An SDHC card that gives your camera WiFi

 

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Posted on 19 Oct 2009 at 15:48

The Eye-Fi is a wireless memory card that combines the storage of a normal SDHC memory card with a tiny wireless networking adaptor.

It's been available in the USA for a while, but a UK version of the Eye-Fi, which uses a different set of frequencies for WiFi, has only just been announced.

Once you've configured the Eye-Fi card using your PC, it will use your home WiFi network to automatically upload every photo or video you save on to it, either to your PC or even to your account on websites like Flickr, Facebook, Picasa and Youtube. The Eye-Fi supports all the usual encryption standards including WEP, WPA and WPA2.

If you capture photos while out of range of your network, they'll be uploaded as soon as you come within range. This means that all you have to do when you get home is switch on your camera and all your photos will be uploaded automatically.

Three different versions of the 4GB Eye-Fi have been launched in the UK. The Eye-Fi Home Video is the most basic version. It can store the connection details for up to 32 networks and allows you to automatically transfer and back up your photos to your PC. The Eye-Fi Share Video has all these features, plus the ability to upload content to web photo and video sharing services.

The Eye-Fi Pro is the flagship and costs significantly more, but has extra features including the ability to upload RAW image files, a built-in Wireless Positioning System that it can use to Geotag your files and the ability to create an Ad-Hoc network so you can transfer your files to a computer without a router. All three are available for pre-order at play.com and respectively cost £50, £70 and £120 inc VAT.

The Eye-Fi slots into a normal SD card slot and our preliminary tests showed that, although it was always detected as a storage medium, its wireless capabilities didn't work in all the cameras we tried it in. However, this is an ingenious device that takes a lot of the hassle out of uploading your photos. We'll bring you a full review soon.

Author: Kat Orphanides