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NEX-6 Wifi

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Syriac

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Just got my NEX-6.

Overall a terrific camera and I am positively surprised with the 16-50 kit lens.

However, the camera burns battery like there is no tomorrow.

Does anyone know if the WiFi is always turned on?

Can it be turned off?




thanks
 
I was wondering the same thing, as far as I can tell, it can't be turned off.

It's unfortunate, because I think it is one of the biggest draining factors. That and the viewfinder. I hope that they release an update to give the user the ability to turn off the WiFi, I have no idea why something so simple wouldn't be included from the get go.
 
As of my experience it's OFF, but gets activated automatically if you use any functions that requires WiFi... There you got the WiFi logo..
 
So far I love the NEX-6 camera and 16-50 lens. But yes, battery life seems short.

More frustrating is that I while I can connect to both a blackberry or Galaxy smartphone via wifi, I can't get any images transferred or viewed? What software is needed?

I also can't get it to connect to my home network where I would expect to be able to see the phone as a peripheral.

Help?
 
Ok, somehow with the play memories home software running, and when I used "send to computer" on the camera to set up the wifi connection, the PC found the camera finally via wifi. File transfer is brutally slow. Still playing with it...
 
I can't get it to work. Running the PC app on an old XP machine, turned off the firewall but the camera is still unable to connect. Am I supposed to do anything on the receiving PC machine except starting the Play Memories application?




Erik
 
I think that when the camera detects a wi-fi network it turns on its wi-fi hotspot:

Loading…

www.techradar.com

"It also defaults to a Wi-Fi-orientated option in Wi-Fi zones. Sony assures us that will be corrected with a firmware update, which we are eagerly awaiting. We will update this review when we have more information."
 
I have been trying like crazy to get the "send to computer" function to work, no sucess....

Anyone got it to work ??
 
Vernster said:
Vernster wrote:

I have been trying like crazy to get the "send to computer" function to work, no sucess....

Anyone got it to work ??
Click to expand...
Working for me here. It's really great when you just have a few images you want to transfer.

Obviously it's a bit slow if you have several GB of images/video to transfer and that will likely exhaust the camera battery before the transfer is completed anyway.

So, for a few images it's wonderful. For lots, a USB cable or card reader is better and that's okay.


I didn't do anything very special -- just installed the Sony software on the CD that came with my NEX-6.
 
Vernster said:
Vernster wrote:

I have been trying like crazy to get the "send to computer" function to work, no sucess....

Anyone got it to work ??
Click to expand...
I was under the impression that the camera only activates the WiFi if you start the app? Maybe I am wrong, but I use the Wifi in a fairly restricted way.


As I understand, there are several ways to get it to work.
  1. My preferred method is to use a tablet or phone as a local hotspot. This way the camera only sees the wifi network when I want it to, so the Wifi is normally not active, it only scans every so often.
  2. Configure the tablet or phone to be the hotspot, the camera will connect and then you initiate and control transfers from the camera. Works flawless - but watch out for reduced image sizes (you can reset this).
  3. You can also use e.g. the Android Gallery app and scan for nearby devices, this will find the pictures on the camera. I have not configured it this way, but I have read that other people made this work well.
  4. Then you can also connect over USB, but now you are cable locked. And you need a special USB read app installed.
  5. Another way is to use a router and have both a PC and the camera connected to the same network, so transfers can be done. This is very much like the EyeFi SDcard setup.
But if you want to use the remote app for the camera (remote viewing, shutter), you have to let the camera be the hotspot.
  • After you start the app, you have to connect to the camera's Wifi network (with your tablet or phone), and this seems to work pretty well.
While using this app, the camera is not connected to the tablet or phone hotspot (at #1), so picture streaming does not happen until you stop the app and let the camera reconnect to the hotspot or local Wifi network.
 
I bought a second battery and charger but I was pleasantly surprised that my rechargeable USB battery pack will charge the 6 just fine. The camera needs to be off but it's nice to give it some juice during down times.
 
blue_skies,

I am trying the last method on your message, trying to connect the camera to my home network and attempting to get my Windows 7 machine to view it as a network share. I'd like to be able to transfer RAW/JPEG this way rather than fiddling with a USB cable to card swapping.

