As Doug recently reported, Eye-Fi is 2GB SD device with a built-in WiFi transceiver. Like many of you, I hadn’t heard of the device until earlier this week and then, like so many things, it was seemingly everywhere.
Mike Galpert of Aviary Twittered about it’s brilliance, friends were chattering on about it, people were trying to trade sexual favors to try it, etc. Fortunately, I was able to get my hands on one and maintain my chastity (at least what’s left of it).
At $99 the Eye-Fi is a reasonably priced 2GB SD card, at least by retail standards. The package (more on that in a minute) includes a 2GB SD card and a USB card reader. That alone is worth about $50 — but with WiFi added on, the price could have been gouged a lot higher. So I give props to Eye-Fi for releasing its product at a respectable price.
Eye-Fi comes packaged in a box similar to the ones that contain medicine samples (like birth control and Viagra).
As you can see in the video though, it creates a cool (it’s hip!) effect for the young company.
Fortunately, Eye-Fi isn’t just a pretty birth control box, it actually performs. The setup process is simple. It works on either Mac or PC and all the software is contained on the card. Simply plug it in via the included USB adapter, install the respective software and then you’re ready to adjust the device settings. It requires users to make an Eye-Fi account, but it’s free.
Through your account you can search available WiFi networks in your area and set your card to work on them. The card supports multiple networks and will actively switch between networks it has been setup for. I wish, though, that it’d automatically join open networks, without setup, but maybe there is some reason for not that. Then you select one of the many, many photo communities that it supports. I added my Flickr account and that was pretty much it — it was good to go.
With the card in your camera, you can fire off pictures while connected to your networks and it will actively upload them to whichever photo service you’ve selected. My pictures were appearing on Flickr within a few minutes. One thing you’ll notice, which isn’t much of a surprise, is that higher resolution images often prove challenging for the device. I suggest going for lower resolutions to ensure that Eye-Fi works optimally. Higher resolution images will upload, but it’s in a less real time capacity. You could probably expect it to work well once finished taking pics and you set the camera on your desk.
All-in-all, this is a solid device. It is comparable to any 2GB SD card on the market but it gives you the ability to upload your pictures in a much cooler fashion. And if you can’t wait, if you plug a loaded card into the USB reader, it will automatically upload your pictures to your photo service via USB. Yay, all-around convenience.
So if you’re in the market for an SD card for your camera, I can’t see any reason not to get the Eye-Fi. Not Best Bytes, but close. Seriously, go get this thing.
Oooo, I likes that. Very cool. Nice review Blake.
Ultimately all I’m hearing about is how it publishes your photos to your photo sharing service without lifting a finger, which I have no use for. Will this thing wirelessly transfer your files to your PC instead?
Yes, it stores the pics on your computer before it uploads them.
I’m not familiar with birth control or Viagra packaging, but my Peeping Tom CD came in a box like that.
I wonder if my mom would like the Eye-Fi?
Don’t take naked photos with this card in your camera, or your friends (and family??) on flickr are in for a nice surprise!
The $99 price is still too high. A 2GB SD can be found easily for less than $30 now.
Sorry to tell you but the $99 is justified. Yes you can get SD chips for next to nothing but do they literally take away the effort of having to download your photos to your PC and uploading them to most major photo services. That feature alone is worth the $99 the 2GB space is a added bonus in my mind.
If I have multiple user profiles on my PC, through Windows XP (i.e., each user logs in to his/her desktop), would I have to be logged in to the appropriate user desktop for the Eye-Fi to automatically send the pictures to the PC and store them in the specified folder?
I have been using the Eye-fi card the last few days and it really is some cool technology. I recently purchased a NIKON S51c camera which has built in Wi-fi that worked well, but I must say that the Eye-fi is a little better. Downloads the pics to your PC along with a good choice of online photo services such as Flickr and Snapfish. I uploaded 7 mp photos without any issues. Sure, it may take a few minutes to do all the uploading, but it certainly saves the time of pulling out the card, viewing the photos and dragging them into a file. Great product and well worth the $99 ($89 plus free shipping at Costco.com where I got it)
Does anyone know the write/read speed of the memory card? I am not certain if this card will work well in a higher end camera.
I picked up one of these today. The card is amazing. Works just fine in both my Canon S80 and G9. Larger size photos will take longer to upload but auto-resume just fine if there is any interruption. The software and web site are very slick, and once set up it “just works.” Got mine at Costco.com as well, $89 is not a bad price for this thing at all, liked it so much ordered two more as gifts for family (will make Mom’s life so much easier). I’m won over.
How clever, now cia can record piture of our families and friends our hollyday and our ongoing life, and we pay them for it.
You can only config it online with your name and email add, not the ordinary way of doing these thing, normale you config you homenetwork at these way http://192.168.1.1:4545 and so, but not with eye-fi, online and only online so cia can watch you behaviour, they even ask you to open you firewall too let them slip through. And ask you self why cant it transmit rawfiles, is´t just and ordinary wifi connection ? The answer is no, it´s bigbrother came through.
Jammer