Customer Reviews

Eye-Fi Pro X2 8 GB Class 6 SDHC Wireless Flash Memory Card EYE-FI-8PC

5 star:		(156)
4 star:		(76)
3 star:		(34)
2 star:		(21)
1 star:		(64)

 

 

First off, there are several different Eye-Fi models so I suggest you get the one with the features you need. The "X2" models now have the Class 6 rating which is great news for fast D-SLR's with high megapixels (18+, etc) or taking 1080p HD video to ensure the data transfer rate can keep up with the recording.

The X2 adds the Class 6 rating, 802.11 b/g/n capability and endless memory. All of which were major concerns with the older models when using them in modern D-SLRs.

I chose this one because the X2 Pro offers RAW image transfers and Ad hoc mode. If you do not take pictures in RAW format and/or do not care to transfer directly from Camera to Laptop via WiFi, then get the X2 Explore for $50 cheaper.

Setup is a breeze. When you first put the card into the computer, it will ask if you want to install the software. You can use the web based settings manager if you do not want to install any software. I chose to install the Eye-Fi Manager software. Very functional.

The first thing it will ask you to do is to select a network to connect to. I chose mine at home and configured the WPA2 security in seconds.... it connected and asked me to put the card into my camera and take a test picture.

I did so and withing seconds, my T2i's display showed that the eye-fi was connected and transferring data. The computer software system tray icon lit up and confirmed this too.

I took an 18mp picture for the test which turned out to be about 22mb RAW and 7mb jpeg. It finished the transfer quickly.

There are many custom features you can set to tell it what to do with the pictures. I have mine set to transfer to my HDD and MobileMe account. There are about 25 online services you can automatically upload to.

I do like the fact that you can set it to upload to a "private" album so it is not automatically "shared".

You can add multiple cards to one account and manage them all through the software. I currently have 3 Eye-Fi cards (2 x 8GB X2 Pro for my D-SLR and 1 x 8GB X2 Explore for my point and shoot).

You can configure each card separately to deliver the pictures where you would like them.

I recommend this card.

UPDATE: I have been using this card all day today and through several battery cycles. There is a significant drop in battery life while using this card, which is understandable because it is transmitting via WiFi.

I am using the Canon T2i and the camera has an Eye-Fi menu within which I can disable the WiFi. The battery does last longer when I shut off the Eye-Fi card (WiFi). So something to think about, maybe get a spare battery or get a camera with Eye-Fi menu support.

Here is my experience. Harware 5 stars, software 2 stars. Average 3.5.
Installation file is 21 meg, hardly what I would describe as a compact file (per the manual). Installation offers updates to both software and hardware(firmware) Software is now 3.0.20 version, was 3.0.16. You also must then also allow Adobe Air Installer to access your computer, for non personal data only. Not quite sure what that does, maybe the web based geotagging. Then the SD card updated its firmware from 4.1010 to 4.1012. As installed the software is 12 meg total on a WinXP PC. Took 17 minutes. Reasonable.

Now taking pictures! It takes about 5 seconds for a 850 meg 7 mpixel photo upload. This was at about 50 ft distance from my N router. Right after the picture is taken it appears on the screen. By the time I took my test pictures outdoors and ran back inside to look, they were all there. Software allows to upload to any directory, but defaults to My Documents/ Pictures. Eye Fi helper software which does all this housekeeping can run in auto mode or you can manually start it. Geotagging works great, when you click on the thumbnail it shows a small Google map with the location of your photo. Once again this function is dependent on a Sky Hook recognized wi fi mac address hardware being in the vicinity of your card when the photo is taken. I loved everything so far. But..

Glitch one. And a bad one. Bad or test pictures are forever. A total of 10 photos taken generated a 1 meg log file, a 8 meg dated photo directory, a duplicate "spool" directory of full size photos, and a cache directory with thumbnail snaps. Tons of overhead. Should not be a problem to clean up. Wrong. Deleting the cache directory manually per the web based help file still kept a "palm tree" blank cache image in the eye-fi browser, with a now non existent file name below it. Why is this not a part of the software. I am now littered with palm tree thumbnails for all the pictures I took as a test and have deleted. Why? And why a duplicate "spool" directory after the data transfer has been completed?

