Eye-Fi Reliability and Questions?
AlbertZeroK
Registered Users Posts: 217 Major grins
I work for a company that does Mass Appraisal (40 to 60 parcels per day per person / up to 500 per day in our smart vans). Anyways, we are always looking for a way to integrate cameras with software and reduce work load.
I have the basic understanding of the eyefi and realize that it is a battery hog, I'm okay with that. Here are my questions:
Does the EyeFi work with software on the receiving computer to ensure that if an image is not downloaded or is only partially downloaded, the card will resend the images?
Is the EyeFi reliable, especially in an environment where the user does not understand how the EyeFi works?
How does turning a camera on and off all day effect the EyeFi?
The Eye Fi is a great concept and I would like to try it, but if it's not reliable, it will cost me more to tech it then we would get out of it. Especially when we already have a Windows Mobile 5.0 Camera Application that we run on XV6700 PDAs (they have Wifi so we don't even turn on Verizon wireless.)
At the end of the day, the camera needs to be small (fit in a pocket) and reliable. We can't be connecting a cable to the camera all day long (I can see the port dead after a month or two from repeated use.)
Thoughts?
I have the basic understanding of the eyefi and realize that it is a battery hog, I'm okay with that. Here are my questions:
Does the EyeFi work with software on the receiving computer to ensure that if an image is not downloaded or is only partially downloaded, the card will resend the images?
Is the EyeFi reliable, especially in an environment where the user does not understand how the EyeFi works?
How does turning a camera on and off all day effect the EyeFi?
The Eye Fi is a great concept and I would like to try it, but if it's not reliable, it will cost me more to tech it then we would get out of it. Especially when we already have a Windows Mobile 5.0 Camera Application that we run on XV6700 PDAs (they have Wifi so we don't even turn on Verizon wireless.)
At the end of the day, the camera needs to be small (fit in a pocket) and reliable. We can't be connecting a cable to the camera all day long (I can see the port dead after a month or two from repeated use.)
Thoughts?
Canon 50D and 2x T2i's // 2x 580ex II // FlexTT5's & MiniTT1's
EFS 17-55 f/2.8 & 10-22 // Sigma 30mm f/1.4 & 50mm f/1.4
Sigma Bigma OS // Canon 70-200 IS f/2.8
EFS 17-55 f/2.8 & 10-22 // Sigma 30mm f/1.4 & 50mm f/1.4
Sigma Bigma OS // Canon 70-200 IS f/2.8
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Two options:
Multiple media cards and a card reader for the PC in the van. Swap and go.
An upper level dslr that has wifi capabilities. Some Canon camera's have this capability. I would imagine Nikon does as well. Don't know about other brands.
Here are a couple of new options as well:
http://blog.fotolia.com/us/product/camera/canon-sd430.html
http://press.nikonusa.com/2008/08/nikon_continues_leadership_in.php
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Hi Albert,
It sounds like the Eye-Fi Card would be a good fit for your application. We're working with similar applications, like insurance adjustors, that take tons of photos per day, and they keep taking the card out of the SD slot, or they keep plugging in the USB cable, and every few weeks, their cameras break. With the Eye-Fi Card in your camera, you'll be all set.
The card picks up and resumes, to the byte. So if you go out of range, or if the battery runs out, or if the laptop shuts down -- no prob. The card will pick up where it left off. You can have the cards upload to just your computer, or you can even have them upload to the computer and to the net, in real-time, if you're online through something like the MiFi or your Windows Mobile phone or if there is Wi-Fi wherever you are.
The best card for you would be the Eye-Fi Pro, which supports ad-hoc. It also supports RAW, but you probably don't care for RAW for your application. Ad-Hoc will allow you to shoot straight into your computer, without the need for an external Wi-Fi router. All of our other cards require a Wi-Fi router (like you typically have at home or at a company or a Wi-Fi hotspot).
There are also tools that work with Windows Mobile, to upload to the device in real-time, or to use the Windows Mobile device, as a pocket router. Check out this page:
http://www.eye.fi/news/2009/07/09/transform-your-cell-phone-into-a-photo-and-video-uploader/
or here is the shorter URL: http://is.gd/2lAlZ
Let me know if you have any questions:
zgillat AT eye DOT fi or via the forum
Thx
MM
Zenfolio
Also, we noticed the card is SLOW. Well, okay, I shoot with Extreme III media in my D90 and Transcend x300/Extreme III CF in my Canon stuff, so it's VERY noticable. I'm wondering if the PRO card is faster? (My first thought is that the only difference between the 4G Video and the 4G Pro is the software/usability) But is the PRO card any faster?
