Wi-Fi SD Card

I just came across this article about an upcoming Wi-Fi SD Memory Card that should be out later this year.

I sounds like something that might be useful to our hobby (okay obsession ). I know before I got a 4GB card a lot of the time the only reason I opened my housing between dives was to swap cards. Hopefully the power drain on the camera battery won't be too much.

I wonder what the range will be like in water???

I just came across this article about an upcoming Wi-Fi SD Memory Card that should be out later this year.

 

I sounds like something that might be useful to our hobby (okay obsession ). I know before I got a 4GB card a lot of the time the only reason I opened my housing between dives was to swap cards. Hopefully the power drain on the camera battery won't be too much.

 

I wonder what the range will be like in water???

Of course you would need a WiFi hotspot in the area you are diving for this to work... and I doubt it will make it through an aluminum housing. Otherwise an interesting idea!

What little range might be left after a WiFi signal gets out of the camera and housing will lost in the first few inches of water. The only way to travel through water is to use low frequencies or near the visible spectrum. WiFi is neither.

Above water, the only way this could work is with a plastic housing. I think changing a card once a day is much more appealing!

I think it's a cool idea though. The Jobo GigaVu Pro Evolution has a CF card slot that can be used with a WiFi cf card to provide a wireless FTP server. If your camera has wireless funtionality then you can upload pix directly to the Job while you're shooting.

Not a wireless SD card would need a compatible camera. Most cameras are only "expecting" to find storage media in that slot, right? The cameras that "do" wireless have a separate transmitter that plugs into the USB or Firewire port on the camera. There are a few little compacts that have "built in" wireless transmitters too - so they already exist.

Cheers

James

2.4 GHZ RF has a nasty habit of doing badly when making the transition between surfaces. I doubt that the signal would make it underwater.

Obviously, I didn't really think this would work from underwater, but wouldn't it be great if it did.

However, I do think it would work with aluminum housings. Most of the signal will just bounce around in the housing, but a long as a reasonable beam emerges from the port, it should work.

Considering the wavelength of WiFi is about 5"/125mm, the "antenna" of the SD card is likely to be placed in close proximity to solid aluminum sidewalls of the housing and a metal chassis of the body, and the camera is likely grounded to the housing, I'd say that makes a very effective Faraday cage. The signal won't bounce around inside at all. Even if it did, it would be greatly attenuated by the time some of it slipped through the lens mount opening. You'd have to set it next to an AP to have any chance at all.

I set up a WiFi AP in my room on a steel-hulled liveaboard once. The signal turned the corner out the door into the hallway and that was it. It got about 6 feet outside my room and that was with 42" by 7 foot door openings. I doubt it would do better with 10mm openings, but give it a shot!