Eye-Fi Brings Online Ubiquity to Almost Every Digital Camera

Michael Gartenberg | May 12, 2008, 12:45 PM

New versions of the Eye-Fi hitting the market today. Now available in the original model (at $100) that allows online and local file uploads, the new versions are desktop upload only ($80) and a new model that will work with paid hotspots as well as do geo-tagging as well (for $129).

The original model looks like any 2gb SD card but has an integrated WiFi chip that lets just about any camera that uses SD cards to automatically upload pictures to your PC over WiFi, upload to online photo sites (or both). There's an even an option to allow content to flow directly into iTunes on a Mac.

It's a neat tool that works well, especially for the online connection (a USB cable is going to work much faster to just transfer photos to a PC). Two issues are the fact that WiFi sucks a lot of battery life from your camera and it's an all or nothing proposition. You can't select which files to send over.

Eye is capturing on several important trends. Today’s mobile consumer expects to be connected to the Web seamlessly and ubiquitously. As a result, there's an explosion of non-PC devices that allow people to connect to the Web in unique ways (Kindle is a good example.) The disconnected digital camera has prevented that seamless connection and Eye-Fi is ahead of the curve, allowing better ways for consumers to connect their cameras to the rest of the their online personas.

What's missing? I'd like to see upload to several PCs at the same time and 2GB is a fairly small storage capacity these days (the reason I was told was to keep maximum compatibility, not to mention 16gb of images would take quite a while to upload). Despite that, I like the concept and execution here and I'd expect smart camera vendors to spend more time trying to get their cameras working closer with Eye-Fi.