There are lots of postings on the Eye Fi web forum site about this being an issue dating back to 2009, but between using eye fi helper, eye fi manager ? (web based additional software I had to add), and eye fi center I still could not find the elusive "delete upload history" button. It is supposed to be the answer. Seems like a common problem. So far, get this, the solution is to delete your account with Eye Fi, and then create a new one. I delete about half the pictures I take each time I shoot, and I have to do this every time???

So the hardware works great, after a short software installation. But the software is missing critical components. So this is only a 3.5 star review. I will upgrade it if, and when Eye Fi improves their photo manager software, or simply allows it to do the simple task of wireless transfer with geo cache data added.

Updated 4/23 If you check my comments file you will see that the Eye Fi folks were very kind to respond to my concerns and offer some additional help. Once the suggestions are incorporated into the actual software (as promised) so other do not have to struggle, I will up the software score. My suggestion is similar to what other software vendors use. Have a "simple" interface and an "expert" interface, such that the user can decide what level of control to exercise over the software. For example when on the road, without wi fi, the capability of turning off the cards' attempts to communicate needlessly and hence conserve battery power. Some newer cameras such as Canon T1i (T2i?) can do this in camera menu.

Update 5/2 The software is now up to version 3.1.2 and the delete local thumbnails is easy to find. After I hit that button, the spool file also seems to be gone. Some quirkiness in using the thumbnails to see the location on a small Google map - clicking next appears to confuse the program if all the pictures are not uploaded yet. Today I used the supplied USB dongle to transfer the pictures (it still uses Wi Fi, would have thought that it would detect that its plugged in and use the USB). Took about 5 min for 40 7mp 1 mb shots. Geotagging error just driving around town is relatively small, about 200 yards. Interestingly enough, the pictures that stay on the card are not geotagged, only the ones that were transferred wirelessly are tagged, so do not overwrite the tagged auto shots by a manual transfer into the same directory, as file names are the same.

Update 5/12 ALthough not recommended by Eye Fi many users have used a SD/SDHC to CF adapter in order to use the Eye Fi with their DSLRs that only take CF cards. This was mostly sucessful with the previous Eye Fi cards. Unfortunately neither I nor anyone else that I have seen has been able to use the 8Gb X2 cards with the adapters. Certainly not in Canon cameras.

Update 5/29 I have just gotten a Fuji XP10 waterproof camera. It has a metal body, but it still manages to transfer pictures to the computer wirelessly at up to 25 ft from a router. The card is not totally compatible though. The second you hit playback on the camera, you get a card error. The only way to recover is to format the card in the camera, which means you would have lost all the pictures taken up to that point if on the road. So do not assume that because the camera and the card are both SDHC that they will play nice together. Check the EyeFi web site.

Update 11/27 Yet another firmware update to 4.2120. The website warns that if you are running version 4.1XXX then you may get an error message and have to retry. Well I was running version 4.2001 prior to the update. And I got the error. It is somewhat humorous, starts with "Breathe in...." Reinserted the card per the instructions, this did nothing, you have to re insert the whole Eye Fi adapter. This time it offered to update current 4.2120 to a "new" 4.2120. Supposedly the standby power consumption is significantly less.

I have been using multiple eye-fi cards with the Canon T2i. As mentioned above, this camera comes standard with eye-fi firmware built into the camera. Eye-fi has partnered with multiple camera manufacturers it seems to bring this functionality into the Camera. My experience with the eye-fi card has evolved from the 4GB Pro Card to the most recent X2 Pro 8GB Card. Some of the immediate benefits you will find with the new eye-fi card class 6 series, are the faster upload speeds via the wi-fi connectivity. The X2 Pro card will upload my 18MP photos in less then 15 seconds. The increase in upload speeds is amazing and i find the value with this card in its ease of photo management. Prior to owning these cards taking photos was a hassle due to the extra work involved in uploading and pushing the photos to an online website. With the original eye-fi Pro card, it took care of the initial problem. With the new eye-fi Pro X2 I am taking more photos and at a higher quality. With the increased sized of storage space and increased upload speeds, I have endless photo taking opportunities. The issue of running out of storage space is no longer a concern. I can simply delete the photos from the camera that have already uploaded through the wi-fi. Some may ask - well how do you know when the photos have finished uploading? With the built in firm ware, eye-fi communicates with the Canon firmware to show you that data transfer is occurring. Once the wireless icon stops moving, you know your photos have finished uploading.

