May 21st, 2008
Eye-Fi's new SD memory cards add geotagging and Wi-Fi to any digital camera
I’ve been a fan of Eye-Fi’s Wi-Fi enabled SD cards since they first came out late last year, so I’m excited to see the company has added two new cards to its product lineup. Here’s a rundown of the offerings:
Eye-Fi Explore
The coolest product of the group, the Eye-Fi Explore lets you add automatic geotagging capabilities to any SD-compatible digital camera. Rather than utilizing a GPS device to provide location-based information, the Eye-Fi Explore works with Skyhook Wireless’s Wi-Fi positioning system, which uses local Wi-Fi access points to determine your location. If you’ve used the mapping application on an iPhone or iPod Touch, you already know how cool the Skyhook service is. Skyhook touts accuracy of 20 meters, although coverage isn’t as comprehensive as a GPS device since it only works in areas where Skyhook has collected data (including coverage to 70 percent of the populations in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, Germany, and France, as well as the top 50 metropolitan areas of Europe, with Asian coverage currently expanding). Still, in densely populated urban areas and indoors, Skyhook actually works better than GPS. The geotagging capabilities alone are worth the $129 price of entry, but Eye-Fi also throws in one year of free hotspot access at any Wayport location (more than 12,000 locations in 35 countries). Like the original product (now renamed Eye-Fi Share and priced at $99), the Eye-Fi Explore lets you wirelessly upload your photos to any of about 25 photo-sharing sites including blogging and social networking serviceslike TypePad and Facebook.
Eye-Fi Home
At the low end of the Eye-Fi trifecta is the $79 Eye-Fi Home, which lets you upload your photos to your PC via your home Wi-Fi network. It could be useful if you’re particularly averse to USB cables, but personally, I think a simple SD card reader is the easiest way to go.
Oh, and since these are SD memory cards after all, all three products include 2GB of storage and should be available for sale by June 6 (just in time for Father’s Day!).
Janice Chen has been covering technology for almost two decades. She got her hands on a Nikon Coolpix 900 back in 1998 and has been a digital camera enthusiast ever since. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
Subscribe to Digital Cameras via Email alerts or RSS.