Okay, software questions:
- Can I set up more than one profile on the card to connect to more than one computer? If not, can I set up the same computer name/wifi SSID & password at two locations and have everything work?
- Can I run the Eye-Fi software one computer and connect multilple cards to the same computer? Can this computer be offsite?
- Can I set up multiple access points the card can automatically work with? If not, can I have two access points named the same thing and set up identically and will that work?
EFS 17-55 f/2.8 & 10-22 // Sigma 30mm f/1.4 & 50mm f/1.4
Sigma Bigma OS // Canon 70-200 IS f/2.8
The photos should be coming in, in order. At least for the most part. If they're not, it means that there were errors (weak signal, timeouts) and the card went to the next file, and then, came back to it, after the previous files were done. But on SmugMug, you can re-sort in 1 click, and on the PC, they still maintain the "date taken", so you should be able to sort by the file names or by the dates shot.
Correct, we've very slow, compared to the Extreme III CF :-) I think that the Extreme III can do 45MBps, right? We can do about 6-8MBps, so -- huge difference. The Pro card isn't any faster. It's the same hardware as any of our other 4GB cards. The 4GB cards are faster than the 2GB cards. Please sign up to our mailing list (since we don't pre-announce anything), to get updates if/when we release faster write-speed cards.
Due to security restrictions, 1 Eye-Fi Card can only upload to 1 computer. You can set up as many profiles for online sharing sites as you'd like, but 1 online sharing site can be chosen at a time. So 1 card can go to 1 computer + 1 sharing site, at a time.
Yes to both questions. You can have as many cards as you'd like, uploading to 1 folder, or to multiple folders, or to online destinations. You can also have all the cards under 1 Eye-Fi Manager account. You'll see all the cards, when you log into the Eye-Fi Manager.
If you chose Relayed Uploads (on by default), and you're at work, and you set up the card to upload to another server or computer, and that computer is somewhere else -- no prob. The photos will go through the Eye-Fi Servers, and make it to the computer, remotely. This used to be the case only when you chose both, online + local, but now, it also works for just local. So if the computer is on, and you're on the same LAN network -- the photos won't go through our servers. If the computer is off, or, if you're aware from that computer, on another network, or through the web, the photos will go through our servers, download to your computer, and then, we'll erase the high-res images from our servers (upon confirmation that they were received by the computer and/or the online destination).
Yes to both questions -- you can set up as many as you'd like (or actually, I think that the max is 20, but I'm not 100% sure). So you can keep adding SSID's, and you'll see them listed, when the card is inserted into the USB reader. You can add/delete SSID's when the card is in the reader. The card DOES NOT need to be in the reader, to do things like: switching from local to online transfers, switching SmugMug accounts, or from SmugMug to another location, etc... You DO need the card in the reader (and we'll tell you that) when you add/del SSID's, when you enable/disable geo/roaming, and when you enable/disable Selective Uploads.
Whenever the card will see an access point with that name, whether or not it has security -- it'll try to connect. For example, lets say that you programmed "network 1" with WPA security. If the card finds another "network 1" and it's Open, it'll still connect to it :-)
Cool?
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MM
Zenfolio
I appreciate someone with a clue answering my questions. I'm sure you know, sometimes, that's hard to find. If I can get this tablet loaded tonight, I might actually demo the Eye-Fi card with the tablet in the morning!
EFS 17-55 f/2.8 & 10-22 // Sigma 30mm f/1.4 & 50mm f/1.4
Sigma Bigma OS // Canon 70-200 IS f/2.8
Good luck with the demo tomorrow :-)
MM
Zenfolio
The demo went okay. Well, my software rocked, but our partner's software was unimpressive (they are early in their development cycle.) But anyways, the Demo with the Eye-Fi didn't go that hot. Here's how we set it up and what I think was happening.
I configured the Eye-Fi Manager on a Tablet PC to drop images to C:\Incomming (without a date folder). And was taking photos with the Nikon D90 with the power off set to something way high (I forget). I used my Verizon MiFi as the wireless router and it was sitting on the table within feet of the tablet and camera. There is low cellular signal in the room were were in. The download of the photos was SLOW! Painfully at over 2 minutes. I'm wondering if the card was uploading to the Eye-Fi website then back to the tablet?
Here is our application, we are mass appraisers who do revaluation/reassessment contracts for county governments and This is our new van for doing our work even faster. We have to send people out to check items we can't get with the van, so we also are setting up tablet PC's with the same software as the van has. But we need a solution to get the images onto the tablet from a camera. Here are the quirks my team has wondered about the Eye-Fi.
- The demo took too long to download, is this because it is going to the website? Our people do not have internet access in the field, so this must work without an internet connection. Also, I'm not wild about Ad-Hoc mode as it means on some tablets, a re-configuration of the wireless is required to move from Ad-Hoc mode to standard wireless that they would use in the office. Also, we're thinking about doing some hard setting of Wireless settins for security.
