New Eye-Fi SD Card Connects To Smartphones

By Douglas Perry
published

Eye-Fi announced a new version of its Wi-Fi-equipped SD card.

 The Eye-Fi Mobile X2 integrates 8 GB of memory and is able to create a Wi-Fi connection to smartphones or tablets such as the iPad without the need of a WLAN or a Hot Spot. The technology is called Direct Mode and will be supported with free Android and iOS apps.

The manufacturer said that the new card will be released to retail on April 17 and sell for $80. Direct Mode will be offered as a free upgrade to previous X2 cards later this week. The X2 Pro will be reduced in price from $150 to $100.   

“When we undertook a redesign of the Eye-Fi card line a little over two years ago, the new X2 card platform promised users the potential for new, exciting capabilities over time. Today we see another one of these revolutionary capabilities come to life: Direct Mode,” says Yuval Koren, co-founder and chief product officer of Eye-Fi.

Douglas Perry
12 Comments Comment from the forums
  • vk_87
    Great! Thanks to you, Apple, we have an ecosystem of products which should have been "actually" integrated in your devices. But its all right, i'll just get another 3rd party app for that
    Reply
  • house70
    SD Card and ipad? Where?
    Reply
  • nukemaster
    This card has been sold for some time for digicam users. It is a nice feature for all your images to auto transfer to your computer.
    Reply
  • now make it with class 10 performance and we can start to talk.......
    Reply
  • realtychris
    OK I am a little resistant.. this peace of technology here in reference to wifi and such.. OK so if your phone is not on your phone companies 3g or 4g network.. OK here it is.. """" !!why are they charging you?!! """"
    Reply
  • ThisIsMe
    realtychrisOK I am a little resistant.. this peace of technology here in reference to wifi and such.. OK so if your phone is not on your phone companies 3g or 4g network.. OK here it is.. """" !!why are they charging you?!! """"Did you even read the article? It's about an SD memory card that has a wifi feature built into it. It has nothing to do with any company's 3g or 4g service at all. It's a memory card. You put it into a camera. It's what holds the pictures that you take when you use a camera. However, instead of having to take the memory card out of the camera and insert it into a memory card reader, it has the wifi feature so it can send the pictures straight to your PC or MAC without wires. There was already a reference to this by a previous poster

    nukemasterThis card has been sold for some time for digicam users. It is a nice feature for all your images to auto transfer to your computer.
    The thing that makes this "new" is that they are making an app so it can transfer the pictures and stuff to an iOS device or Android device via their respective wifi features instead of having to tranfer to a PC or MAC computer first.

    So to Answer your question, they are charging you for buying their product (which is the SD memory card with built in wifi) because that's how things work. You want something you buy it.
    Reply
  • kelemvor4
    house70SD Card and ipad? Where?RTFA before you comment.

    The SD card goes into your digital camera, and connects to your phone or iJunk over wireless so you can easily get photos from the camera to the device.

    This is a really great item, I'd love to have one for my Nikon D90 to upload stuff to flickr or wherever via my droid.
    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    kelemvor4RTFA before you comment.The SD card goes into your digital camera, and connects to your phone or iJunk over wireless so you can easily get photos from the camera to the device.This is a really great item, I'd love to have one for my Nikon D90 to upload stuff to flickr or wherever via my droid.Agreed, but a CF card instead for people who still have "real" SLR cameras.
    Reply
  • the product is great for folks who spend alot of time uploading pix to online services but you have to bear in mind that the device re-compresses and optimizes the picture for transfer over wifi, which may result in loss of details and introduction of compression artifacts
    Reply
  • kelemvor4
    ReCompressthe product is great for folks who spend alot of time uploading pix to online services but you have to bear in mind that the device re-compresses and optimizes the picture for transfer over wifi, which may result in loss of details and introduction of compression artifactsEww. That's definitely a problem for someone using an SLR since they're most likely very concerned about quality.
    Reply