Comments on: Review: Eye-Fi Explore (Geotagging SD Card)

By: sarala

sarala — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 13:36:37 +0000

Thanks for the review and thanks to the commenters. I think I’ll not get the device although it is a great idea. I’ll have to wait for a camera that does it all and try to keep writing down where I took my pictures so I can manually upload location to Flickr.

By: JL Johnson

JL Johnson — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:57:48 +0000

Great review, oddly enough it is still hard to find someone on the web who will come out and say that this product isn’t GPS. The accuracy is a selling point for me, I need *want* consistent accuracy. I think I’ll be picking up the Nikon GP-1 or one of the cheap Chinese knock-offs

By: Jessica Sideways

Jessica Sideways — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:55:06 +0000

This looks like a nifty little device but personally, if I were taking photos around my home that I would later upload to Flickr, I would probably feel a lot better switching SD cards and then taking them. I provide a lot of personal data about myself, real name, the metro area of where I live and even the fact that I am transsexual but where I live is where I draw the line.

By: travis

travis — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 02:44:40 +0000

I’m looking at buying Nikon Coolpix P6000 digital camera which has a GPS geotagging built in. But I read reviews that unless it has clear view of the sky it may not get the gps coordinates. Obviously using wifi signals doesn’t have to worry about looking at the sky. I think using both technologies is good. I think that is what the current iPhone uses. I’m wondering if I had a gps enabled camera and I use this Eye-Fi card, how the camera would prioritize the gps tagging. If it would use the Eye-fi’s coordinates found or the gps in the camera.

By: Brian

Brian — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:51:05 +0000

Your readers should be aware (beware!) that these Eye-Fi cards have an extraordinarily high failure rate, unexpectedly dieing and taking all your photos with them with no hope of retrieval. I had one die within a month of owning it, as did an associate of mine (two months for him). If you check reviews around the web and even Eye-Fi’s own forums, you will find many, many accounts of people who have lost photos of whole vacations, reunions, weddings, and birthdays thanks to the heinous instability of these cards.

Nearly every person put in this position has said the same thing: I wish I could go back and never buy this thing. It doesn’t even work as advertised (the geotagging is a joke) and every time you take a photo you’ll have to wonder, “will these photos ever actually make it to my computer?”

Furthermore, should you be one of the lucky many to encounter problems, you will likely also find Eye-Fi’s customer service to be extremely slow either via phone or e-mail.

By: Eye-Fi Explore review - Hack a Day

Eye-Fi Explore review - Hack a Day — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:51:14 +0000

[...] now Eye-Fi has a whole line of different products. The top of the line is the Eye-Fi Explore, which supports geotagging without using a GPS. Instead of GPS hardware, it uses the Skyhook Wireless Wi-Fi Postitioning System, which correlates [...]

By: Joe Seidler

Joe Seidler — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:36:12 +0000

Mike,

First, thank you for confirming Eye-Fi Explore works with iPhoto ‘09 Places. I’ve read that the WiFi transfer of video clips can take a long time, and I often take many video clips as well as photos with my camera. I don’t use Flickr; I only upload to MobileMe web galleries, so I prefer to have all of my photos only go into iPhoto initially.

I guess I’m one of those few who wish Eye-Fi had yet another model that only added location info but didn’t upload to Flickr, etc. for a lower price than the Explore.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 15:00:05 +0000

@Joe Seidler: I’ve been enjoying my Eye-Fi Explore with iPhoto since last summer, and the location data works with iPhoto ‘09 just fine. And yes, you can just download to your computer using USB if you want — but why do that, when you can just use wifi to upload to your computer?

I’m still trying to figure out the best workflow to end up with geotagged photos on flickr and iPhoto — the biggest impediment, surprisingly, is iPhoto’s weird flickr integration.

By: Joe Seidler

Joe Seidler — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:36:23 +0000

Will the resultant photo location work with the new Apple iPhoto ‘09 Places? And do you have to upload your photos as soon as you take them, or can you leave them in the camera (as usual) and connect via USB when returning to my computer?

