Product Description For those who tag or organize, who blog or share in real-time, who need to upload here, there, or somewhere else; and for all the rest who are simply passionate about managing, sharing, and saving their memories: there is now the Eye-Fi Explore Wireless SD card. It uploads photos wirelessly to your computer and to the web, of course. But, Eye-Fi Explore also automatically adds geographic location labels to your photos and allows you to upload from more than 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots across the nation. Your memories will be easier to search and more fun to share with geo tags, and you'll be able to upload them while on the go.
Manufacturer Product Description A Wireless Memory Card? Yes, there really is Wi-Fi inside that tiny little card. It's going to change the way you take, save and share photos.
It makes your camera a Wi-Fi camera. Upload your photos automatically.
Photos shouldn't be trapped in your camera. Set them free effortlessly and wirelessly. The Eye-Fi Card is a wireless SD memory card for your digital camera. It stores pictures like a standard SD memory card, but also uses your Wi-Fi network to automatically upload images from inside your camera to your PC or Mac. No cables, no cradles, no fuss. It also neatly organizes your photo uploads by date in the folder you choose.
Key Features
Unlimited Geotagging
Wi-Fi Hotspot Access for 1 year
Unlimited WebShare Service
Wireless Uploads to Computer
2 GB of storage
Eye-Fi Explore is for those who tag or organize, for those who blog or share in real-time, for those who need to upload here, there or somewhere else, and all the rest who are simply passionate about managing, sharing and saving their memories. It uploads photos wirelessly to your computer and to the web, of course. But, Eye-Fi Explore also automatically adds geographic location labels to your photos and allows you to upload from more than 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots across the nation. Your memories will be easier to search and more fun to share with geo tags, and you'll be able to upload them on the go.
How it works
Geotagging
With Geotagging, your photos will be automatically labeled, or tagged, to show where they were taken. Today, tags make searching for photos easier and make sharing them more meaningful, but it's a time-consuming and manual process. With Eye-Fi's Geotagging Service, you won't have to spend your time entering the info. It's done for you when you upload your photo.
Using its built-in Wi-Fi, the Eye-Fi Card locates any surrounding Wi-Fi networks as you take pictures. Then, the Eye-Fi Service translates that data into geographic location and adds the information to each picture (in the EXIF data) as it is delivered to the web or your computer. It's as easy as that. You snap the shot and the photo shows up labeled with the city and state in which it was taken.
The coverage area is expanding all the time, as new Wi-Fi access points appear and as the location of those wireless networks are mapped and added to the system. Today, in North America, about 70 percent of the populated areas have been mapped. In Europe, the top 50 metropolitan areas are covered, along with 70 percent of the populated areas in Germany, France and the UK. Coverage is expanding in Western Europe as well as several areas of Asia, including Japan, Korea, Taiwan and other countries.
Certain online photo sites already support geotagging and even have visualization tools that let you map your memories. Check out Flickr, Picasa and SmugMug to see what geotagging can do. Many desktop photo management programs also make good use of geotags as well, including Adobe's Photoshop Elements 6 (PC only), Google's Picasa (PC only), Ovolabs Geophoto (mac only) and Microsoft's Pro Photo Tools (PC only).
Eye-Fi Explore includes unlimited Geotagging.
HotSpot Access
With Hotspot Access, you'll be able to upload from more than 10,000 Wayport Wi-Fi hotspots across the US just as easily as at home. You don't need to have your laptop with you or even have an account with the hotspot provider. Your photos will be delivered to your photo-sharing website and to your computer, even if it's thousands of miles away.
To make this possible and easy, Eye-Fi has worked directly with hotspot provider Wayport. Wayport offers Wi-Fi access at thousands of locations, including most McDonald's restaurants, major hotels, airports, and other locales. To see a map of all the locations in the US, click here.
An Eye-Fi Card with Hotspot Access already includes access to Wayport hotspots. Simply walk into a Wayport location and turn on your camera. Your Eye-Fi Card will recognize the network, connect to it and start uploading your photos while you have a burger or wait for your flight.
