There used to be SD cards with built-in WiFi which could sync photos automatically, but the main player in that space (Eye-Fi) went out of business and I don't think anyone else has stepped up to make a version of that which works with modern cloud services. Not enough demand now that smartphones have obliterated the consumer camera market, I guess.
Project idea: figure out a way to cram an ESP32 into an SD card.
It didn't even occur to me to check that but duh of course they do, everything has integrated WiFi nowadays. Does the software actually work well or is it a jankfest?
It's a complete jankfest on my Fuji camera. The app is super weird, the cam works more like an access point (if you want any degree of reliability), and so many other weird problems. Maybe a firmware update fixed that but the app is still beyond bad.
There are two apps from Fuji and i heard the newer one works better but the older one does not work for transferring pictures 70% of the time and unfortunately my camera is not supported in the new "Fujifilm X App"
Xapp works as well as I believe Apple lets them on iOS. You need to connect via the app, tap an iOS “Join WiFi” dialog, then 30-70% through the transfer it will stop and you need to tap again “This WiFi doesn’t have Internet, disconnect or continue?” and then it succeeds most of the time.
Don’t even get me started on Fujifilm refusing to support Geotagging unless the iOS app is in the foreground though. That is entirely Fuji’s fault and their design choice because apparently users complained that “it was tracking my location when the app is closed” uh duh that’s how geotagging works, turn off location if you don’t use it.
I have both the XT4 and the XH2.
I’m still surprised that in 2024 these big cameras don’t have a built-in something that does gps and sets the time correctly. The current time is floating in the air in radio waves. And gps units are small and with many low power options. Super annoying when you’re traveling around across timezones and suddenly all your photos are in the wrong time zone if you didn’t update it. Or if there is daylight savings update… And for gps, even a ballpark 1km gps range would be better than nothing.
The new app (XApp) is an improvement to the original one which worked maybe 15% of the time. Having to join your phone to the camera wifi is still a requirement
Sony's is a fuckfest, and so is pretty much everyone because Android sucks as well.
The main problem is Bluetooth is dog slow, so they use temporary Wifi networks which have to be manually confirmed twice (once in the app, once in the Android UI)... and the wifi obviously doesn't have internet, so after a short time Android nags you to disconnect because the wifi it's connected to doesn't have internet.
Hot take: All these are terrible, but not because the camera makers suck, but because there's no non-sucky way to do the thing we all would want:
What we want: Snap picture, picture is sent over high-bandwidth link to phone
Analysis: Can't be Bluetooth, also it's foolish to assume most pics are in wifi range of an access point, so it needs to be Wi-Fi Direct, like AirDrop is: Able to be performed with or without the parties being ON a network. The parties just p2p transfer the file.
More analysis: What would this take? 1. The blessings of the platform owners, at minimum Apple and other handset makers, probably Google too. The platform owners would need to provide:
1. Ability to make ad-hoc wi-fi direct connections with your other devices. APIs etc
2. Ability to either have your app running in the background, or be automatically silently launched in the background, to receive the image and add it to Photos.
No such abilities exist. All the cheesy hotspot things that they're doing is literally the only way to achieve such a goal without the cooperation of gatekeepers like Apple.
The (for me) most interesting thing is: why the fuck has no one managed to reverse engineer AirDrop and AirPlay yet, in a way that's mass market compatible?
Like, there is OpenDrop but that is dead since five years [1], it was a code dump by some researchers, and there are no client implementations to interact with Apple servers for getting keys, or with registering Find My devices...
reasons: 1. most other devices don't provides access to low level wi-fi drivers to actually support AWDL.
2. Airdrop is authenticated using Apple accounts on both sides.
3. legal foo
Samsung actually created such a monster. After a few zoom cameras running Android, they finally created the Samsung Galaxy NX, which was a mirrorless camera with a 20MP APS-C sensor and Android 4.2 (it was only slightly outdated on release in 2013). It's a mediocre camera (lacking most physical controls) and a mediocre android device (way too bulky and the fixed touchscreen isn't easy to use).