Moving on to the new photo management utility. Eye-fi has successfully updated their photo management, moving the user friendly interface from an online client to a desktop utility. I find this useful because it eliminates the need to access the web. Everything is done directly on the host computer. The new utility makes it easier to manage multiple eye-fi cards as well as any iphone connections you may have.

Overall I highly recommend this product for its ease of use, ease of photo management, blazing fast uploads, and eliminating the need to manually upload photos. I can finally just shoot away and not worry about the need to go upload my photos later. I put my camera down and pick it up ten minutes later ready to go.

I don't usually write product reviews, but this product wasted so much of my time and disappointed me so greatly, that I feel compelled to let others know what they are getting into and what not to expect.

I love the concept of this device and believe that if it worked, it would be a fantastic product. I only hope that either they fix all of the problems or camera companies start building WiFi into their cameras.

Here are the significant flaws I experienced on January 31, 2011:

1) If your camera records to AVCHD, this card **DOES NOT WORK** with iMovie.

From my research, it appears that Eye-Fi is not coping all of the files camcorders create, which iMovie is looking for. Yes, you can read online a couple articles that explain you can use the downloaded .MTS files and a third part app to convert the files into a format that iMovie supports. But the whole point of this device is to provide a seamless interface for getting content from your camera/camcorder into your computer. And transferring files to some directory wirelessly, then having to go through a manual conversion process to convert the files, then a manually import process, is in my opinion far less seamless then simply buying a 64GB SD card and plugging it into your computer, which iMovie can simply import directly from.

I should also note that before I purchased this, I called their tech support group and asked them point blank if it works with iMovie and AVCHD. And I was told "Yes, just select the iMovie" option. Once I received it, I discovered that there is no iMovie option. And when I called tech support back, I was told the first person I spoke to was "mis-informed".

2) Did not fully work with my Canon Vixia HF S21.

The Canon Vixia HF S21 is one of Canon's top of the consumer line of camcorders, I believe introduced in early 2010. It is listed on their comparability page as a "connected camera", which I am told is some level above simply compatible. It did transfer photos, in order to get it to transfer video, I had to put the camcorder in View Only mode, where you can't shoot at the same time. So when I was shooting or was between takes it did not transfer the files. I had to take the camera out of shooting mode and put it into view media mode. For me, this is far too many steps to go through to get this device to actually work. The person I spoke with at tech support, nor the 2nd level tech support he spoke with appear to know about this limitation.

3) The wireless transfer speed was really, really slow for me.

I'm not one to usually speed test things, but it was taking a very, very long time, so I decided to test it. I shot 1 minute of video (147mb) and it took 7 minutes and 46 seconds to transfer to my computer. At this rate, 30 minutes of video would take me nearly 4 hours to transfer.

Yes, I am shooting HD at the highest speed my camcorder can do, but I'm not about to reduce the video quality for this Eye-Fi card.

Certainly the quality of any wireless connection will affect the speed. During this test, the card was in the camcorder, which was sitting right next to one of my computers, which displays a full 5 bars of signal strength when connecting to the same router. Just to make sure it didn't interfere with the Eye-Fi card, I turned the WiFi off on the computer and connected it with hard-wired ethernet to the router. I also placed the camcorder in several positions near the computer itself in order to eliminate any interference it may have been causing on prior speed tests. The camcorder with Eye-Fi card was in fact closer to the router then the computer which had a full 5 bars of signal strength. It was approximately 15 feet from the router and had one wall and one floor to go through. According to their tech support range and speed can be limited by interference in the house. They did not however have a response when I mentioned the the computer right next to it was able to get a full 5 bars of signal strength.

For the above reasons, I have decided to return the card to Amazon for a refund.

I got it for Lumix LX3 compact. I usually do shoot RAW+fineJPEG (just in case) and 8GB version sounded like a very good deal. Unfortunately, only on paper:

1. Setup on a Mac was quite involved - I had to run it many times until all issues got resolved. One of the things to be aware of - I have Airport Extreme and only 1 out of 4 available 802.11n modes worked - pure 2.4Ghz mode. Both 5GHz modes did not, 2.4Ghz b/g/n compatible mode did not either. Maybe that contributed to setup problems. I also hated the idea of "registering" the card with the manufacturer - what for?!