- The card seems to take a few minutes to re-aquire the tablet to uplaod to the tablet, when our people leave the tablet in their car, they walk away, sometimes out of wireless range, I need the Eye-Fi to recover gracefully and QUICKLY.
The end goal is to have the images on the tablet less than 60 seconds after the image was taken.
If I can over come these two issues, I'd be happy to switch our appraisal staff to Eye-Fi Equiped Cards (especially considering I can reconfigure them online without the card present - great for appraisers moving project to project!) Right now we use Verizon XV6700's which we do not use verizion service on and just rely on the built in WiFi to uplaod everything - we have a custom application we use.
EFS 17-55 f/2.8 & 10-22 // Sigma 30mm f/1.4 & 50mm f/1.4
Sigma Bigma OS // Canon 70-200 IS f/2.8
Good stuff. I'm keeping everything live and public, so that others on the forum could learn from it. I hope you don't mind. If you ever want to take this offline, just direct-msg me, and I'll give you my email address :-)
I'm not sure what you mean. You can choose any path on the PC/Mac, and you can also choose to have the Eye-Fi Manager create folders by the date uploaded or the date taken. Up to you. You can have all the cards going into one folder, or have every card go into a separate folder.
The D90 is an Eye-Fi Connected camera, so you don't need to change the power settings. As long as you have the card inside, and the Eye-Fi Uploads menu is set to On, the camera will do the right thing. If we need to upload, it will stay on, as long as it needs to, and then when uploads to the PC or to the Eye-Fi Servers have finished, the camera will turn off the power.
I know that at least the MiFi has a very weak Wi-Fi signal, so the closer you are to it, the better. You can be further than a foot :-)
It's possible that you had tons of other Wi-Fi networks there, all using the same common channels, 1, 6, 10 or 11. It's worth it to have a scanner (free software on the PC and Mac), and scan the air for existing Wi-Fi. Then, set your router to a channel that's vacant. If you're in a van, this is not important, since you're far away from other Wi-Fi anyway. But lets say that you're at at tradeshow, where there are hundreds of routers around you -- the air is very very noisy. It'll take the card a while to scan all the networks, to find your router. If your router is known (programmed into the card), and on another channel, it'll find it quickly. It also helps to have Roaming and Open hotspots turned OFF. This way, the card will never try to even connect to open hotspots. Again, since you have a router around you, that's secure, and you never need to rely on open hotspots, turn off that feature. The reason is -- again, it'll take the card a while to scan through all the open networks, try to connect to them, fail, and then go onto the next one.
Now, it's supposed to always connect to your ad-hoc network first, or to any known SSID, first, before even trying to connect to other open networks. But if the air is super noisy, it could take it a while.
Another thing that you should do, is have a good router. Good routers make a huge difference. I looked up the phone that you mentioned. Are you using that to get to the broadband, and then, are you tethering it through USB, to the Windows box, and are you using Internet Sharing? I woudln't take that approach. It's super technical, and error-prone. I would either have a CradlePoint with a Verizon EVDO rev A modem, or have a Verizon MiFi. You can move your data plan line from your phone, to the new device. But tethering through a phone, and using ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) has issues that have nothing to do with us.
Probably. Here is what I think is going on with your set-up. You're tethering your XV6700 to the PC, and using ICS. The phone is on one TCP/IP network, and your router is another TCP segment. The card can't find your agent, so it's going to the cloud, and then back down.
Have your router, your PC, and the Eye-Fi card all on the same router, and you'll have goodness.
You're right about ad-hoc. Once you're in ad-hoc, you're offline. So if that doesn't work for you, please install a router, or use something like the CradlePoint. The CradlePoint CTR-350 has an edge and is my favorite CradlePoint because it's small, and has a cat-5 port. If I need to do an event, and I need to blast a large area with Wi-Fi, I connect a Linksys router via cat-5 to the CTR-350, crank up the power on the antenas, and now I have massive Wi-Fi range.
If I need to stay totally mobile, I carry the MiFi on me, in my pocket. It has a weak Wi-Fi, but it's sitting in my back pocket (not front pocket, even though I've already had 2 kids :-) ) or, it's in my camera bag. Those 2 units are both solid.
One more thing -- your XV6700 isn't an EVDO rev A unit. It's EVDO rev 0. HUGE diffrence. EVDO rev A can be 10 times faster. EVDO rev 0 is very old, but there aren't many phones with EVDO rev A built in. The new Blackberry Tour has rev A built in. I believe that every other VZW phone has rev 0 built in.
