Why do I need internet connection for local upload?

[marlic]

My Eye-fi card is working as expected, but I am trying to find out why I need internet connection just to do local uploading from my camera to my local computer in my own wifi hotspot. And why Eye-Fi keeps a copy of everything I uploaded in their server? I don't like it even if they just keep thumbnails? If that's the case, nobody concern about privacy? Can someone tell me how the Eye-Fi work behind the scene??

[MikeV]

An internet connection is only required to configure your Eye-Fi card. After the initial configuration of your card, as long as your computer and Eye-Fi card are connected to the same network (and configured correctly), an internet connection is not necessary. The Eye-Fi card will send out a broadcast message to all devices on your network once it is connected... Your computer running the Eye-Fi software will see this message (as long as it's not being blocked by a firewall program on your computer) and will begin talking with the Eye-Fi card so that your pictures are transferred to your computer.

If you have a firewall program on your computer, or you have set your network connection to "Public" in Windows Vista/7, your computer will probably not receive the broadcast message from the Eye-Fi card. If you have Relayed Upload enabled, then your Eye-Fi card will go to plan B and use your internet connection to send the pictures to Eye-Fi's servers, where your computer will download them from there and they will be removed from Eye-Fi's servers after successful download. Make sure that your firewall is set to allow incoming connections to the Eye-Fi software, or that your network connection is either "Home" or "Work" in Vista/Win7, so that the Windows Firewall applies less restrictive security settings more appropriate for a private network.

Also, those thumbnails are not stored on Eye-Fi's site, they are stored on your computer. The Eye-Fi software maintains a cache of thumbnails on your computer, and they are displayed from your computer when you log into the Eye-Fi Manager website. The path to the cache folder may vary, but on my computer running Windows 7, it's C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Eye-Fi\cache\thumbnail.

[marlic]

Thanks MikeV, for your detail explanation. But I am not sure if I am using a MAC makes a different here. Everytime I launch Eye-Fi manager, it routes me to http://manage.eye.fi in a browser. Nothing is working if I disconnect my wifi hotspot from the internet. I would expect it to work, but it doesn't. That's why I am confused of how it supposed to work. So where is that Relayed Upload setting you were referring to? Is that a settin from the Eye-fi manager or the firewall/router setting? Maybe that's turned on by default, but I certainly do want that to be off.

As for the thumbnails, I am pretty sure they're not coming from my local computer because I can see them from the "completed upload" notification email, and when I login to manager.eye.fi away from home network(iphone using 3G), I am still able to see the thumbnails images.

so what am I missing here?

[hyachts]

Thanks MikeV, for your detail explanation. But I am not sure if I am using a MAC makes a different here. Everytime I launch Eye-Fi manager, it routes me to http://manage.eye.fi in a browser. Nothing is working if I disconnect my wifi hotspot from the internet. I would expect it to work, but it doesn't. That's why I am confused of how it supposed to work. So where is that Relayed Upload setting you were referring to? Is that a settin from the Eye-fi manager or the firewall/router setting? Maybe that's turned on by default, but I certainly do want that to be off.

As for the thumbnails, I am pretty sure they're not coming from my local computer because I can see them from the "completed upload" notification email, and when I login to manager.eye.fi away from home network(iphone using 3G), I am still able to see the thumbnails images.

so what am I missing here?

Relayed upload is enabled or disabled on the Settings page under upload settings, if memory serves. If it is disabled and you do not have a web destination configured then your photos should never leave your local network. I was pretty sure that email notifications were only available if you had relayed upload or a web service enabled, so if you're getting notifications it seems like you must have one or both of those things set up.

[marlic]

Ok, I think I know where you're talking about now. I did disable the web upload part(used to go to picasaweb). I have not receive any notifications after that. But that doesn't explain why my local upload won't work when my wifi is NOT connected to the internet. Any ideas?

