Accessing an Eye-Fi card remotely

[wawayanda]

Been trying to figure this out for a timelapse set-up that I'd like to do.

If I'm using an eye-fi card in a device in a building with a wifi network, am I able to log into the card from my computer at another location to see the files on it?

If so, is there a particular eye-fi (or other wireless SD card) that has this particular capability?

 

[USAFRet]

Been trying to figure this out for a timelapse set-up that I'd like to do.

If I'm using an eye-fi card in a device in a building with a wifi network, am I able to log into the card from my computer at another location to see the files on it?

If so, is there a particular eye-fi (or other wireless SD card) that has this particular capability?

I do not believe so.
The basic function of the Eye-Fi (I have a couple) is WiFi transfer of files from the card to a device. PC, tablet, whatever.

I will play around with my camera this evening after work.

 

[wawayanda]

I do not believe so.
The basic function of the Eye-Fi (I have a couple) is WiFi transfer of files from the card to a device. PC, tablet, whatever.

I will play around with my camera this evening after work.

Thanks for checking - if it turns out you can't access remotely, another possibility would be if you can set it the Eye-Fi to automatically upload videos to Youtube.

 

[USAFRet]

OK, some investigation:

The Eye-Fi ecosystem was rebranded in September 2016.
The old cards, and the Eye-Fi software, could take pics off the card, and upload directly to the Eye-Fi cloud, Facebook, or an FTP server.
But this still required some internediary device (tablet or PC) to do the actual upload. The Eye-Fi card did not have enough brain to log onto a particular FB account and do its thing.

But those old cards are now deprecated. There is/was much uproar over this. I know *I* didn't like it.

Post Sept 2016, Eye-Fi was rebranded and refunctioned into Keenia.
The new cards and Eye-Fi (Keenai) software, of which I have one (32GB Mobi Pro), can't do that anymore.

It will, given an intermediary tablet or PC, upload the pics to the Keenai cloud. You can view them from there.
Read more here:
http://www.diyphotography.net/eyefi-drop-support-cards-will-magically-stop-working-september-16-2016/
https://help.keenai.com/hc/en-us/articles/235062648-What-does-Eyefi-Cloud-becoming-Keenai-mean-for-Eyefi-Mobi-Mobi-Pro-customers-


To your original question, no, you cannot "log onto" the card and view its contents. It is not a 'server' that would allow that functionality.

Bottom line...the cards will upload to some other device. That device and software can automatically upload to the Keenai cloud.
Or, you could create some script on that device (tablet or PC) to upload to Facebook or elsewhere. Or log onto that device remotely.

The card cannot do it on its own, nor can you log onto the card. It does not have a large enough brain for that.


May I ask what is the use case for this? There may be a different solution that would work for you.

 

[wawayanda]

"May I ask what is the use case for this? There may be a different solution that would work for you."

Thanks. That all makes sense. You asked for the use case:

My project: I have a lake house that I don't get to as much as I'd like. It has a beautiful view from the kitchen window and my thought was that it would be amazing to take a timelapse each day and be able to view it from my computer at my full-time home.

In a perfect world, I'd mount a timelapse camera in the window, set it so that each day it will take a video and then automatically upload that video to YouTube where I'll be able to watch it from my full-time home a hundred miles away.

I'm very much a novice, but my research suggests that I could get a Brinno TLC200 Pro. It appears that it is possible to set that up to have a start and stop time each day, and it can save each day's video as a separate file.

The question then is how to access those and view them and/or upload them to youtube. I have seen some articles that suggest the eye-fi cards allow you to directly upload to youtube, but there is very little detail on how this works and whether it can be set to upload each completed video file to Youtube automatically.

Regardless, I may have an extra tablet lying around that I could have powered up and plugged in next to the Brinno that could do the uploading to the Keenai cloud. But if there's any way to skip that step, that would obviously be ideal. I understand Keenai charges a monthly fee, so if there's a way to avoid that as well, that would be good.

Thanks for the help!

 

[USAFRet]

Assuming this place has a regular internet connection, there are any number of surveillance camera setups, ranging from $300 to however much you want to spend.
Higher cost generally = better images.
Accessible from anywhere, in a browser, phone, or tablet.

This this discussion from earlier today:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3321375/security-cameras.html

 

[Paul NZ]

Whatever it's in does it support it?? Just because it fits, it doesnt mean it'll work

 

[USAFRet]

Whatever it's in does it support it?? Just because it fits, it doesnt mean it'll work

Eye-Fi cards are mostly (but not 100%) camera agnostic. The card and the software it talks to are the only things that count.

If that Brinno thing just takes a series of stills (jpg) then it might work.
But it would still need some regular device to be the brain and upload those pics to somewhere.
And given a 'regular device', you could cause that to upload to anything you want. FTP server, Facebook, Dropbox, wherever.

 

[Paul NZ]

I know some camera support eyefi cards like the digital/video cam i have here. Thats why I asked if it supported eyefi

 

[USAFRet]

I know some camera support eyefi cards like the digital/video cam i have here. Thats why I asked if it supported eyefi

One of my older cameras is specifically not on the approved list.

I asked the Eye-Fi people at the time.
They said "eh, try it. If it fails, we'll refund"

It worked.

 

[wawayanda]

I looked at the security camera options, but the nice thing about the Brinno is that it is designed to do timelapse and automatically stitches all the images together to output as an AVI file. And the quality on the TLC200 Pro looks good enough, based on the Youtube videos I've seen.

So it appears that my best bet is to take a tablet (I have an Android tablet that I'm not using) and set that up for the Eye-Fi card to upload to. Presumably I wouldn't then have to upload to Keenai? I could instead have the Eye-Fi card upload to a dropbox app on the tablet? Or even directly to youtube?

 

[USAFRet]

Couple of potential issues:

You'd have to get a Mobi Pro

The standard Mobi cards only do .jpg. The Pro adds transfer of video, incl .avi files.
Mobi:
https://mobihelp.eyefi.com/hc/en-us/articles/201153460-Supported-File-Formats
Mobi Pro:
https://mobihelp.eyefi.com/hc/en-us/articles/204131934-Mobi-Pro-Features-and-Technical-Specifications

Card capacity.
When the card is full, that's it. You're done. The earlier renditions of the Eye-Fi cards had a feature (Endless Memory) that would delete files that had already been transferred, at a percentage that you set.
For instance, if the card was 80% full, delete earlier ones.

That function has been removed. So once the card is full, it is full, and you need to erase it manually.

File size.
The videos must be under 2GB each.

You could use IFTTT to opload to Facebook, Twitter, etc. But that evidently requires use of the Eye-Fi cloud, which now requires a subscription
https://mobihelp.eyefi.com/hc/en-us/sections/200835024-IFTTT-Recipes-for-Eyefi-Cloud

However...since you can designate whatever folder you want in the Eye-Fi application, I see no reason why you can't have the DropBox application look at that folder and do the upload by itself.


Camera compatibility
Will it work with that Brinno? Completely unknown. You'd have to just try it.
I looked around, and could not find their database of compatible cameras. Maybe ask them.