

    Thanks for the Clarification Larry!

    Even without ad-hoc capability, as long as it will work with a non-internet connected router that’s good enough for me. I have a airport extreme router, which is *tiny* and can easily be carried along with the laptop.

    I am a big fan of the whole idea of the eye-fi cards, it’s really a fantastic idea.

  3. September 29, 2008GazHay says:

    I am presuming that the reason you can’t ad-hoc network is because the Eye-Fi card needs to grab an IP address.

    It should be possible (and I will check later with mine) to turn on internet sharing and create an ad-hoc network. The card will then get an ip address which is in the same range as the host computer and all should be fine.

  4. January 8, 2009cjl says:

    @GazHay: No, adhoc is not supported at all. It doesnt even show up in the configuration :/

  5. July 8, 2009Ziv says:

    update:

    The new Eye-Fi Pro DOES support ad-hoc and RAW. All of our other cards DO NOT support ad-hoc. But the Pro does.

    All the cards support Selective Upload, and all the other features.

    Thanks –

    Ziv.

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