[MikeV]

If you have a Mac (sorry, was assuming Windows), go into Apple Menu > System Preferences > Security > Firewall... From here, the setting you need to change will depend on if you have the latest updates to the OS... If you can make sure that it's not blocking all connections, and add the Eye-Fi Manager to the list (this may be under Advanced, depending on your OS version), then try again and see what happens.

If it's still not uploading to your computer, disable or stop the firewall, then see what happens.

If it's STILL not working with the firewall disabled entirely, there's gotta be something else going on here, and I'd say to contact Eye-Fi Support. I haven't used Eye-Fi too much with my Mac... more with my Windows system.

[kurt19xx]

Ok, I think I know where you're talking about now. I did disable the web upload part(used to go to picasaweb). I have not receive any notifications after that. But that doesn't explain why my local upload won't work when my wifi is NOT connected to the internet. Any ideas?

I've the same problem on my mac (OSX 10.6). Marlic, did you find any solution? Thanks

[mik2065]

My Eye-fi card is working as expected, but I am trying to find out why I need internet connection just to do local uploading from my camera to my local computer in my own wifi hotspot. And why Eye-Fi keeps a copy of everything I uploaded in their server? I don't like it even if they just keep thumbnails? If that's the case, nobody concern about privacy? Can someone tell me how the Eye-Fi work behind the scene??

I finally got it to work and only load to my computer ---they do not make it an easy set up .
For some unexplained reason they INSIST that the card be configured on line -----not a logical thing to me but it is what it is.
Set it up and then remove the local net work from the selection and you will be able to use it with just your computer . I have a Mac with 10.6.8 and my guess is this thing was first designed for a Windows system and you know that the thinking there is never logical LOL
It will work but even then it is not fast enough to be of any use ----

[MikesTooLz]

You would think that it would look for local eye-fi center PC and load there first. You have the fastest transfer and its instantly backed up to your PC.
Then from the PC its sent up to the relay servers to go out where ever it needs to go. If no local eye-fi center PC found it then would attempt direct upload to the online relay.



I dont know if its just me but its like Eye-Fi get these things all to somehow work in a weird way. Market it as if its dead simple and just works as advertised. But then never discuss how it actualy works or when needs to be done. A great example is the endless memory. They market it as never needing to swap SD cards because as soon as the photos are uploaded the space is cleard for new pictures. To get this to work however you must do multiple Power On/Off's to get the memory to clear. No place other then comments here in the forums is anything ever even said about needing to turn the camera on/off for endless memory to work.



We need to have detailed instructions for each feature and what all is involved to get it to work consistantly every time. Its like they dont want to give out the information in fear of letting out some "secrets" about how their card does things, yet its done at the customers expense. We are the ones that get frustrated when they dont work as they should.

[jsun]

You would think that it would look for local eye-fi center PC and load there first. You have the fastest transfer and its instantly backed up to your PC.
Then from the PC its sent up to the relay servers to go out where ever it needs to go. If no local eye-fi center PC found it then would attempt direct upload to the online relay.

Yes, that's how it works. If you're connected to a private network, the card typically looks around the LAN for the system listening for uploads, and if it's able to connect that is where your files are sent first.

Even if you only want your media to upload online, I always recommend setting a local computer destination, so the card can finish uploading as quickly as possible and you can turn off your camera. Then the Eye-Fi software takes care of the rest.

I agree with your overall points that our documentation could be improved, and I believe that is being worked on. I don't think it's about "secrets" as much as striking a balance between the less technical and more technical users. Still, I agree that certain features are under-documented. We do mention some details about Endless Memory and the other transfer mode settings on our support site. http://support.eye.fi/software/account/transfer-mode/

[MikesTooLz]

Yes at the very end of the support item for endless memory I see the last sentence is.

Images and videos will only be deleted by Endless Memory when the card is power cycled.

That should not be known only by people looking for support after they cant get it working or wondering why its not working.
when enabling/selecting the extended memory percentage it should tell you right then that it only works after a power cycle.


Eveything should be presented up front without the expectation of users never needing to visit the Eye-Fi website for support.