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.