Eye-Fi launches Eye-Fi Home, Share, and geotagging Explore
by Ryan Block 
posted May 12th 2008 at 1:23AM
Eye-Fi's expanding from a single card to a family of three tonight. All are the same 2GB as before, but now we've got the new flagship Eye-Fi Explore ($129), which includes geotagging courtesy of Skyhook (the same WiFi-based location system that helps the iPod touch and iPhone find their way) and on-the-go WiFi via Wayport. Then you've got the Eye-Fi Share ($99) -- basically the same card we used to know simply as the Eye-Fi -- and finally the Eye-Fi Home ($79), which appears to only be able to upload photos through desktop software using your home network. Expect 'em all on sale come June 6th.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
greg @ May 12th 2008 1:30AM
geotagging...interesting. It would be kool if everyone could upload their photos to a central location and have them sorted into events based on location and time.
Adam @ May 12th 2008 5:26AM
that is actually being done, Microsoft has a project on that and there is a demo somewhere on the net
Barron @ May 12th 2008 10:24AM
@Adam
Yeah I remember it.
It was incredible. Like a three dimensional place in Italy using pictures gathered from people all over the internet using precise geotagging.
James Mack @ May 12th 2008 1:36AM
I couldn't get the Skyhook system to work properly on my iPod...hope it's better in this. if it works properly I might just get one.
barry99705 @ May 12th 2008 9:54AM
Yea, this system doesn't work that well. I'd much better like a real gps that says I'm somewhere in this 30 foot circle, as opposed to the skyhook system that usually says I'm somewhere in this 2 mile circle.
CubeGuy @ May 12th 2008 2:15AM
Oh man. Geotagging. You had me at that.
Darkroom @ May 12th 2008 2:30AM
i really love the idea of these cards... i need to get one... would be great to not have to wire-connect my camera to my computer...
jonathansmith68 @ May 12th 2008 2:30AM
i was way excited to hear they are now including geo-tagging, but then i read that it would use skyhook's triangulization for the "geo-tagging." so basically the geo-tagging will hardly ever work? no thanks, give me real GPS geo-tagging!
Armoured @ May 12th 2008 2:51AM
I still don't get this stuff. Can someone explain this wireless card thing please.
Benson @ May 12th 2008 3:21AM
Wireless card thing? It's just like a normal SD card, except it doesn't have a big wire hanging out.
Seriously, it's an SD card for stuffing files on, with 802.11 connectivity to relay those files out, instead of just filling the card and plugging it into your computer for a batch transfer.
alex @ May 12th 2008 3:30AM
It uses wifi signals to locate you . In other words the they know where some public wifi routers are located at and by measuring your distance form those ( minimum of 3 transmitters need to be able to see you) they get an approximate position for you ( within 20m/65ft ) ... naturally if your not in an urban area or in rough terrain, or in some undeveloped country ... this is completely useless
It can't compete with GPS alone but could be used to give GPS higher accuracy in areas where you can get a GPS signal and Skyhook WPS ... but then you could just use differential GPS which already provides a local corrector
Zorque @ May 12th 2008 4:07AM
I've always wondered, would this work on any Treo that supported SDIO Wi-Fi cards? Because storage and Wi-Fi on the same card would be a really great thing to have.
joel @ May 12th 2008 5:24AM
Before this breakdown into three cards the Eye-fi did not work like a normal wifi card, i.e. you could not use it to connect to a wifi network and say browse the web....it only allowed you to upload photos! If the new cards do work like a normal wifi interface with storage I shall be buying one as it would mean not having to switch out cards on my Palm all the time.
Bart @ May 12th 2008 6:37AM
Of course you'll have to lower your wifi-network security to use the card - AES encryption is, for reasons unknown to me, not supported.
Ferry @ May 12th 2008 7:08AM
i can do all this with my N95
Dan @ May 12th 2008 4:36PM
Good for you
CrackedButter @ May 12th 2008 7:36AM
Can these new card though actually transfer RAW files now as well? Before they were limited to just jpegs.