However, I'm not able to get it to work. I setup the access point settings correctly, and the camera does seem to connect to my network (though I keep seeing the "ring of dots" constantly circling... not sure if it is trying to connect or has been successful). My network is using WPA Personal (PSK) + AES authentication. Perhaps this is the problem?

Ryan
 
Last edited:
ryanjg11 said:
ryanjg11 wrote:

blue_skies,

I am trying the last method on your message, trying to connect the camera to my home network and attempting to get my Windows 7 machine to view it as a network share. I'd like to be able to transfer RAW/JPEG this way rather than fiddling with a USB cable to card swapping.

However, I'm not able to get it to work. I setup the access point settings correctly, and the camera does seem to connect to my network (though I keep seeing the "ring of dots" constantly circling... not sure if it is trying to connect or has been successful). My network is using WPA Personal (PSK) + AES authentication. Perhaps this is the problem?

Ryan
Click to expand...
Very likely, can you set it to WEP, just to to try it out?




The rings of dots means failure, it is still trying.
 
I'm surprised that I'm the one who finds it midly annoying that WIFI cannot be used at the same time when the camera is charging.
 
Member said:
malch wrote:

Working for me here. It's really great when you just have a few images you want to transfer.
Click to expand...
I spoke too soon. It was working but has since become very unreliable, to the point of unusable.

From the camera, I select Playback | Send to Computer.

Now, most of the time, it tries to connect and eventually times out.

Interestingly, I have found that the camera does connect to my WiFi access point. From the router admin screens, I can see it and its IP address.

From my Windows box, I can ping the camera. So the networking aspects appear to working fine. In fact, I can even point a browser at:

Loading…

xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

(where xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx is the camera IP) and view that control file residing on the camera.

What is not working is... the Sony PlayMemories software and drivers (and all of the connections with Windows) are not waking up to handle the computer side of the connection.

I've spent about 2 hours on the phone with Sony support. No real progress but I'd encourage others to call in and create a "trend" in order to provoke some corrective action. I suspect that will take the form of an update to the PlayMemories software and/or drivers.

The camera side of the connection seems to work just fine.
 
Member said:
malch wrote:

I spoke too soon. It was working but has since become very unreliable, to the point of unusable.
Click to expand...
In fact, it stopped working completely.

However, I have just managed to get it going again. I went into Control Panel, Devices and Printers. I deleted the NEX-6 entry and rebooted.

The next time I tried "Send to Computer" Windows detected the connection and reinstalled the NEX drivers. The images were transferred successfully. It is still working, for the time being.

So, it seems that something clobbered the NEX drivers, an associated registry entry, or whatever, and prevented them from working. It remains to be seen how long it takes before the thing breaks again.

In any event, it seems that unloading the drivers and forcing a reinstallation can restore operations temporarily and that's progress.

Let's hope Sony can toughen up the drivers before too long.

I've spent/wasted several hours on this so I hope it's of some help to someone!
 
Snap from me, I logged 2 calls with Sony, waiting for the "Product Specialist" to pick this up on monday.

I had it working once, but its dead now .....
 
Yep I bought a desktop charger with 2 batteries and 12 volt Cig adaptor for 39.00 $

the batteries are lithium Ion and seem comparable to the sony battery I too did not like the

takeover mode the charger offered very pleased and batts are small enough to fit in my Magnetic tank bag / Camera bag .

On the Phone connection Verizon updated my Play Memories App for my Android Razr Maxx

Motorola phone that would not really work the functions now it works instant both on transfer

and the remote function , The Motorola Xyboard 8 in Pad in 4 G did work with the remote and

the transfer sometimes but usually not the App update fixed the Pad for full function as well

the App updates seem territorial on release and the Carrier seems to matter too but

checking on line might show the App Direction to other carriers like Att ect.

If anyone is interested in that Charger / Battery deal I would be happy to post a link it really is good quality.
 
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