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[perkiset]

Their support representatives know little more than what they can read in their support system. I worked today with several, over several hours, rewiring network tests a bunch of ways to satisfy their VOODOO assertions about how networking is, or what they need, or how things have to be.

The requirements for the card are way beyond what they describe anywhere in technical or marketing information, or even what their sales staff says. And frankly, WAY WAY beyond what should be necessary - for me to copy photos from the card to my local PC, why should I have to open pinholes in my public firewall? They could not even describe if they needed port forwarding, and if so to what ... they just need port (x) to be "open." The card can't get information up to our server without it. Um, but the ... card ... is ... pushing ... data ... to ... you ... Why do you need to be able to initiate things at me? And if my local computer is on DHCP then how can I assign port forwarding? Um, can you just please take more pictures right now and see if it's working yet?

I've not heard so much bluster and bullshit about how networks work for a great long while. They really wanted to mask their incompetence and inexperience with pseudo complexity and distraction. Obviously, if you're trying to get something to work, this is a bad plan for you, the consumer.

What I am guessing is that they've built a very narrow and brittle network layer in the card. Unfortunately, there is little you can do to triage a problem with the card in place - it either works or it doesn't. Their support staff seem to understand how to check the boxes, but not what's really going on. At one point I was so frustrated that I drew and faxed them a network diagram so that they could see exactly what was going on (it is totally uncomplicated) and perhaps even take the data to an engineer. Barebones comprehension. Like they flunked out of networking 101. Miserable.

So - speak to a real engineer or escalate the problem? Nope. Clients cannot call in and make contact with engineers. But we can give them a message and they can try to call you back. On their schedule. No, we cannot schedule them to call at any particular time. Maybe tomorrow. No, we cannot give you any specific times at all. "I'm sorry sir, but if you are unwilling to do things the way we need them, then there is nothing more I can do for you."

BLOODY HELL. Horrible product, badly designed. Incompetent support staff that could barely do more than I can do by simply looking at the options in boxes.

Stay away from them.

[nutballs]

Not sure why it is so complicated?

At home it's just plug in and go. Next week well get it figured out.

[perkiset]

I postulated: could be the camera? Nope. Could be the EyFI card itself? Nah. Has to be your network.

I brought in a wireless and built a "home network" just for the test. No workee. F'reals: "Well, but this network is in an office. And office networks are very different than home networks." Where's the hair pull out smiley when you need one?

Could be Win7? Don't think so. How do we test any of it to see where it fails? Can't. Would you please just take more pictures and see if it's working now? Hmmm. Ok let's add the network again (works flawlessly) and take more pictures. No? Hmmm. Did we try adding the network again? How about now, does it take pictures yet?

I noticed on their support line that it said your PC OR MAC that is running the software needs to be on ... I didn't try the Mac version yesterday because I didn't think I had a full-time on machine close - but I realized that I do now (the music server). So perhaps that's worth another shot.

In the mean time, looking at other cameras with WiFi built in. Suggestions?

[nutballs]

Hmm.

It really should just work. That's why tech support is not able to help.
The simplest setup is that a computer on the local subnet has the eyefi center software running on it. So the camera station at rose for example at the nurses desk. That then is where you physically setup the card. No pinholes, no nothing. It establishes a p2p connection with their server which acts as the intermediary. In eyfi center, set up the local save path, which can be a unc share or mapped drive.

I know that is not the ideal setup since the photos go through their server, but if you can't get that working even, then something is wacky.

Technically I run that exact setup at home. I have the same firewall, a pc, wifi, etc. It's all the same.

[perkiset]

Tried: single router, NAT, distributing, bridged, local machine on WAN side, LAN side of router, repeated for strength, addressing hard, DHCP, un filtered routing between any position, forwarding 59278 on public firewall into Windows machine, again LAN and wan side of airport, changing folder names, position, camera.

To demonstrate unfilterdness to boneheads I was browsing an Apache server on my Mac from the Windows machine, the Mac being in an exact peer position of where the card was in the wireless network. Deleted and added rhe network (each one) to the card at least that many, times with successful results. They even noticed on their side that the card was pushing data up to their server. "but that doesnt mean it has access to the internet." Reformatted the cards memory probably a dozen times, created 3 different wireless networks, ran wire and brought everything to within about 8' of each other because distance matters. "yes, even on your wired network, the length of the cable can matter."

I'm telling you, I think Ashton Kutcher must have been in charge of support yesterday.