By: Michael Randall

Michael Randall — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 03:35:50 +0000

Why can’t someone write an app that will take the GPS data from the iPhone, and then receive the Wi-Fi upload of the images from the camera with the Eye-Fi card, and tag the images as they’re being uploaded into the iPhone for storage? It could then upload them or email them to your choice of locations.

By: Ken Chan

Ken Chan — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:15:43 +0000

Eye-Fi looks like a good interim solution. I was looking at the Nikon GP-1 GPS Unit, but that doesn’t work with my D50 or your D80. Beats buying a new camera.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:14:53 +0000

@chris – yeah you can do that.

By: Chris Lentz

Chris Lentz — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 17:12:39 +0000

Can you set custom setting with online services? If instance, could I set it up so every that is auto uploaded to Flickr is set to private?

By: Jarvik7

Jarvik7 — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 10:38:50 +0000

Useless without real gps. My iPod touch thinks I’m in Vancouver when I’m actually in Edmonton.

By: Paul Stamatiou

Paul Stamatiou — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 22:21:31 +0000

@globetrotter – I’m not sure if it works abroad, try contacting Eye-Fi support.

By: globetrotter

globetrotter — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:14:04 +0000

I plan on going to Europe in a few months, and would love to be able to track my pictures, so i know exactly where i was when i took them. This seems like a great helpful tool, and i don’t even mind if its off by 10 or 15 miles- in the grand sceme of Europe, just being identified in the correct country would be nice! Will it register in the EU, or is the location tagging restricted only to the US and Canada?

By: jonathan

jonathan — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 03:09:07 +0000

I have a question about the Eye-Fi Explore data transfer rate and behavior. First of all, is the Explore faster at wireless and/or connected data transfer than the previously released card types? Secondly, if you capture RAW+jpg with your camera, will the Eye-Fi smoothly transfer the jpeg files while skipping over the RAW files? Do the RAW files trip up the system?

By: metin

metin — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:11:16 +0000

i ordered the explore. a few days later i lost my camera along with the eye-fi card. i still have the eye-fi usb reader. do i need to reorder the package, or can i order just the 2gb card?

i would think though they’d have a tracking device to track where my camera is?

what do you think?

By: touristguy87

touristguy87 — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 23:10:34 +0000

…there is an error mapping gps coordinates to the satellite map on Flickr. Use the graphical map to check the error, not the satellite map.

By: ROD

ROD — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:44:59 +0000

if you have no geo info then it does not record any thing it is great to get home and your photos are there but dont go to strip club take pictures and leave wife GF home she will be watching show on your compy it will be allover when u get home if you have wifi signal when you snap it only takes less than a minute to get to your computer

By: ROD

ROD — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:39:35 +0000

I HAVE one of these beauty’s i figure the geo tag is a bonus sometimes its close i only used it a few times small town one was right on I was in Macdonald’s other close to burger king said i was in Denmark I think some place with names I cant read (its all Greek to me) any way it can lead you a astray but maybe could be used in court to prove you wern’t at seen of crime?

By: DKwan

DKwan — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 10:07:52 +0000

What happens if you’re at someplace without any wi-fi at all? If the pics would just get tagged with the last known position, that would kinda suck.

By: James Cassell

James Cassell — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 06:18:23 +0000

When I first started reading, I thought, “this seems like a useless toy,” but now, I see how useful this could be.

It’s a bit too pricey for me, though.

By: Ninjashuriken

Ninjashuriken — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 05:36:40 +0000

well, if we had more things that support sdio, we might be able to pull off a real gps.

By: Jonathan Solichin

Jonathan Solichin — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 01:03:27 +0000

That’s awesome. I don’t really mind that it’s not that accurate, unless of course, it tags the picture as if it was taken at Victoria Secret’s super store ;)