Customer Reviews

Eye-Fi 4GB Share Video SDHC Wireless Flash Memory Card EYE-FI-4SV

5 star:		(38)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I can't say enough about how great the eye-fi technology is... the setup was an absolute nightmare for me though.

CAUTION: For anyone thinking about purchasing this card, you need to make sure that your camera will be compatible and the eye-fi card will transfer the types of files you want transferred. This particular card is a SDHC, meaning your camera needs to be able to handle SDHC cards (not just SD cards!). Also, read in the forums on the eye-fi site to find out if anyone has found problems with your particular camera blocking signals from the card. I have read that some camera cases interfere with the wireless signals from the card. This card will transfer jpeg picture files, but no other image files. There is a new pro card out that will transfer RAW files if you want to transfer those. Video formats the 4GB Share Video card will handle include: MPEG, AVI, MOV, FLV, MP4, and WMV.


The card comes with a small USB device that allows you to plug the card into your compuer. After plugging it in, an eye-fi manager will be launched via your web browser. You must create an account with eye-fi (just requires an email signup - no fees). After the account is set-up, the card will detect wireless connections and allow you to select which connection to use. I had a horrible time getting the card to connect to my wireless connection (never had any problems with other devices, and I have quite a bit of experience setting up wireless networks/devices). The problem is that they give you way too few options to fix problems that might arise. The one and only solution the eye-fi gave me when it wouldn't connect was to add the card's MAC address to my wireless router's list of incoming connections, which didn't help at all. Eventually, I needed to completely redo my entire wireless network to get the card to connect, which was a pain. The problem in all of this wasn't the fact that the card should have connected easier, but that the setup was too simplistic and too linear. If anything went wrong in the setup process, you had to start over from the beginning... there was no way to resume from the part that gave you an error. Essentially, you have to go through the entire process of signing up for an account, connecting to your wireless network, taking a picture, and sending the picture before the setup is complete. Any problems? Back to the beginning... and I had plenty of problems through the process.

After the setup process is complete, the card works great though. Transfers start as soon as the camera is in range of the wireless connection, is on, and the computer is on (although there is another option in the settings to allow photos to be transferred to an eye-fi server and then to your computer so that both do not have to be on at the same time). Photos and video can be uploaded to any directory you choose on your computer and can be labeled by the date created or uploaded. They can also be uploaded directly to a wide variety of sites including Flickr, photobucket, facebook, walmart, costco, and many more (almost any photo site you can think of). You can have photos videos go to separate/multiple places, and advanced options allow you to set private or public viewing capabilities on each site you upload to. Your photos/video are automatically uploaded as soon as the camera is in range of the network, but another feature allows you to only upload pictures/videos that you set to "protect" mode in your camera (that way not everything gets uploaded all the time).

This particular card comes only with support for your home network, but you can purchase an upgrade to allow you to access any wifi hotspot to upload your pictures for $15 a year. An upgrade to allow geotagging of your photos like on the "explore" card is also available for $15 a year.

The transfers are very fast, and the pictures stay on your card in case something goes wrong in the transfer process. You can then delete them from your card when you want. You can set up email, SMS, or Twitter alerts to tell you when the transfer is started, completed, or if anything goes wrong.

Overall, it's a fantastic device. I couldn't imagine going back to all the USB transfers I used to do. Just be prepared for a great deal of frustration in the setup process unless you are one of the lucky ones and everything goes perfect from the start.

So I did like the idea of wireless uploading my photo to my computer and Facebook (Which recently became available). Yes it does work and I did like it at first. The process can become time consuming because transfering a large amount of photos to my computer takes time and drains the battery on the camera. Not to mention it wants to automatically to starting upload photos automatically. by default. You can enable the Selective Transfer option ([...])

Eye-Fi supports states you will hardly notice a difference in battery usage. I completely disagree. With my wife's 780is the battery time is cut by more than half. Make sure you add in the cost of a backup battery when buying an Eye-Fi card. Of course if your camera uses AA than you will be adding to the landfills faster

I am now hardly using the card anymore because I would rather put my 16GB SDHC in my camera and just plugin it into the SD slot on my laptop.

The lack of RAW support is also a downer for me but not showstopper. I often shoot in RAW format so I can do post processing of the photos. If RAW is a must you will need to purchase the Pro verion, which also gives you geotagging. Of course geotagging is $15 a year after the first year. You can also add wayport wifi access for $15 a year, which I chose not to do

On the plus side it does support WPA security so you do not have to have the worry of weak WEP security

I would say this is definitely more for the casual phototaker and not the professional.

