The German website heise.de reports that Nikon has received a “cease and desist order” (?) from a German D500 camera owner for falsely advertising the camera as Wi-Fi enabled. The WLAN only works with Bluetooth but not as a standalone Wi-Fi device as the advertisements suggest (Bluetooth connection to SnapBridge needed). Here is the translation:
Andreas V from Burzenbach has delivered a cease and desist notice to Nikon, demanding among other things to stop advertising the D500 as a camera with “integrated WiFI”. The reason: The integrated WiFi of the Nikon D500 is completely dependent to be controlled via bluetooth with the proprietary app Smartbridge. The app is only available for Android. A generic WiFi connection is currently not supported, while the D7200 or D750 [work even without bluetooth]. For the direct WiFi-connection you need to buy the very expensive Nikon WT-7 WiFi-adapter. The integrated WiFi is therefore according to Andreas V only of very limited use, which is not very easily detectable before the purchase, even by a technically savvy person. The marketing for the D500 is therefore misleading. If the cease and desist is valid is for the time being not known. Nikon offered Andreas to refund his purchase and is also mentioning that the iOS-app is planned to be released in August.
