Can Eye-fi be bidirectional?

[Divine]

I had read about Eye-fi cards so I added one to a recent order. 16gb + wireless for $100.

Despite the best efforts of those who wrote the instructions, I have managed to get it to work with my android tablet. Now I take a photo and it is magucally transferred from the camera to the tablet when next they are next in range of each other.

Coupled with a USB drive connected to the tablet, my photo backup issues when travelling seem resolved.

On the "wouldn't it be lovely if" train of thought, does anyone know of any way to use the Eye-fi card in reverse - i.e to use a tablet computer to remotely control a Canon EOS650D camera?

Thanks in advance,

Gordon

[arthurking83]

I don't think the manufacturers would make possible the ability to communicate from the card to the camera(which is what would be required).

Camera manufacturers seem to have a preoccupation with designing DSLRs with the express intent of subsequently selling over priced accessories for these DSLRs to those us us willing to pay for them.

From that, they would then deliberately engineer these DSLRs with annoyingly proprietary connections to which you attach these accessories to allow advanced operation via the use of those accessories.

Wifi communication, if not already available as an accessory option, would then be achieved via the acquisition of one of those accessory devices, which you pay handsomely for from the respective manufacturer.

To allow advanced bidirectional data transfer between camera and card, would then mean that you could easily purchase one of these Eye-fi cards instead of a manufacturer made and marketed accessory.
That is, Eye-fi would get your extra dollars, not the manufacturer of the camera!

While the manufacturers add support for Eye-fi cards to their camera for the purpose of reading those types of cards, unless Eye-fi paid some sort of royalty to the manufacturers I don't think you would ever see this sort of feature.


Nikon have a cheap(ish) Wifi adapter available for their newest line of low end consumer orientated DSLR bodies .. I reckon Canon will follow suit soon, possibly with either an accessory(that plugs directly into the camera) or possibly even as an onboard solution within the body.

summary: I wouldn't be holding my breath waiting for such support from the manufacturers.

[arthurking83]

This CameraMator (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/urashid/cameramator-wireless-tethered-photography) thingy is more like the kind of device that's required for WiFi communication.