Would I recommend it, yes but with the understanding that once the novelity wears off you may find yourself using it less.

***Updated 11/19/2009 Please see new info at the end.****

I used this card in a Canon A560 point and shoot camera using a Windows Vista 64 machine on a protected wireless G network. Setting it up was very easy. Pop the card, inserted into the included card reader, into a USB port, and follow the prompts. When the software is installed you have to register the card via a web browser with the Eye-fi website. They asked for an email address, your name, and a password. I put the card in my camera, took a picture, and voila, the picture was downloaded to a new "Eye-Fi" folder in my pictures folder. The pictures download as soon as you take them and these 7.1MP pictures took about 3-5 seconds each to download.

The good:
- Easy installation
- Works as advertised
- 4GB stores a lot of pictures; pictures remain on card just in case
- No cables needed
- Uploads to picture sharing sites
- Amazing that it works!

The not so good:
- No control of when pictures download. If there are new pictures and your computer is on, they download. So you don't get a chance to delete the bad pictures from the camera before they download.
- It is a bit slower than a cable. If you have many pictures to download (say you took them away from your network), you have to wait longer than if you used a cable. Again, if you only wanted one or two pictures, you still have to wait for them all to download.
- You have to leave your camera on for them to download. Although there is no cable, you still have to wait for things to finish so you can turn off the camera and put it away.
- It is unclear how much power the card uses so I don't know how it will affect battery usage.
- At least thumbnails are uploaded to the Eye-Fi website whether or not you want that.

Maybe it is just a habbit of ours, but without this card, we download just the pictures we want to a folder, and then file them away. Usually we do this after an event (birthday, outing, etc.) so it is pretty easy to decide where they go. With this card, the pictures just pile up in one folder and you have to sort it out separately, including ones you'd never had transfered in the first place.

There is also an extra step of making sure all the pictures downloaded wirelessly before you clear the card. With a cable it is pretty clear; you just downloaded everything you want so you can now clear the card. With the Eye-fi it isn't so clear unless you are in the same room as your computer and watch things happen on the screen.

If you aren't uploading to Flikr or the like, it is uncertain if this is a useful product. A cable can be left attached to your decktop or left on your deck where you use your laptop. The time it takes to connect it is more than made up for by the speedier downloading and spending less time making sure everything downloaded.

I imagine if you do use Flikr and the like, this is great in that if you are traveling, folks you share photos with can see you photots. But, again, unless you can access your account, they are going to see all of your photos if you don't delete them prior to entering a wifi hotspot. Apparently it works at MacDonalds and many other places. Good that it happens so easily, not so good that it might happen when you don't want it to. I imagine that, while traveling, deleting would be easier since you are more often than not away from wifi.

One last caveat: whether or not you sign up for online services, the Eye-Fi website gets, at least, thumbnails of all your pictures. I used the card on my home network assuming it would just go form the camera to my pictures/eye-fi folder. But when I went to change some settings, I was taken to the Eye-fi website and was presented with the images that just downloaded. You can remove them, but it seemes like you should be able to use this card without that happening if you use your home network; I assume, and it makes sense, that it has to go through there servers if you use the web services (e.g. Flikr), but why is that needed when it is all local? Just another thing that makes me feel not everything is in my control.

****** New/Additional Comments ******
Customer service left a comment with my review and, in the interest of being fair, I'd like to point out their response as they tell how to address some of what I consider the shortcomings. Apparently it is very easy to set up but there are more advanced features that can be used but which you have to explore a little more to implement. I should point out that their replies to me and others are very polite, well written, and informative which makes me think well of this company.

1) Pictures don't have to download automatically. You can can set it up so only ones marked as "protected" on your camera will download. Most camera's have this although I never use it, but this would be a good use for it. "You can read more about it on our blog: [...]

2)It isn't just one folder but a folder for each date. That is better but still not the one folder per event one usually makes if doing this by hand (we have on folder per month with special events in a subfolder).

3) Customer service says the thumbnails are not sent to their server and, from what I can tell, they are right and I was wrong. The URL has a IP address that must be that of the card and not their server, which is what confused me. This takes away a big objection. "You can test this out by logging in to your account from a different computer - you won't find the thumbnails there."