2. The thing is useless with RAW pics. Each pic is about 15-16MB and sustained transfer speeds (in 2.4GHz mode) are on the order of 70-80Kps (in perfect conditions). It took many minutes to get a single shot off the camera. Now, to real problems: 2.4Ghz band is particularly sensitive to interference - if someone turned on microwave while you are transferring - boom. There is no option to resume transfer, so you have to start from the beginning.

3. If you need to take 40 pics off the card - you need many hours of transferring. Mind you, the camera enters power-save mode only after a minute or two. You have to manually keep it awake during the transfer. Even if you manage to do so - the battery on the camera is completely drains pretty fast.

All in all, idea is very nice, on paper it is great product, but if you shoot more than 1 pic and use RAW - forget it. I returned mine on the second day.

I purchased the Eye-Fi 8gig Pro X2 to view pictures on my iPad when out in the field. It does what it claims. The direct mode works and if your shooting in JPEG its fine, but I don't think it was worth the price.

A couple of issues:

First, the installation was buggy on OSX. I had to reset 3 times because the installation software kept hanging (a first for me). For some reason it even had trouble downloading a firmware update without a reboot.

The card seems to be just a micron wider then most SD cards so I had to wiggle it out of my camera. This is something I could live with because theoretically I should never have to remove the card and It wasn't that big of an issue to get out.

If those were the only problems I would have kept the card, but I could not preview RAW photos. Although its supported, the Eye-fi app on the iPad only shows the RAW preview generated by the camera which is the size of the 3" LCD on my Nikon so whats the point. If you don't mind shooting in JPEG or in RAW+JPEG then its a good buy. Eye Fi recommends another ipad app, but I'm not spending $15 just to find out. Full resolution RAW should be supported in their App.

I'm normally not a "hard" reviewer but I find it difficult not to "flame" this device and company.

What the company doesn't tell you is that the transfer speed of this card with G wifi is dismal. It appears that transfer speed is less than 1 Mb/second meaning that it takes 3 - 6 minutes to transfer one 1 minute video from my wife's Canon 980 (with 1 minute averaging 175 Mb). Considering that G speeds usually run between 24 and 54 Mb/seconds that is abysmal!

Tech support was no help and, indeed, the first email I received back from them after asking about the problem said (and this is a quote) "he needs to update to an N router if he wants faster speed". To be fair, I did receive a second email apologizing for the "bluntness" of the first and suggesting that I try ad-hoc connection which might be faster. It wasn't. Thanks, but my G system runs fine and I don't really want to upgrade to N just to have this thing work the way it should.

I love the "he needs to update". Reminds me of Marie Antoinette saying, when she was told the peasants had no bread, "Let them eat cake". Actually I think that she was told that "the peasants are revolting" and she replied "Yes they are, aren't they" :-)

I'm not exactly a novice when it comes to computers. I have 30 years of experience with computers and I program in multiple languages. I tried using this card with several different machines. One (my wife's) running XP and connected wirelessly, the second (mine) running Win 7 and cabled directly to the router, and third a laptop running Vista which I set up to connect ad hoc to the Eye Fi card with the camera sitting next to the computer. All had the same results -- 0.5 to 1 Mb/second.

The bottom line seems to be that - if this card isn't bad and tech support never suggested that -- unless one is using wireless N this thing is useless to transfer anything except jpg files. I would guess that the good reviews that this received (and upon which I based my purchase decision) were based either solely on transferring photos or by folks with N routers.

You know, one can lie by omission just as well as commission. The company should publish average transfer speeds for both G and N routers. Every other device that I have which is capable of running at N speed will fall back to a reasonable G speed. Please Eye-Fi, a little truth in advertising. Your website states: "uses your home Wi-Fi network
Upon setup, specify which networks the Eye-Fi card uses to transfer your media. Add up to 32 networks for your card to use. The next time your camera is on within range of a specified network, your photos and videos will fly to your computer and to your favorite sharing site."

Fly? You must be kidding me!

