[frankoz]

Hi Everyone,

As a user of Eye-Fi X2 Pro cards in both my K3 and Ricoh GR, I have just received an email entitled "Important News Regarding your Eye-Fi Card".

In a nutshell is states:

"Effective today, June 30th 2016, we will no longer be offering support for our legacy product lines, a complete list of which appears below (in the email). This notice formally begins the final stage of the "end of life" (EOL) process started in mid-2015 for the affected products.IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT CUSTOMERS CEASE USING THESE PRODUCTS NO LATER THAN SEPTEMBER 16, 2016 AS SOME KEY SERVICES THESE PRODUCTS RELY ON WILL BE SHUT DOWN AT THAT TIME".

Mobi and Mobi Pro Cards aren't affected.

Folks, perhaps I've been living under a rock the last 12 months but I have seen no earlier advice of this discontinuation nor can I find any clear reference to the decision by Googling.

I spent some AUD200 about 2-3 years ago to buy these cards and I'm fairly p....ed off that they are taking such a dismissive, arrogant and frankly unethical approach to the many clients that paid good money for their service.

To send a perfunctory email, with no offer of residual support is outrageous.

Is this news to anyone else?

Keen to hear.


PS: Apologies if this is the wrong forum..hopefully someone can redirect, if so.


rgds

Frank Oz

[Zygonyx]

Ricoh nor anybody did buy that part of their business....

[Jonathan Mac]

Sounds outrageous to me that a perfectly good product should become unusable because some services it uses are going to be shut down. I don't know what those services might be though, to keep a wifi memory card running.

I use a Toshiba Flashair, a much cheaper option, though since I changed phones/Android version in January it hasn't worked properly at all. It doesn't rely on any external services though.

[frankoz]

Ricoh nor anybody did buy that part of their business....

Zygonyx,

You are correct...see https://x2help.eyefi.com/hc/en-us

So why would eye-Fi/Ricoh choose to do something so abruptly?

Thanks

Frank Oz

---------- Post added 30th Jun 2016 at 09:34 PM ----------

Sounds outrageous to me that a perfectly good product should become unusable because some services it uses are going to be shut down. I don't know what those services might be though, to keep a wifi memory card running.

I use a Toshiba Flashair, a much cheaper option, though since I changed phones/Android version in January it hasn't worked properly at all. It doesn't rely on any external services though.

Hey Jonathan,

I agree - Eye-Fi was a little buggy to begin with, but i have found it useful overall, particularly if I'm on holiday and I want post a couple of pics on social media.

I don't use their backup facility, I take RAW almost exclusively and prefer Lightroom/Smugmug as a solution, but their email is not clear when they talk about discontinued services. I suppose my iPhone or Android app that I use now to transfer flles may be shutdwn, I'm not sure. If that happens the wifi card is a brick.

rgds
Frank Oz

[ruggiex]

It's stupid that they can't even guarantee user to fall back to direct mode. I bought the Pro cards a few years ago and discovered how pain in the butt it is to switch the destination (I.e. to my mobile device while on the road and to my NAS while I'm home). Making that simpler without the cloud has been a feature many people asked for a long time. I never understood the praises for the product. Glad most cameras are starting to have wifi built in. As crappy as the apps are, it's still more functional than Eye-Fi for my workflow. I'll never recommend EyeFi to anyone especially after seeing this email. Hopefully someone will take the time to hack it open now.

[Jesse Parker]

Hey guys, I just came across this thread trying to figure out what was going on because I received the same email frankoz did this morning. I also was unaware of any previous contact from Eye-Fi looking for any prior warning in my email but there was none to be found. I literally have had my 16gb X2 for 1.5 years and purchased it 3 months before the obsolescence cutoff. Man I'm upset. So upset, in fact I went to their website and wrote to them through their customer request submission form. After a few choice words I sent the email and immediately got a response that I had been received, but they were no longer responding to emails in regards to the X2! Now I'm really upset I can't even complain. So I sent the same email request form but just put Mobi as the product I was emailing them about and it went through. Apparently I'm now due a response.