This is just a very cool product - can really be the talk of a party when you take a picture and it shows up on the web without ever taking the card out or docking the camera. Setup is pretty straight forward. One thing it doesn't appear to do is send the picture to multiple sites. You can program several sites to send it to on their website, but you have to pick just one. Would be nice to have a multiples choice. Other than that --it really rocks!

If I had to sum up my experience with the Eye-Fi Share Video 4 GB Wi-Fi SDHC Flash Memory Card EYE-FI-4SV in one sentence, it would be this: This Eye-Fi card does what it says it does with a minimum of difficulty.

That said, my expectations of the card were not all that high after doing some research, but knowing that this technology is not for everyone, I set out to find just where and when this card would be most appreciated. If you are tech-savvy, this card is nothing more than a toy, a new gadget you will enjoy playing with for awhile before you go back to the more efficient method of using a card reader to attach the card directly to your machine.

If your SD card never leaves your camera, however, this card is perfect for you, and yes, I've met several people who don't even know how to remove their card from the camera and only hook up the camera to the computer. I recommend this card to anyone who wants just one SD card to keep in their camera at all times and not have to fuss with cables or adapters to get at their images.

Pros:
* Basic setup was a breeze. A nicely designed web interface helps you setup the card for your network and you will shoot and upload your first photo within a few minutes.
* In-camera performance is on par with most SDHC cards
* Nice automatic upload solution for digital camera newbies
* Automatic upload to photo and video sharing sites works ok

Cons:
* Camera must be on the entire time the card is uploading. If you fill up the 4 gigs, this could take a long time and drain your battery. Best for small collections of photos.
* Upload and processing of video is rather slow
* Can only upload to one website for photo and one for video. The card has dozens of options for photo sharing sites (flickr, photobucket, facebook, etc.) but it can only upload to one at a time. I think it should be possible to upload to multiple sites.
* Card must be close to router to work. Too many walls between the card and the router will slow or even stop uploading.
* Overall upload speed is slow when compared to an SD card reader connected to the computer.
* SMS notifications did not work after the initial test
* No way to know the card is uploading unless you're looking at the computer, so you might as well just use the SD card reader instead. (This is probably my biggest problem with the card.)

This is in no way a bad card, and I may give it to my Dad who will appreciate the automatic wireless transfer more than I would. But I would only recommend it to people who are not already used to taking their SD card out of the camera and using a card reader to upload images and video. If you already do that, this will seem sluggish and unnecessary.

I have used this card for over six months, and I have updated my facebook more then ever before. I really like the auto upload feature, which really has saved me time. The only problem that I have with this card is that the transfer rate from the camera to my computer is way too slow, and will drain my battery too fast. I have better luck once I plug the camera into a reader on my computer. Great idea, it just needs to work on the transfer speed, which depend highly upon your connection. Great for compact, but still needs a little work for DSLR's.

I gave this card to my wife who has a Canon digital camera, because I got tired of always having to get the images off her camera and onto her laptop. Both of the USB ports on her laptop are constantly in use. The installation 'pamphlet' almost made it seem too easy... unfortunately the installation was a little trickier than promised, but the Eye-Fi Web site had good support information.

After turning her camera off, then on again, the pictures I had taken transferred very quickly to her laptop like magic... When I showed her she only need be in range of our home network and the photos would automatically get onto her computer, she was ecstatic.

PROS:
- brilliant concept, well executed.
- great for the technically challenged
- a small thumbnail of the image and percentage transferred appears in the upper right of your computer when transferring images
- Mac compatibility, Firefox compatibility and auto-software update during installation procedure
- 4GB, generous for a point and shoot 8 mpx camera!

CONS
- Eye-Fi forces you to sign-up with email address at their site to install the software
- It appears that the default is for photos to get uploaded to the Eye-Fi site then relayed to a computer. I dug around a bit under settings in their Web based interface and realized we could choose just to transfer the photos to a folder on her laptop
- Only a Web-based interface to settings and the service. A standalone application would be snappier for those not interested in sharing anything through the Eye-Fi site. If people are interested in uploading to sites, they probably already have that under control through MobileMe or FaceBook, etc.
- Power-saving settings on the digital camera must be turned OFF. On slightly older cameras, like the Canon SD-870 my wife uses, the battery life is not that great to begin with, so this method of transferring definitely requires a trade-off between ultra ease-of-use and battery life.
- 4GB, not so great if you take a lot of movies with your point and shoot!

