Eye-Fi wireless memory cards come to the UK

 

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By David Fearon

Posted on 8 Oct 2009 at 11:46

US company Eye-Fi has released its wireless SD memory cards in the UK, allowing automatic cable-free photo and video uploads straight from a digital camera.

The Eye-Fi is a 4GB SD card that looks outwardly identical to a standard memory card, but contains both flash memory and a Wi-Fi transmitter.

The card is set up using a PC to pair it with a wireless router. Once set up, it’s used as a normal SD Card, but when in range of the router it automatically uploads its contents to the PC. If the PC is switched off it can upload to Eye-Fi’s relay servers instead.

Our initial tests this morning suggests it works pretty much faultlessly on a range of compact cameras from Nikon, Canon and Samsung, uploading every shot automatically to our test PC. The only glitch was a problem uploading photos to sharing sites.

Eye-Fi claims the impact on battery life is around a 10% reduction when shooting out of range of the wireless network.

The Eye-Fi comes in three versions ranging from £50 to £120 (inc VAT). The Home Video version allows uploads only to your local PC; the Share Video allows automatic uploading to the web; and the Pro version works with DSLR RAW files, plus it allows the card to join ad-hoc Wi-Fi networks, allowing direct wireless connection to a laptop without the need for a wireless router.