I’ve been interested in Eye-Fi since Adam Tow told me about them a few years back. I finally received a camera that accepts SD cards in December, so I took the plunge and got the Share version of the card. I didn’t fully understand how it worked at the time – it’s a bit more clever than I’d initially thought.

The basic set-up is pretty simple.

1. Set up networks on your card.
2. Set up preferences for what desktop machine and what web services you want to push your photos to.
3. Take photos.

I misunderstood what happened next. I thought that the card uploaded to your computer, using it as an intermediary to then go on to your web services. It’s actually much smarter than that. Here is what actually happens:

4. Eye-Fi card connects to the internet directly and uploads photos to the Eye-Fi service.
5. The Eye-Fi service pushes the photos to your web services.
6. The Eye-Fi app on your desktop downloads the photos from the Eye-Fi service.

This is a much better implementation than the one I understood from the Eye-Fi marketing materials. In particular, it means that I can take photos at work, have them upload to Flickr using the work WiFi network, and then also suck them down on my home desktop machine later that night.

The only downside to the Eye-Fi card is the need to keep your camera on in order for it to upload the photos. A trade-off that I don’t mind at all given the convenience that the card provides. I’m really pleased with it and highly recommend it.

Here’s an Amazon referral link if you decide to buy one: Eye-Fi Share