This is wrong. Wi-fi direct has always been possible with Android phones. Android even supports wi-fi direct connections simultaneously with wifi ap connections. Abdroid also supports the new wi-fi aware, euch simplifies initial contact via broadcasts.
I am not sure why the device manufacturers wouldn't implement it. Maybe they target iPhone first as the more premium users (which might only be true in the US), and then think they cannot support that feature for lowly Android users.
If enough devices supported this, Apple may be incentivised to follow?
If this is possible without any further APIs needed in Android, you should develop the next generation of the eye-fi type of concept which does what OP wants. You'll make a killing, and I agree, it's the kind of thing which theoretically could force Apple to at minimum steal your idea for their platform, or maybe if they're feeling generous provide an API for developers.
I agree with all of that, and that's an elaboration what the parent post said, but I still stand by my statement: the camera vendor apps are shitty because of that too, but they are also shitty because they are badly designed and coded.
the fact that there is no trivial way to transfer files between any two devices in the same room is one of the most pathetic failures of the tech industry
I don't find it that bad. On my Sony camera, you can click the "transfer" button on the camera and then put the camera in NFC range of your phone. Then the Sony app starts, shows you a dialog to choose the resolution you want to download (useless IMO, I just want the original resolution of course) and then the two devices just transfer it through WiFi direct without any problem.
That's my experience, I'm sure it doesn't work well for everyone and it's still too cumbersome to do it all the time. I only use that feature when I really want to send to someone a photo I just took.
Yeah I have a Sony as well, and the amount of clicking is pretty darn annoying for my use case - I document far-right rallies on Twitter, which means I gotta be fast in transferring pictures from my camera to my phone.
Ideally, I'd have the camera be constantly connected to my phone's hotspot so I can immediately browse the photos and upload them - partially because selecting photos on the camera to be transferred is a pain, and partially because while Sony does allow connecting to an AP and transfer from a laptop, it is an exclusively foreground application, meaning the transfer interrupts when I have to spontaneously make a new photo / video.
I managed to get my canon R6 to upload to an FTP server. Using their smartphone app was a nightmare because it constantly disconnects and it requires the phone to use the camera as a hotspot (and thus disconnect from any other wifi network for the duration of the connection.) Worst of all, the thing is so slow as to be nearly unusable.
The UX for uploading to FTP isn't great but it's relatively more tolerable.
Olympus OM-D E-M1: jank. It can only do a private ESSID created by the camera itself. There is an Android app from Olympus which works well enough if you just want to manually remote control the camera. Some people have found out parts of the protocol and have written open source tools to download images from the camera. Apparently that goes via HTTP, not HTTPS, so you have to place all your trust in the security of WPA.
I was still able to pick up some Toshiba FlashAir cards relatively cheaply. No idea what the deal was, but some seller in India had hundreds of them for sale really cheap.
I have no idea what the original FlashAir software looks like. Never even occurred to me to try it—just assumed it would be a nightmare.
But it works fine in my old Nikon with PhotoSync on iOS!
Yep. This is what I do with my r5. Connect to Wi-Fi network, configured to auto upload to ftp. Unfortunately no sftp support (but it will do ftps). It’s ok, but can sometimes be a bit unreliable.
What’s more annoying is that automatically adding geolocation data for photos requires a Bluetooth link to a phone via their app which seems pretty unreliable and sometimes messes up the ftp uploads. Older canon dslrs had built in GPS.
The Samsung NX1 and NX500 running Linux can be pretty easily scripted to upload JPEGs or RAWs to any online service, given that you have a Wi-Fi network with you. Unfortunately they are a decade old and rare on the second hand market.
Nikon Z series with Snapbridge are as good as you get on that front. They peer with WiFi or Bluetooth. You can actually remote control and view the camera with your iPad if you want!