I would highly recommend this for someone without a spare USB slot, someone who is technically challenged, or someone who doesn't have one of the newer MacBook Pros with the built-in SD card slot. :)

Set-up is very easy: plug it in (USB Card Reader is provided with the card), the card gets initialized, the ey-fi management software is installed at the computer, tell the software the location you want to store the pictures, then you have to sign up for an eye-fi account online (actually, that is kind of annoying ... but tolerable) - and you are good to go. Took me about ten minutes.

Put the card in the camera and start shooting. A little eye-fi symbol will appear in the lower left corner of the camera screen (at least it did with my Casio Exilim S-12), to signal that the card is ready.

Then, after shooting has finished, carry the camera to your home, turn it on and after about half a minute the pictures are sent automatically to the specified location on your PC. Alas, I was not able yet to transfer the pictures directly to my NAS hard drive, without having to turn on the PC every time. Apparently, the eye-fi manager software is needed to manage the transfer. Small annoyance, would have been nice to do it independently from the PC.

Upload speed is certainly dependent on the network configuration - I have a fairly potent 802.11n network, so a 12MP picture from my point and shoot camera with a size of appr. 7 MB will be transferred in about 15 seconds. That is not lightning fast but quick enough for my use.
The whole things works just fine and without a glitch.

Then I discovered, that you can upgrade the card with geotagging functionality.
Well, this geotagging is achieved by using near WiFi hotspots to find out the position. This works very well at your local Starbucks, or in your house, or maybe even in downtown areas of bigger cities. I seriously doubt, though, that it will do you any good at the Grand Canyon ...

Nevertheless, I signed up to this service - which runs at $14.99 for one year. You can only acquire the service by signing up to automatic renewal, though. That kind of stinks, but they say that you can opt out of that easily afterwards. We'll see in about a year.

Set-up is, again, really simple and requires no action at all from the user.
So far, in my house, the geotagging thing works perfect. The pictures actually do not geotagged inside the camera, but via the upload through the eye-fi manager software. When you take a picture, the MAC-adresses of any available networks nearby will be stored. After you uploaded the pictures with the eye-fi manager, this data is sent to an external service, which then tries to triangulate the position you took the photo using this data. Sounds complicated? You bet. For once, you have to give the eye-fi card some time to pick up the network signals - power on, shoot, power off just won't cut it, you basically have to leave the camera on all the time (or at least for some - unspecified - time). Then, for classic triangulation, you need at least three points - so one or two networks will not do the trick.
Well, I tried it today at a visit to the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville - and it worked ... somehow. The location was about 500 ft off - which is half a universe by GPS standards (my Sony GPS tracker delivers the correct location within 10 yards or so). So, to have an approximate idea that a picture was actually taken in Huntsville, AL and not in Huntsville, TX, the fidelity level is sufficient. But to get an exact position, you probably have no other chance as to rely on an independent GPS tracker.

There is an eye-fi card with built in geotagging capability - which will be cheaper in the long run, if you use it for like four years or so. But in four years, I fully expect that all cameras will have that functionality built in, so I'll probably pay for three years and hope for the best ... :). Well, or not - the accuracy issue really limits the usefulness of this function to a mere gimmick.

But the basic card functionality still works as advertised and it surely is a fine little gadget (surprisingly enough, while the supplied card reader is made in China, the card itself bears the stamp Made in the USA ...), and it is kind of cool to just walk in the house, (turn on your PC), turn on your camera and let the magic work.
But is that worth three times the price of a decent "normal" card of the same capacity? That is something, everybody has to decide on their own.
Although it's lack of accuracy, I like the geotagging option and - being a tech freak - the whole concept of wireless-everything. Have you heard about the wireless battery chargers that are in development right now? That will be the next big thing. But since then, this here is fun, practical and useful, too.

The only problem so far that I can see with this product is the transfer rate from the camera to my computer is way too slow.....I hate to sit and wait for things. The Plus side is it can upload your photos automatically to your computer to a folder It even does videos.... I like that as I do allot of videos.

I received this card as a gift for my birthday. I popped it in my PC, set up my account and was uploading pictures to my PC without wires in less than 15 minutes. I use the card in my Nikon D60. Be sure your camera supports the HC format before you buy. My wife was always frustrated in uploading pictures to the PC before, but not now. The camera timed out before all the pictures were uploaded, so I had to adjust the power management options in the D60. My only gripe is that this 4GB card replaced my 16GB card...Eye-Fi, please give us more storage.