Eye-Fi Smart Boost feature drops computer from the picture

I've held off on buying an Eye-Fi SD card for my Panasonic Lumix because there were a few first-generation compromises to deal with. One of those looks to be addressed based on a new feature called Smart Boost. The new feature will be available on February 12th and can be used with existing Eye-Fi cards. Smart Boost removes the requirement to have a computer on when sending photos from the SD card. If your computer isn't powered on, your photos will automatically go to the Eye-Fi service, which can in turn shoot your pics to various photo sharing services like Flickr, Picasa, Shutterfly and more.

The option to cut the computer out of the loop is definitely a step in the right direction, but there's still a few more features I'd like to see before I grab one of these innovative SD cards; namely, the ability to use any open WiFi network and the ability to pick and choose which photos I want wirelessly transferred.

Comments

[Eye-Fi user]

"Smart Boost removes the requirement to have a computer on". Well, actually it's kind of the other way around.

Until now there has been no need to have your computer switched on for Eye-Fi to work and upload photos to websites like Flickr. In fact, keeping your computer on has made no difference since Eye-Fi has connected to the external site directly anyway and any transfer to your home compouter has gone trough the Eye-Fi server wich is a serous detour. The smart boost update will change that. Now, if you have your compouter on, Eye-Fi will first upload to pictures straight to your compouter (this should speed things up since it doesn't have to upload over a slower external connection to an external server) and when done, Eye-Fi powers down and lets your compouter act as a buffer and do the uploading to the external site. And if you don't have your compouter switched on, Eye-Fi will upload straight to the external site - just like before the smart boost update.