Eye-Fi Mobile X2 uses cell phones to connect cameras to the Web

Consumer Reports News: April 12, 2011 06:08 AM

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Wireless memory card maker Eye-Fi has introduced an SDHC card that can upload your camera's photos and videos to the Web by passing them through your mobile phone or tablet. The 8GB Eye-Fi Mobile X2 ($80) can also upload photos and videos from your camera directly to sites such as Facebook or FlickR through any available Wi-Fi network, as previous Eye-Fi cards could. But if there's no such network available, it can use your Apple iOS or Android-based mobile phone (or tablet) to do the same thing via its new Direct mode feature

Owners of other existing X2-series Eye-Fi SDHC cards can add this new feature via a firmware update. (Note: Any SDHC memory card may not work on cameras designed for storing images and video on older, lower capacity SD memory cards.)

Here's how it works:

To use the new mode, download an Eye-Fi app to your smart phone or tablet from the device's app store. When you use the Eye-Fi memory card, it will search for a wireless network that you have configured on your card. If it doesn't find a configured network, it will then search for a connected device, such as a smart phone or tablet. Once it is connected, you can transfer photos and video from your camera or camcorder.

The Eye-Fi's new feature is a good thing for consumers: In the past several years, camera companies have tried to include wireless features in select models, whether through a built-in feature or through accessories. But overall, the user experience has been rather mediocre at best. In contrast, Eye-Fi cards are easy to use; they let people get their photos and videos off their devices and up on to their computers and social media sites in a more seamless way.

It will be interesting to see how much of an impact these new cards have on the market. We'll be sure to test the Eye-Fi Mobile X2 when it's available in mid-April. Eye-Fi expects that the accompanying Eye-Fi apps for Apple and Android devices will also be available around mid-April, pending approval.