# NOT NEARLY AS GOOD AS IT SEEMS!!! M50 Auto transfer of images to smartphone



## CarlMillerPhoto (Jun 11, 2018)

Bought the M50 as my travel camera. Loving it...mostly. The auto-transfer feature (where it sends a photo to your phone as soon as you take it) was especially appealing to me as I post to Instagram regularly. However, I've discovered the issues below. I will be emailing Canon about this, but want to corroborate here that the issues aren't just unique to me.

[list type=decimal]
[*]The M50 will not automatically re-establish a wifi connection with my phone after a power cycle. If I turn the camera off (as one is likely to do) or it goes to sleep (see next bullet) I will have to also pull out my phone, open the Canon Connect app, and reconnect wifi....each and every time. I believe you have always had to reconnect Canon cameras via wifi after turning off and back on, but to advertise an auto-transfer feature it seems really silly not to have also implemented an auto reconnect capability.
[*]The LCD does not snooze with wifi on. Indeed the "LCD Snooze" function which I mapped to the trashcan does nothing while wifi is on. It seems that the LCD being on and wifi being on are inherently linked. Not sure why...it would be great to offset wifi battery usage by not using the LCD
[*]If you force the LCD to sleep by closing it against the body (using the viewfinder instead), wifi will turn itself off after 30 seconds of inactivity. It doesn't matter what the camera sleep settings are...30 seconds and wifi is turned off, and you don't usually realize it until you're wondering why the pictures you just took aren't on your phone. There's no setting for this in the menu.
[*]This might just be the case for my specific android phone, but I can't have the Canon Connect app in the background when I lock my phone. I have to lock my phone with the Canon app open or pictures won't transfer consistently.
[/list]

To me, these make the auto-transfer to smartphone feature pretty useless and definitely goes against the way it's marketed. Think about every time your camera sleeps or you turn it off....that moment is the end of your wifi connection until you set it all up again. If I spend a couple hours at the zoo, I'm not going to pull out my phone at each and every exhibit to reconnect when I turn my camera back on to start shooting. It'll take up less of my time to simply select which photos to transfer at the end of the day - a feature Canon wifi has offered for a while. 

Is this the same for everybody else with the M50? Surely Canon can make this work A LOT better....


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## 9VIII (Jun 11, 2018)

It is amazing how often it seems like the companies making these prodects never seem to actually use them.

But if anyone can get it working right it’ll be Canon. Most other companies seem to barely manage to get a camera and phone connected in the first place.


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## jolyonralph (Jun 11, 2018)

It is true that camera->phone connectivity is awful in most cases. Especially on the iPhone where the more rigid App model makes it pretty much impossible for transfer-type things to happen unless you've specifically opened an app.

The problem is that phone manufacturers are keen to promote the benefits of their own built-in cameras and have little time or interest in building better communication systems to work with cameras, so camera manufacturers are pretty much left to building the software on their own which inevitably doesn't work very well.


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## CarlMillerPhoto (Jun 11, 2018)

jolyonralph said:


> It is true that camera->phone connectivity is awful in most cases. Especially on the iPhone where the more rigid App model makes it pretty much impossible for transfer-type things to happen unless you've specifically opened an app.
> 
> The problem is that phone manufacturers are keen to promote the benefits of their own built-in cameras and have little time or interest in building better communication systems to work with cameras, so camera manufacturers are pretty much left to building the software on their own which inevitably doesn't work very well.



Make sense about app development obstacles. But my suspicion is that Canon doesn't automatically turn on wifi after a power cycle to save battery....that they're afraid (justifiably) of all the poor reviews and complaints of short battery life by people never realizing wifi is on the whole time.

What makes it obvious that it's possible is the auto home network transfer feature, as discussed in this article: http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2018/eos-m50/eos-m50-images-to-computer.shtml The M50 is able to automatically connect to the home network when it's turned on. 

My phone would automatically connect to the M50's wifi if it would just broadcast a signal after being turned on!


