The expanded service relies on Eye-Fi's Hotspot Access feature, for which a one year subscription is included with Eye-Fi's Explore X2 and Pro X2-series cards. Connect X2 and Geo X2 owners can add Hotspot Access to their cards for around $30/year, the same price that Explore X2 and Pro X2 card owners will pay after their bundled subscription expires. The new Eye-Fi X2 card firmware v4.2001 and Eye-Fi Center desktop software v3.1.9 bring integration with Devicescape's EasyWiFi hotspot access infrastructure, allowing users to automatically log into pay networks such as Boingo, BT Openzone, T-Mobile, SFR, Orange and Vodafone using their existing credentials, and to connect to campus networks at a selection of schools and universities around the world. Directions for updating the firmware, configuring the Eye-Fi X2 card, and adding hotspot credentials can be found on the Eye-Fi website.
For customers who don't need the expanded hotspot access, the new firmware and software bring a variety of other useful updates. The new X2 card firmware enables support for Sony videos stored in the MP_ROOT directory, prioritizes selectively-shared media ahead of unselected media, and changes power-on connection behaviour to wait for wireless channel scans to complete, preventing the card connecting to a configured infrastructure network if there's also a configured ad hoc network also in range. Finally, a bug related to Canon cameras failing to display the “uploaded” icon in photo preview mode has been fixed.
The new Eye-Fi Center desktop software adds support for multi-resolution thumbnails for locally delivered photos, adds a keyboard shortcut to add or remove files in the FileSlideshow widget, gives account settings a separate dedicated dialog, allows registration of multiple Eye-Fi cards in one Eye-Fi Center session, and adds tips on using the application. Memory utilization has also been improved, the "Open in Day View" option should now go to the correct page in the day view if there is pagination in that day, and users can now specify how many photos they wish to see in the day view.