If you want to be informed about your uploads, you can choose to receive status updates from Eye-Fi as either email or SMS messages. We'll let you know when you've connected to a supported hotspot network and are uploading and we'll let you know when your upload is finished. And, like all Eye-Fi uploads, if you leave the location before your upload is finished, it will pick up right where it left off the next time you're in a supported location.
Eye-Fi Explore includes 1 year of Wayport Hotspot Access. Eye-Fi Explore users will be able to renew Hotspot Access for $19 per year after the first year.
WebShare
With WebShare, your photos can be automatically uploaded to your favorite photo sharing, printing, blogging or social networking website. No wasted time sitting in front of your computer. No fussing with upload software. No delay in sharing your new memories with friends and family.
Choose from among more than 20 of the most popular websites and some up-and-comers too. You can upload images privately and
control if and when they are viewable by others. Many sites even let you edit your photo albums online. And, you can change your preferred upload site at any time.
You can even upload to the Web when your computer is turned off. The Eye-Fi Share and The Eye-Fi Explore will upload your photos directly to the Eye-Fi Service through your home Wi-Fi network. We'll deliver them to your photo site and then deliver them to your computer the next time you turn it on. The Eye-Fi Service is secure and encrypted, so your data and photos are safe and private.
Eye-Fi Share and Eye-Fi Explore include unlimited WebShare service. Upload and share all you want.
Painlfull...for the most partAugust 10, 2008 Liked it from the start. Installation was easy. It's so easy there's not even an install disc. The software is on the SD card itself. If you can insert a usb stick and click yes a few times then you can install this. The interface is clean and lightweight. The software struggled with my Vista 64bit setup but was fine with XP 64. The problem was, and still is, that I have to open the eye-fi manager software two or three times to get it working. Most times it will load the main page but a few seconds later it reloads the page and says I'm disconnected. Even with this problem I give 5 stars. It's user-friendly and nifty. The Explore works in Raw+Jpeg mode. It uploads all the Jpegs and leaves the RAW on the card.
*edit* -So far I haven't been able to geotag a thing. I've turned it on and I shoot in downtown san diego so no problem with hotspots. Everything uploads fine, but nothing is tagged with location data. What gives???
AWSOME!!August 2, 2008 If you don't have it, your missing the boat. This IS the future of pic sharing and storage.
Fantastic ProductJuly 31, 2008 This is a fantastic product. The install was painless - it dealt with security on my home network seamlessly. You don't even need to deal with an install CD-ROM/DVD - plug the included reader in your USB port and it self-installs.
It's almost like magic - take pictures at home and they just appear on your computer and photo hosting service.
Very highly recommended.
Very cool product, almost perfect!July 24, 2008 2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I purchased the eye-fi explore for the ability to geotag my pictures and to make sure I never accidentally deleted a shot that I really liked. After a little troubleshooting (and a very speedy response from eye-fi customer care) we were able to get it to work with my Canon XSi.
The card works great! The little thumbnail on your desktop is helpful too, as it shows the photos transfering right onto your computer.
The only thing keeping me from giving this a 5 star review is the current lack of support for RAW photos, only JPEG. While this is a minor gripe for most, the XSi shines in RAW mode. I believe this is a feature that will be added, so I will have full functionality at that time.
Wonderful product, highly recommended and a must have for all SD card users!
I love this device!July 15, 2008 4 out of 4 found this review helpful
So, I'm the kind of guy who takes a million pictures of the kids and then they sit in my digital camera for 6 months. This device is perfect for me. Just snap away and then turn my camera on for a few minutes at home or in a Wi-Fi enabled McDonald's - bingo!
Take it out of the box, plug it into a USB port with the handy plug, and take about 4 minutes to set it up. It just works like a breeze.
Geotagging works perfectly for me. If it doesn't work for you, you can actually go in and set up the location of your routers so that it will work. The reviewer who complained about this could have spent about 2 minutes and fixed this issue.
I have my account set up to automatically post my photos to Flickr as well as downloading them to a directory on my PC. The Eye-Fi supports probably 10-12 of the most popular photo sharing sites.
The only thing on my wish list is for the card to upload video I take with my digital camera (right now only jpg file format is supported). I contacted support and they confirmed they are getting a lot of requests for that feature - so it may be on its way sometime.