Pochi @ May 12th 2008 8:37AM
Geotagging.
How about stepping into 2008 and offering up higher capacities?
ScOObyDoo @ May 12th 2008 8:53AM
Quit posting your damn Amazon affiliate link spam...
Valgas @ May 12th 2008 9:46AM
This thing enables wifi on say? An MP3 player? Like on say.... a Cowon d2?
Pochi @ May 12th 2008 9:46AM
Your last 10 comments contain (surprise) 10 links to Amazon.
What a complete douchebag.
John Laur @ May 12th 2008 11:50AM
The Eye-Fi strikes me as a great product that is being entirely run by fucking idiot marketing people. I think probably 95% of their staff is Marketing dolts and MBA-type scumsucker douchebags.
Yes, I actually own one. I like it a lot.
I cannot stress enough that selling the same product at different price points and artificially crippling or enhancing them on the backend is entirely fucking insane. If they can afford to sell the card at $79, then they should simply drop the price to $79 and sell one product with all the features. If they can't make money due to licensing issues with the geotag service or something, fine, just keep selling the card at $99. This splitting it into three versions business is asinine. All of the enhanced stuff happens in the software running on the PC or they eye.fi servers.
Oh yeah, and that wifi-based geotag thing? It won't work worth a damn any place you might actually want geotagged photos anyway.
Jeebus @ May 12th 2008 1:04PM
Wait what??
So it'll geotag my JPEGs when written to the card from camera?
BulkHedd @ May 12th 2008 3:56PM
I guess I don't understand the difference between the Eye-Fi Home and the Eye-Fi Share.
sirpengi @ May 12th 2008 7:23PM
I emailed them regarding the read and write speed, the response: "we do not share the information about the Eye-Fi Card's specific read/write speeds. I can tell you, though, that the Eye-Fi Card is on par with the speed of basic consumer SD cards on the market."
For me, not willing to share means they're embarrassed about it. Sorry, but let me know when they come out with SDHC and class 6 speeds.
Gorilla800lbs @ May 12th 2008 8:27PM
Read the description of the "Explorer" product. Besides geotagging, it offers one year of upload capability via WayPort Wi-Fi hotspots.
http://www.eye.fi/services/hotspot/
I'd say this answers the most nagging shortcoming of the initial product --being tied to just one single hotspot setup (presumably your home) inability to upload your pics on the go.
Mr. Nex @ May 13th 2008 11:55AM
Still no ad-hoc wireless. It's a great product, but the inability to connect to my laptop on the go (without bringing a wireless router along) is annoying. Can't understand why they still haven't implemented that functionality.
James @ May 14th 2008 2:43AM
We own an Eye-Fi card. We do not use it anymore. My wife absolutely loved it for about a week, then took it out of our camera and flicked it at me. Now it collects dust.
The main reasons we do no use it after buying it:
* It does not remove the pics off the card after upload, forcing us to delete the files manually
* It does not upload videos, forcing us not to be able to format the card to delete pics, but forcing us to stick it into the computer to copy the video files and then manually delete the jpgs that were uploaded
* It does not support RAW, it supports JPG ONLY
* It allows only one online destination for jpegs at a time
* Its read and write speed are very slow
The web site does not tell you these things anywhere. After I got the card flicked at me, I sent a suggestion on their very poor online website and got a technical support person responding a few days later that the card does not support these features.
Great in theory. Not worth buying in its current state. Not even worth it for early adopters.
The Batfan @ Jul 3rd 2008 11:44PM
Just curious I am wanting a way to be able to take a pic then have it open up on my computer so I can see if I like a pic I am taking photos of my collection (15,000+ pieces) and would like to be able to take the pic look at computer monitor , if I like the pic take pic of another item them go on and not have to take pic then download to comp, also I wonder how fast this sends pics to the computer I would only be using the home version to transfer pics from camera to pic so I can review pics in real time on computers monitor if anyone knows of a better way to do this let me know. I have a Canon Rebel Xti but if the eye-fi will do what I want I will buy another camera for it.
Thanks
The Batfan