If the card sees that no Wi-Fi is in range, it'll go to sleep for 2 minutes. Then, every 2 minutes, it'll wake up for 10 seconds, to scan to see if the Wi-Fi situation changed. It will recover gracefully. I think that you ran into other issues...
It should take a few seconds or less per image, not 60. If you have the card in the mode of uploading to the PC only, as long as the PC is on the same network, it's very quick.
Here is another thing that you're probably running into, since the card and the agent are not on the same LAN segment -- don't forget -- these cards are meant for consumers, who don't know anything about networking. The idea is to always work, under any networking condition that is possible. So... We've introduced "Relayed Uploads" a few months ago, which, by default, is turned on, I believe. So what does it mean? If the card is online, and it's set to PC only, but it can't find your local agent, it'll upload to the Eye-Fi Server, and then back down to your agent. If you DON'T want that feature, just disable "Relayed Uploads". Then, if the card can't find your PC, it won't upload. So uploads won't be slow. They won't work at all, but at least you'll know that what I'm saying is right :-)
I'm sure you could make it work. I think that you're running into some basic networking issues. If you simplify your set-up, and use CP or the MiFi, you'll be much happier.
If you don't want to be online, and you still want uploads to work -- still -- no prob. Just have the cards lean about an SSID that's secured. As long a the card is on that network, and the PC is on that network, and the card is in PC mode only -- the uploads will work. You don't need to be online, for uploads to work. You only need to be online, to reconfigure the Eye-Fi Manager.
Thanks :-)
MM
Zenfolio
http://forums.eye.fi/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1352&start=15#p12692 and if you keep reading till the end of that thread, you'll find a list of UDMA based cameras.
Thx --
Ziv.
MM
Zenfolio
EFS 17-55 f/2.8 & 10-22 // Sigma 30mm f/1.4 & 50mm f/1.4
Sigma Bigma OS // Canon 70-200 IS f/2.8
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk
MM
Zenfolio
But when can I put an eyefi card in my computer and one in my camera and get them to talk back and forth?
EFS 17-55 f/2.8 & 10-22 // Sigma 30mm f/1.4 & 50mm f/1.4
Sigma Bigma OS // Canon 70-200 IS f/2.8
You don't need an Eye-Fi Card in your computer. Just in your camera.
We're not saying when, other than 2011. So please stay posted. We're hoping for soon, but are not committing to any date.
BTW, in terms of ad-hoc, meanwhile, until we release Eye-Fi Direct:
It works great in OS X
It works great in Win7
It works great in Vista
It's bad in Win XP (not our fault) but there is a workaround -- http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5374713/ConnectifyInstaller.zip
MM
Zenfolio
on you web site the eye-fi cards you said only works with iphone , ipad & android softwares
and my smartphone is SAMSUNG wave ( s8500) and it use BADA software so will the eye-fi card work with it ?
and which card will work the best with it ?
please replay as soon as possible
pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease
I believe that the Samsung S8500 WAVE already has WiFi (802.11b/g/n) built-in. What would you hope to gain using an Eye-Fi card?
What is your primary application for the phone as a camera?
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
Ziggy, he's asking about Eye-Fi Direct:
http://www.eye.fi/how-it-works/features/direct-mode
ANY X2 card will work. With respect to your particular device, as long as it can see the Android Market, and if you can see the free application - you're all set. If not, it's unsupported but may still work and you'll find the app on App Brain.
Thx,
Ziv.
MM
Zenfolio
i have a NIKON D90 & as i said my phone is SAMSUNG
and from the website it only works with iphone , ipad & android
so i will try to download the APP and see if it works on my samsung the uses BADA software
Thanks alot Gillat
I will try to download it and see
but i just wanted to make sure it will work with my phone first before i buy it
Connect & Mobile are the same, where Mobile is 8GB and Connect is 4GB.
All X2 cards support Direct mode.
MM
Zenfolio
Android devices that support the Market, where the app is shown to them, in the Market
iOS devices
I'm being extra particular about Android because there are flavors of Android, that don't fully support Android, and therefore, don't show the Android Market. They either don't have enough CPU power, or a GPU, or memory, etc...
So if your phone runs Android OS, and shows the Market, and if you're seeing the Eye-Fi app in the Market -- it'll work. If your phone is running Android, and you DO NOT have the Market, it may still work, if you get the app through App Brain. But -- all bets are off, and it may not work, so if it doesn't -- please don't call our support. It's not us -- it's your phone.
Thanks --
Ziv.
MM
Zenfolio
Excellent information.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
Awesome, thank you. Eye-Fi Direct is super cool. Now, you're truly mobile, from wherever you are, through your iOS or Android phone :-)
MM
Zenfolio