Eye-Fi Review

Overview
The Eye-Fi is a new gadget that just came out for the 2007 Christmas buying spree. It looks and acts just like a 2GB SD memory card for your camera, but it has a secret hidden compartment with a magic teleporter that sends your photos through the ether to your computer and/or your favorite online photo sharing site (Flickr, Smugmug, Costco, etc).


The Details
To the camera, this looks like any other memory card. You can take as many pictures of your cats or your flower garden as you like and it'll be stored just like with any other card. But there's more to it. It's also a wifi card that will connect automatically to your home wifi network when you're in range and start sending your images over to a little server listening on your computer. You can also optionally set up an account with Eye-Fi's service where you give your Flickr (or other photo site) username and password and the photos will additionally be uploaded to your Flickr account by way of the Eye-Fi service. If you're not within range of your home wifi network, the card will store your images until it detects it's within range and then it'll start the transfer.

Setup was a snap, even for the less technically inclined. It has a little USB dongle thing with all the necessary software and drivers on there. You plug that into your computer once and that's that.

The Good
No more wires, no more manual uploading. When the image starts to transfer, a little thumbnail of the image pops up in the lower left corner of your computer. A progress meter tells you how the transfer is going.

The Bad
I'm not such a big fan of the idea of my embarrasing underwear photos flying around through the intertubes through a third party service that may or may not be around in a few months. There are ways around this, of course, like not using the photo site feature and/or setting the default to "Private". But still.

The good news is that if you're just using it on your local network, the photos never leave your network (I think). That is, I turned off my internet connection and took some pictures and they still showed up on the computer. Whether a not a secret copy of me in my underoos is sitting on the Eye-Fi servers has yet to be determined.

A minor thing is that if you turn on both the computer upload and photo site upload, you'll have to sift through 3 copies of your photos (don't forget that they're sitting on the memory card too) when it comes time to delete or organize.

If your camera only has Compact Flash, you may or may not be able to get a converter. I haven't tested this out, but there are some available for about $20.

The Alternatives
None that I know of.

The Verdict
If you hate manually uploading your photos, this is for you. You can pick one up for about 100 wingwangs on Amazon. Check out the Eye-Fi website.

Litter Robot Review

Overview
The Litter Robot is a self cleaning cat litter box made by Automated Pet Care Products. The cat goes in to do his/her business. 7 minutes later, the robot starts whirring and clicking and away goes the poop without smearing all over the place like with other self cleaning litter boxes. No more fighting with your Significant Other about whose turn it is to scoop even though she has 400 cats that crap like it's going out of style and you just have the one.

The Details
If you watch this animation of the litter robot in action, you'll see how innovative the design is. Basically long story short is that a pressure sensor signals the robot to start the countdown after the cat exits. Within 7 minutes, the clumping litter should have done its job and the leavings are ready to be reaped. The robot rotates and sifts out your cats' bundles of joy and then rotates back, dropping them into the bag-lined tray waiting below.

The Good
Scooping litter is a real drag, man. This little robo buddy eliminates that bit of tedium from your life leaving you to enjoy other tedium like doing the dishes and calling your family. Provided you have a good clumping litter (we use Scoop Away), it does an excellent job of sifting out the precious leavings. If you have one cat you'll probably have to empty the tray every two weeks.

The manufacturer gives you a 60 day money back guarantee, so if you're afraid you won't like it, you can always return it and just be out the return shipping.

The Bad
The cats were scared witless when we first installed it (except for the street cat who isn't afraid of anything, not even the vacuum cleaner). We put it near their real litter box and eventually they got used to it being there. Then one day I got tired of them being such fruitbags and I shoved them in there. They scratched around and eventually started using it. It took them about a week or so to defruitify.

It's also a little loud. Sometimes it wakes me up. But then again the bathroom is right next to the bedroom and I'm afraid of robot invasions, so I'm always on the alert. Move it farther away and it'll be okay.

It's a little wider and taller than a regular litter box, so you'll need plenty of clearance.

It's $300, which is pretty steep, but I hate scooping crap so much.

The Alternatives
There's a load of self cleaning litter boxes. I don't have any first-hand experience or anecdotal evidence to offer for any of them.

The Verdict
It's still too soon for me to give it a definitive yes, but so far so good. The litter robot has diligently scooped away our cat crap without revolting against us the way other robots tend to do.

Update - 5/15/2008
Seems like the poo smell has seeped into the plastic and even after a thorough bleach cleansing it returns after a few days. There are some products designed to get into porous materials, so we'll try those.

Panasonic Network Camera Review

Overview
The Panasonic Wireless Web Cam BL-C30A is a self contained network camera complete with its own web server and web UI. No computer needed at all. You connect the camera to your computer one time via ethernet, run the setup software (optional if you know what you're doing) and then flip the switch into wireless mode. Your router will be configured to forward the camera traffic correctly.

The Details
We went to Hawaii in the beginning of 2007 and couldn't find anyone to take care of the kitties, so we bought some automatic cat feeders, a water fountain and a network camera to make sure we can look in our precious little bastards.

The requirements for us were pretty strict. We wanted:

• A standalone camera with no computer needed
• Wireless
• Remote panning/tilt
  
• The ability to schedule periodic jpeg snapshots so we could connect
  and look thru the history of the last day
  
• No ActiveX, flash or any other proprietary gayness to view the video stream

These last two items were critical because I only had my PSP with me which can view jpegs okay, but that's it. The other option we had was internet cafes which usually disable stuff like ActiveX on their computers. Turns out the camera uses java to stream jpegs, so this worked out well.

At least at the time, this was the only camera that satisfied all the requirements. Since I've always liked Panasonic, I bought one and mounted it high on the bedroom wall.

All went well with the trip and now we use it to watch The Cat Show from work.

The Good
The camera works solidly and has a lot of cool features and configuration. You can select different resolutions and different preset positions or you can use the web UI to remotely position the camera by clicking on the part of the image you'd like it to center on. There's a privacy mode button on the camera for when you're scratching yourself in your underoos.

The image looks very good for a web cam and the fact that no computer is needed is just awesomo.

If you want to be able to view the camera from the internet and you have an IP address that changes every time you reconnect (you probably do), you'll have to set up a dyndns.org account. If you're not technically inclined, I think the camera software came with a free account on some site that lets you access your web cam easily. I never tried it though.

The Bad
Zoom would be nice.

Two way sound would be nice so you can yell at them if they're clawing up your stuff again or hiding your socks.

The camera has 2 mac addresses for some reason, and so you have to enter both of them into your router's mac filters if you're using mac filtering. It took me forever to figure this out. If you're not using mac filters, or you can figure out the two mac addresses, this shouldn't be a problem.

The Alternatives
There's a ton of network cameras. I've only used this one.

The Verdict
Granted something like this has a limited audience, but if you're in the market, we're very happy with the Panasonic Wireless Web Cam