Tong Family

Wow what a strange application SONY has written. I’m not sure why they did it this way but it is sure confusing.
First of all setup is really confusing:

1. You first download the Imaging Edge application from the AppStore
2. You then must connect via WiFi. This requires you navigating to the Ctrl w/Smartphone entry. Going to the Wifi Settings does NOT work although it seems like a better name. On a Sony A7R this is in the Network 1 menu. Then look for connection.
3. The camera then displays a QR code. Go to the phone application and choose scan QR code. This gives the phone the magic wifi access point for the camera and also a secret password.
4. If you have an iPhone X then there is an NFC reader at the very top of the phone. And if you have a Sony A7R III there is a tiny N on the right side. This isn’t documented anywhere but if you stick the top of phone up against the little N you don’t need the QR code. If your phone is older when click connect camera you will only get the QR code option for the NFC one.
5. My iPhone X hangs trying to do the WiFi connection and remote control but my iPhone 6 works. So probably a bug it just hangs. However even though you don’t get remote view. Having the WiFi connection work is enough to kick the iPhone application to display the Location linkage stuff.
6. Note that you can only have one phone at a time paired to be location information so choose wisely. It does seem like Sony really wants you to have a full time iPad to work with the camera. Makes sense this is kind of a pro feature.
7. Note that if the app forgets the camera. Which happens pretty often none of this works because the phone is caching the wrong credentials. The connect seems to happen but the phone hangs on a spinning wheel and the camera times out.
8. The fix is to go to the WiFi Settings in Network 2 menu and go to SSID/PW reset and then try to connect again.
9. Now you will immediately drop into remote control mode and you can set your camera and take photos remotely. At this point the application is stuck in this mode. The only way to do the next step is to turn off the camera to break the WiFi connection. Also note that when you are doing this remote shooting and automatic download of photos to your phone you cannot use the internet as the WiFi connection is being taken up.
10. Turn the camera back on and now when you navigate Only when you have the WiFi connection done will the iPhone application show the Location Information Linkage But you can’t be connected to the camera via wifi.
11. So you must make WiFi work first before getting to this. Note that you cannot setup the Bluetooth connection from the iPhone Settings. You have to do the Bluetooth setup in the Sony application. I don’t know what handshake they are doing. But click on connect
12. Now go to your camera and go to Bluetooth Settings in Network 2 and choose pair
13. At this point on your phone your camera should show up as unpaired camera. Click on it and this should set location linkage.
14. Note that the Bluetooth connection is super flaky. If you wait a long time the location no longer appears. The only fix seems to be to quit the entire application on your phone and restart it. So when taking photos you have to go to the display and see if the location icon (it’s tiny and looks like a map) is on. Or take a test photo and then choose display when you hit play. If you did it right one of the panels should show lat long on the image.
15. Finally the Imaging thing is quite buggy and can forget the various settings. If this happens the fix appears to be to try to start all over. Make sure to reset WiFi passwords first as when it forgets the credentials seem to get screwed up.
16. The Imaging iPhone app when it starts asks about gps location and only sets if for while the application is running. This is actually pretty useless. Set for always available so the gps is always there.

Basically with this iPhone application you can sync with a later model SONY camera for daily use here is what you need to do

1. Make sure the imagine application is always. The last setting should make that unnecessary but you need this to see if the Bluetooth connection is there.
2. When you want s remote control, change your WiFi setting on your phone to the camera access point and then when you go to Imaging application you will drop into remote control.
3. Kill the remote by disconnecting from the camera WiFi