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## slclick (Jun 11, 2018)

My M5 to CanonConnect works fast and flawlessly. You would think it would be the same for the M50. Maybe it's a PEBCAK issue.


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## CarlMillerPhoto (Jun 11, 2018)

slclick said:


> My M5 to CanonConnect works fast and flawlessly. You would think it would be the same for the M50. Maybe it's a PEBCAK issue.



Your M5 automatically re-establishes a wifi connection to your phone after a power cycle?


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## dave_bass5 (Jun 17, 2018)

I’m having a nightmare with my M50. First time i set it up it worked perfectly. I could transfer images even with the camera off. After a week or so it seemed to crash and i was getting an error telling me WiFi is off, turn it on. When i turned it on I would then get an error telling me WiFi was in use, and to turn it off. Took me about 3 hours to get it working as it should. This has happend 3 times now. 

Currently i have Bluetooth working fine, WiFi working fine, but not together unless I manually turn WiFI on and leave it on. BT is supposed to turn WiFI on, negotiate the connection and hand over to WiFi. This is the part it wont do, no matter what. Tried it on 4 devices now, all new devices and none will get this connection going as it should. Works fine with WiFi already on though, so i know its not the app, or devices, its on the camera. Tried all the usual reset connection stuff, many, many times. 

Ive spoken to 3 people at Canon, but they won’t agree there is an issue just that I’m doing soemthing wrong.


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## CarlMillerPhoto (Jun 17, 2018)

dave_bass5 said:


> I’m having a nightmare with my M50. First time i set it up it worked perfectly. I could transfer images even with the camera off. After a week or so it seemed to crash and i was getting an error telling me WiFi is off, turn it on. When i turned it on I would then get an error telling me WiFi was in use, and to turn it off. Took me about 3 hours to get it working as it should. This has happend 3 times now.
> 
> Currently i have Bluetooth working fine, WiFi working fine, but not together unless I manually turn WiFI on and leave it on. BT is supposed to turn WiFI on, negotiate the connection and hand over to WiFi. This is the part it wont do, no matter what. Tried it on 4 devices now, all new devices and none will get this connection going as it should. Works fine with WiFi already on though, so i know its not the app, or devices, its on the camera. Tried all the usual reset connection stuff, many, many times.
> 
> Ive spoken to 3 people at Canon, but they won’t agree there is an issue just that I’m doing soemthing wrong.



Transfer images with the camera off? I'm very skeptical that was the case....

As far as issues establishing Wifi connection, I haven't had an issue when I navigate to the Canon Connect app to set it up. Just irritated it can't broadcast a wifi signal automatically once turned on.


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## dave_bass5 (Jun 18, 2018)

CarlMillerPhoto said:


> Transfer images with the camera off? I'm very skeptical that was the case....
> 
> As far as issues establishing Wifi connection, I haven't had an issue when I navigate to the Canon Connect app to set it up. Just irritated it can't broadcast a wifi signal automatically once turned on.



Eh? Maybe you should ready the manual, if you do actualy own the M50. If not maybe download it and you will see there is nothing to be skeptical about. 
To come on here and doubt someone that owns a piece of gear that you dont seems ridiculous, and of no help to anyone, no matter how ‘informed ‘ you try to sound.


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## CarlMillerPhoto (Jun 20, 2018)

dave_bass5 said:


> CarlMillerPhoto said:
> 
> 
> > Transfer images with the camera off? I'm very skeptical that was the case....
> ...



I apologize, my mistake! I just tried reviewing images on my M50 while it was turned off...and it worked!


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## dave_bass5 (Aug 7, 2018)

CarlMillerPhoto said:


> I apologize, my mistake! I just tried reviewing images on my M50 while it was turned off...and it worked!


No problem. Every time ive mentioned this ive been told i have it wrong. Ive given up talking about it now. 
Can i ask if you got it working without having to have WiFi on? This is my issue. It did work and now it wont. Even with yesterday’s FW update it wont work for me anymore. If i have BT and WiFi on, and the camera off it works ok, but thats not the point.


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