[section_title title=Introduction]Introduction
When we’re out and about with our camera we often find ourselves snapping away until our memory card is full, and when all of the memory cards are full, you then need to be able to view them and share the amazing ones. Eyefi, a relatively new contender in the camera storage world, have come up with a solution that solves that problem – the Eyefi Mobi:
The Mobi is an SD card unlike no other as it features inbuilt WiFi capabilities, which allow it to connect wirelessly to any WiFi compatible device such as a tablet, mobile phone or even your laptop. It also packs a decent 8GB of onboard memory in case you do not have a device to connect to. Essentially, when you take a picture on your digital camera, then the Mobi card will upload the photo to your camera in the background pretty much instantly, to which you can then view on your connected device.
Eyefi cloud is an additional service of which you get a free 90 day trial of. This is basically a cloud storage service that you can automatically upload all of your photos to so you can access anywhere with an internet connection, so you can then share your photos, make them private or publish them for the world to see.
So how does the Mobi card work? What magic does it contain? Well a nice little graphic from the Eyefi website explains all, which can see below:
It’s quite impressive what Eyefi have managed to squeeze into a tiny little SD card, so I’m impressed on that front.
The card itself is very distinctive and you should have no problem finding it in the bottom of your camera bag (or even in the dark!).
To use the card it is very easy to setup, you simply insert it into your camera’s memory card slot, download the app to your device (available on both iOS and Android), input the activation key on the back of the SD card case, then connect to the Mobi card, which it should detect instantly. It’s that easy. Then each time you take a photo, it is automatically transferred to your device where it will be displayed within the app.
 
One thing I did notice with the Mobi card however, was that it only works with jpegs – as in you can only shoot in this format for the transfer to work correctly. Eyefi actually provide a “pro” version which allows RAW files to be transferred, which is a bit of a shame, but ultimately not a problem with point-and-shoots.
You’ll have to check your camera’s compatibility however, as not all cameras are compatible – this can be done using the Eyefi website. I did note that the Mobi card did not work in our FLIR thermal imaging camera, although I wasn’t surprised by this fact.
Overall I think the Eyefi is a novel and clever product. It eliminates the need for constant faffing about with wires and allows you to view your recently snapped photographs instantly, which you can share until your heart’s content, all of which is possible due to the tiny tech crammed inside a regular (albeit bright) looking SD card. If you don’t have a connection to a device, then you don’t need to worry either, as the Mobi packs 8GB of memory – more than enough for most cameras. Whilst I normally shoot in RAW formats, this would be ideal for any point-and-shoot camera – maybe I’ll get a chance to test out the pro version.
Good work Eyefi! Thanks for sponsoring us with this product – I look forward to seeing what will come from you in the future.