This device is a good idea which has not really been well implemented. Unfortunately I bought three of these for my family for Christmas presents figuring that it would make their lives easier and not require taking the SD card out to transfer photos and videos to their computers. I guess I'll "eat" the almost $300 (the return window closed yesterday -- thanks Amazon)!

Bottom line. If you have a G router and want to transfer videos stay with "popping" the card out and using a card reader. You'll save yourself some money and a lot of grief!

No point in babbling on for 10 minutes about this thing. The engineering behind this thing doesn't even have the wordage put into it like the effort put into the Amazon reviews so here it is short and sweet. I use this daily to grab progress pictures on construction projects. So on average I collect about 25 pictures a day taken at 5 mp resolution. When I purchased this product I got the software installed on my computer and thought it was a bit slow(around 5 minutes) before even starting the upload process. Well a couple weeks ago a software upgrade was released and now the time has been cut to about 30 seconds. Some folks have complained that uploads are taking hours but my longest upload has only taken about 20 minutes. I can see if you're coming back from vacation and you have 400 or 500 pictures then yea, it'll take a while. Bottom line is, for my use and in my experience, it's a great product. It's gets 4 stars because 1) 5 star products SHOULD be rare 2) If I just turn on the camera and take a picture I don't get the geo-tag, however I suspect its because it takes more time than I'm willing to give it to acquire position signals.

Anyway, just as a side note ,I kind of wish folks would quit throwing the 5 and 1 star ratings around and spend a little time rendering thoughtful critiques of Amazon products. Reading the 5 star reviews generally reminds me of a enamored high school girl backstage at a concert and 1 star reviews many times are the result of a defective product(okay it happens, return it and keep moving) or the buyer either didn't know what they were getting or just couldn't figure it out.

This is generally a good idea, and the hardware is working fine. The old web-based software actually worked pretty well. The big problem with Eye-Fi is the new software. It takes forever to start up, gives spurious error messages, spins its "waiting cursor" a lot, constantly complains about not being able to connect to the Internet, has cryptic error messages, and to add insult to injury annoys the user with snappy error messages when things go wrong (as they frequently do). I'm running Windows 7 on an i5 with 8GB of memory, so it isn't the machine. Uploads are fairly sluggish as well. Uploading to Picasa fails consistently for me, with vague error messages; uploading to Picasa from other apps is working fine.

In comparison to the older 2G cards, this one is faster and has more features, but none of that helps with the deficiencies of the software.

This used to be the only option for parents and relatives who were computer-phobic, but these days, you're better off paying a little extra for a phone (Android, iPhone) that can do the automatic uploading faster and better. For high end cameras, do yourself a favor and use a cable: it's faster, more reliable, and less hassle.

With so many positive reviews on this card, I can't help but think maybe I've gotten a bad copy of the card. Here's my personal experience nonetheless:

- Initial Setup
The Wifi network you plan on using has to be added to the list of networks the software recognizes before the Eye-Fi card can be used wirelessly. To do that, you have to plug the Eye-Fi card into a card reader (included). I had trouble getting the card reader to recognize my Eye-Fi card right off the bat.

- Superb Tech Support
I called tech support for help with getting the card reader to recognize my Eye-Fi card. They were very professional and helpful and walked me through the troubleshooting process step-by-step. After trying different USB ports and some tinkering, they finally decided that the card reader was faulty and offered to send me a new one.

When I was finally able to get the card reader working, the rest of the setup went without a hitch. I was able to register my Wifi network with the Eye-Fi card.

- Wireless Transfer
It was able to get the Eye-Fi card to transfer my jpeg and raw files to my computer through the WIFI network but this feature only worked intermittently for me. I tried moving the camera closer to the wireless hub to no avail. I'll have to call tech support again.

- Class 6 Speed
I'm using a Canon XSi with my Eye-Fi card. On the continuous shoot mode (3.5 fps), the Eye-Fi card had trouble keeping up, even with the shooting mode in jpeg only (~2 - 5 MB per file). With the camera set to raw mode (~18-20 MB per file), the write slows to a crawl. Although this card is rated class 6, the write speeds don't seem to be any faster than my class 4 Kingston SD cards.

---
I will contact tech support again and see if I'm able to get the wireless feature working more consistently. Once I do, I'll update this review accordingly.