Eye-Fi Card Review

Posted May 24, 2011

I’ve had a month to play around with the Eye-Fi SD card.  What’s so special about this card?  It allows me to wireless transfer pictures from my camera to my computer without much effort.  You may be asking, is there much effort transferring photos?  It’s gotten much less since I got a computer with a built in SD card reader, but once you get an Eye-Fi card, you can’t go back.  If  you want to know how it works, click here.  I’m not going to get too much into the technical details but give a short account of my experience with the card.

Coming home, after being out for the day taking pictures, I  simply turn on my camera and my computer and the pictures automatically start to transferring from my camera to the computer.  A lot of times, I’m taking pictures of things around the house.  I don’t have to think about transferring them to my computer because it happens while I’m shooting.

Direct Mode

During CES, Eye-Fi announced Direct Mode for their line of cards.  Basically, if the Eye-Fi card can’t find one of it’s Wifi network that it was setup for, it creates a mini Wifi hotspot in which other configured devices can connect to it.  What does mean to me?  This means that I can transfer photos directly to my phone or tablet when I’m out and about.  I also use direct mode with my own laptop as well.  If I’m not in my home network (at a coffee shop, a friend’s house, etc) I can still wirelessly transfer photos to my computer using direct mode.

The Goods:

• Wireless transfer photos to my computer
• Wireless transfer to my mobile devices using Direct Mode
• Automatic online sharing

The Bads:

• Expensive compared to regular SD cards
• Uses a little more
• Setup may not be the easiest for the less tech savvy people (especially when trying to use Direct mode).

Overall, the Eye-Fi card is definitely a highly recommended accessory to your digital camera.  There are other features that I don’t use such as automatic online sharing, geo caching, and cloud storage.  If you shoot photos on a daily basis like I do, you’ll appreciate the effortless transfer of photos.  Highly Recommnded