Eye-Fi -
Wi-Fi SD Card for Digital Cameras
by Douglas Dixon,
www.manifest-tech.com
Someday all our devices will
be wireless, so our files and media can flow
automatically between fixed devices like the
storage attached to our home computers and
portable devices like PDAs, media players,
and digital cameras.
Until then, we're stuck with
a lot of manual messing around whenever we
want to get photos from a digital camera --
Bring the camera back to the computer, dig
out the necessary cables and docking
connectors, fire up the photo software to
upload the files, and then shutdown and
disconnect the camera.
The Eye-Fi Wi-Fi-enabled
SD card just ends all that fuss (www.eye.fi).
It's a standard SD memory card with built-in
Wi-Fi wireless networking, so it can upload
your photos whenever you are in range of
your home wireless network.
Eye-Fi Wi-Fi-enabled SD card
The Eye-Fi SD card works
with many models of digital cameras, with a
good 2 GB of storage for your photos. It was
released in October 2007, and is priced at
$99.
To use the card, you first
set up the wireless interface by connecting
the included USB reader on a PC or Mac and
running the Eye-Fi Manager software.
You then configure your home wireless
connection, and specify the location where
you want the files transferred -- to your
local machine (running the Eye-Fi software),
or to a photo sharing website (via the Eye-Fi
Web service).
I was hoping to take
advantage of the card to do some more tricky
things like transferring non-photo files or
adding Wi-Fi capabilities to a Palm Treo
PDA, but the Eye-Fi card is relentlessly
focused on working simply and well with
digital cameras.
Even so, from my experience
it's still useful to understand some of the
additional details about how it works that
are not explained in the documentation. And,
since it works silently and without any
feedback, there are some useful ways to test
it out and monitor its actions before
walking off with a camera.
Find the
Eye-Fi Card on Amazon.com
You first set up the Eye-Fi
card and Eye-Fi Manager software by creating
an account on the Eye-Fi server. You must
have an Internet connection to use the
software, even if you just want to transfer
files to your local machine.
You then configure the
card to connect to your wireless
network, and specify the online photo
service and/or folder on your local computer
for uploading files.
Select open Wi-Fi network
You then can configure the
upload information without re-inserting the
card, but re-configuring the networking does
require inserting the card in the Eye-Fi USB
reader, and then inserting the reading in a
USB port on your computer. (The Eye-Fi
reader is different from other SD card
readers, since it keeps the card powered on
as you update its configuration.)
If you are uploading to your
local computer, you then must leave the Eye-Fi
Manager software running to receive the
files from the card.
The Eye-Fi card supports
802.11b/g, Wi-Fi, with a typical range
of 90+ feet outdoors and 45+ feet indoors.
It supports the typical Wi-Fi security
mechanisms, including Static WEP 40/104/128,
WPA-PSK, and WPA2-PSK.
While the documentation
stresses that you do not have to change your
wireless network settings, it's much easier
to set up if you temporarily turn back on
SSID broadcast if you have it disabled
for privacy. By default, the Eye-Fi Manager
software than can find the available
networks, and even figure out the security
type used so you can configure it as needed.
Otherwise, you'll need to choose "Other
Network" and enter all the information
correctly yourself.
Configure Wi-Fi with WEP security
Eye-Fi Manager than tests
the network connection through the card and
confirms if it is configured properly.
So, where do you want your
photos stored? On your computer, or uploaded
directly to a Web photo sharing site?
You can configure the Eye-Fi
card to upload photos to a folder on your
computer. You then just need to leave
the Eye-Fi Manager software running to
communicate with the card and store the
transferred files.
Configuration: Wireless and Upload
But to share your photos
immediately, you can upload to photo
sharing websites directly from the card.
Some 18 sites are currently supported,
including Flickr, TypePad, Facebook, Kodak
Gallery, Cosco, Walmart, Picasa, Shutterfly,
Snapfish, and Photobucket. (The company
expects that this list will grow, and
there's no reason it could not also support
more generic uploading, i.e. though FTP.)
Upload to photo website
The way this works is that
you enter the login information for
accessing the desired photo site. The Eye-Fi
card can then upload your photo files to the
Eye-Fi website, which then transfers your
uploaded files to the specified sharing
site. In my case, the files were uploaded
successfully to dotPhoto, and then saved in
folders named for the date the photos were
shot.
However, in my testing, I
could not get photos to upload to both my
computer and a website -- It could do one or
the other, but not both. The company reports
that this sound work, by uploading locally,
and then from there to the Web.
The purpose of the Eye-Fi
card is to upload new files, and so it will
attempt to do so whenever it's powered on,
in range of a Wi-Fi network, and notices new
photo files stored on the card.
This means that it will
upload when installed in a camera (while
powered on), and also when it's inserted in
the Eye-Fi USB reader. This means you can
test the card by inserting it in your
computer, view it like any other removable
storage device (i.e., in Windows Explorer),
and then drag and drop photo files to the
card (to the DCIM folder).
The card will then start
uploading the new files, and, even better,
the Eye-Fi Manager software will show the
uploading progress as each file is
transferred. In this way, you can confirm
that the card is connecting and uploading
successfully before you move it to a camera.
Web upload in progress
Note also that you can dig
into the details of the Eye-Fi card's
operation by using the software to upload
and save the log file, showing attempts to
connect over Wi-Fi and upload files.
My Eye-Fi card actually did
not work with a Kodak C340 camera, for
several reasons. First, the card can impact
the battery life of a camera, particularly
if it's doing long uploads. The company says
the card is designed to not over-drain the
battery, but the Kodak camera would shut
itself off with a low battery warning when
the Wi-Fi apparently was active. And even
when the camera was connected to a AC power
source, the card did not transfer photos.
(Check the Eye-Fi website for a list of
compatible cameras, and exceptions.)
While I was hoping to extend
the Eye-Fi card beyond simple use with
digital cameras, its design was carefully
planned to focus on only the intended use:
- It only transfers .JPG
photo files -- not higher-quality RAW,
for example. And you can't sneak around this
by renaming a file on a PDA to JPG, because
the company reports that the card actually
checks for JPEG picture content.
- It only transfers new
files found in the standard DCIM photo
folder on the card (and any folders
nested below it). All other files and
folders on the card are ignored.
So you can't play games on a
portable device by renaming other types of
files to JPG in order to transfer them...
Web and Computer uploads
I also saw some problems
when testing the card by dragging and
dropping multiple copies of the same file --
some files with alphabetic characters in
their names (instead of just numeric photo
sequence numbers) were not uploaded
successfully to the online website. And the
card was very confused by dragging a file
named "zztop.JPG" (zztop111.JPG was OK) --
though obviously this is rude test well
outside the bounds of its designed and
purpose.
I also saw a problem with
the Eye-Fi Manager software starting
automatically at boot time, and then
refusing to display the application
interface. Apparently this is a known
problem. You can work around this by killing
the task and then setting the software to be
run manually. Also see the Eye-Fi website to
download the latest firmware and software
updates.
Manifest
Technology®
Copyright 1999-2008,
Douglas Dixon, All Rights Reserved
Manifest Technology is a registered
trademark of Douglas Dixon