Bottom line is that customers have a reasonable expectation that products new purchased will last several years. It is unscrupulous for them to kill a product and then attempt to make us believe that a limited supply with a discount of 20% on up to three cards is going to make it right. That is just borderline fraudulent and a scheme to move more units most likely because of declining sales. The more appropriate thing for them to have done was A) give advanced notice and B) allow a 60% discount to replace any obsoleted card the customer possesses.

Ultimately I told them I would be happy to discontinue using their product permanently unless they would like to replace my card free of charge. I will not support any company that calls me a loyal customer and pulls a move like this.
Plus why in the world would I want to buy a Mobi card anyway. It will probably be obsolete next year and the technology is already 3 years old.

Sorry for rambling but I promised Eye-Fi that I would warn people not to waste any more of their time and money with their products.

[dperreno]

I got that same email this morning announcing that AS OF TODAY the older cards were no longer going to be supported. The email referenced an end-of-life process begun in "mid 2015," but today's email was the first I had heard of it. I went back through my email but there were no prior notices of this action. I'm pretty pissed.

[JimF]

I am also a pi....off Eye Fi X2-Pro user. Also never heard of this issue (planned end of life) until this morning. I certainly do not want to send them any more money, even at a "deep discount". Thus my questions: What other options exist for similar functionality? Flucard, other? Any experiences ?

[squareeyes]

This is shameful and abusive behavior! I have been a "loyal user" since Eye-fi first released their products. I have close to a dozen (OK, nine) cards up to 16GB X2s.

Since I don't use their hosting or social media services, I expect my functions will continue—local network transfers only. But abandoning OS updates and continued function in the rapidly changing world of Wi-Fi is a real problem.

I imagine there are some lawyers out there smelling class action suits. There have been consumer protection laws mandating parts and support availability.

Unfortunately, a coupon with a small fraction of the new purchase price is likely all that will be offered.

[Vylen]

This is one of the pit-falls of using an online service - nothing can stop a company from pulling the service right from under you.

[RonHendriks1966]

Well so much for a productie like this. Cloudservice that doesn't generate revenues will stop at some point in time. All of them.


https://www.pentaxforums.com/articles/hands-on-reviews/eye-fi-pro-x2-hands-on...t.html?src=all

[frankoz]

Hey All,

Glad to see I'm not an orphan. The interesting thing is that Ricoh have bought Eye-Fi. https://x2help.eyefi.com/hc/en-us

They should realise that we have used that service to cover their own inadequacies over the past 3 years and cut people a break. I've never used their backup service, but I do use it to transfer the odd jpeg for for facebook/twitter use.

I have the K1 now but ironically it won't transfer to a PC while the Eye-Fi does.

Okay, so business is no good, but don't kill off a product you've sold 1,000's of - will make so sure you as directors of your company, never influence idiots like me to buy such product again.

Sadly, the f/wits at Ricoh have either done this unwittingly, or worse in full knowledge.

FrankOz

[monochrome]

1. Ricoh Imaging did not buy Eye-Fi. Ricoh Innovations bought the Cloud Hosting Service which was required to address X2Pro. cards
2. I bought a Mobi card to bypass the cloud requirement, but I lost my card ID, so I can't use it and they can't help me.
3. IMHO Eye-Fi EoL'ed the service and sold the remaining assets to Ricoh Innovations. Ricoh has no causal relationship with the obsolete X2 cards

[K David]

Sounds outrageous to me that a perfectly good product should become unusable because some services it uses are going to be shut down.

This is the future of consumer products. You will buy the product and license the software on it and when the maker decides to stop supporting the software and force you to buy a new item, they'll simply send out a software suicide or lock command and brick your product. You still own it. You can still do whatever you want with it, so long as those things you want to do with it don't require using the software on the item. In time, this will likely make its way into cell phones, computers, and so forth, too.

---------- Post added 07-01-16 at 11:21 AM ----------

This is one of the pit-falls of using an online service - nothing can stop a company from pulling the service right from under you.

The same applies to software on any web-enabled device.

[frankoz]

Must just be my week, or perhaps EOFY is the cause, now Evernote are locking down their free service to 2 devices, or charging if you want more. Guess that's the way it goes.