Cell Trailcams

APAShooter · #1 11-23-2021, 11:20 AM

Looking at picking up a couple cellular trail cams for next year. Wondering what others have had good luck with here in Alberta? Best for getting service in remote areas, best rate plans, best battery life? The area i hunt has marginal cell service but i can text pictures most places with my cell phone. Any insight would be appreciated, thanks!

kingrat · #2 11-23-2021, 11:33 AM

I ran several tactacam reveal this year and loved them. Its 13 bucks a month for unlimited pics and cell service was great. If you have 1 bar on your phone the cam will have 2 or 3 because of the antenna I'm assuming. I highly recommend them. Having said that they are very distracting. I would be always looking at my phone to see what's there during movies, etc.

APAShooter · #3 11-23-2021, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kingrat

I ran several tactacam reveal this year and loved them. Its 13 bucks a month for unlimited pics and cell service was great. If you have 1 bar on your phone the cam will have 2 or 3 because of the antenna I'm assuming. I highly recommend them. Having said that they are very distracting. I would be always looking at my phone to see what's there during movies, etc.

Good to know, is there more than one model, what model do you have? Is it a yearly plan or can you pay monthly for the months your using it? I would only have it out for 2-3 months in the fall. How long do the batteries last? Appreciate the help!

Lefty-Canuck · #4 11-23-2021, 11:46 AM

Reconeco Outdoors cams are a local brand, the guy is out of Fort Sask.

LC

C2C3PO · #5 11-23-2021, 11:51 AM

My property is in a remote area with what I'd call "fringe" cell service - meaning that I can usually text pics from my phone but come across dead spots and the occasional delay (1-2 bars signal strength).
While I own or have owned almost every brand of trail cam out there I have only had experience with the Spypoint Link Micro LTE cell cam.
I can tell you I constantly have issues with them reliably getting it to lock onto a signal and send pics. I even bought an external antenna and mounted high up in another tree but saw no difference in performance.
This is with multiple units and not just one so I can say that it isn't just a hardware issue on one camera.
The same camera performs flawlessly closer to urban areas where signal is better but no so much where I need it to perform.

Joezam18 · #6 11-23-2021, 12:42 PM

Tactacam reveal takes great pics, is a cheap subscription and has gotten good enough service every place I have put it. I had some account troubles after 3 months and had to make a few calls, send a few emails, and ger things reset due to an error on their end, but I found the customer service to be acceptable. My brother has a spypoint and the pictures are not as good and he's had a fair number of technical issues with it without great customer support

kingrat · #7 11-23-2021, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by APAShooter

Good to know, is there more than one model, what model do you have? Is it a yearly plan or can you pay monthly for the months your using it? I would only have it out for 2-3 months in the fall. How long do the batteries last? Appreciate the help!

I've got the new reveal x, you can pay yearly or monthly, and I hooked them up to 12v marine batteries. You can choose the sd card overwrite option so your card is never full. You look on the app on your phone and it will tell you battery life, cell service level, etc and you can change settings from home as well. They have several different pic options, I chose the unlimited because they are over baits so I'd get 200 to 300 pics a night.

GoneOutdoors · #8 11-23-2021, 12:52 PM

I am running the moultrie delta. So far have been really good. Pic quality is very compressed so when you are looking at them sometimes they seem unclear. When you get the cards from the unit they are much higher quality.
Batteries are good. 12AA. If you have them sent to you as taken it kills them pretty quick if it takes lots of pictures. Service is the same - 1 bar on your phone is good.

Best feature is the app.

Worst feature - haven't figured this out for sure but if you don't have service - you can't take pictures. Known fact - if it doesn't have a cell plan it will not act as a normal camera. Tactcam will.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

bluetick · #9 11-23-2021, 03:34 PM

Spypoint have cheaper cams and a cheaper subscription by far out of any out there .,
I have 5 cams out and it is 99,00 a year =for 250 pics a camera regardless of how many cams you have as well they have the free 100 pic program which is great if you use the daily time set up to only take a pics at a certain time only.
Reception is good in most areas and the customer support is great .
The spypoints micro lTE was on sale this week for 129.00 at the Cabela and bass pro .great little camera .
As far as batteries ,if you run the energizer ultimate lithium they will last forever in all weather conditions
Pics are average depending on lighting but you can get 50 HD pics free with the subscription.

Esox · #10 11-23-2021, 04:42 PM

any experience with Ridgetec cameras?

DRhunter · #11 11-24-2021, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Esox

any experience with Ridgetec cameras?

I have a ridgetec, originally bought a Uway, it crapped out and it was replaced by the ridgetec.

They are great cameras, have to get an unlimited MMS plan through Rogers or Telus.

I paid about 3 times more for the Uway/Ridgetec (as this was my first ever cellular cam) than I did for the Tactacams that I run. For the price, you absolutely cannot beat the Tactacams in my opinion.

DR

elkhunter11 · #12 11-24-2021, 08:23 AM

A friend is running Spypoints on the property that I hunt, and the picture quality is disappointing. I am not sure what model they are, but I will be buying something else for myself next year.

rammer · #13 11-24-2021, 10:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joezam18

Tactacam reveal takes great pics, is a cheap subscription and has gotten good enough service every place I have put it. I had some account troubles after 3 months and had to make a few calls, send a few emails, and ger things reset due to an error on their end, but I found the customer service to be acceptable. My brother has a spypoint and the pictures are not as good and he's had a fair number of technical issues with it without great customer support

I notice their website talks about needing the ATT or Verizon wireless networks. What network are you running on in Canada?

Dean2 · #14 11-24-2021, 11:08 AM

First year trying these types of cell cameras. Used regular ones before. Have one Spypoint Mico with the Solar battery. Has been running for a month. No issues, Spypoint even remote loaded a software upgrade for me because it is located 300 miles from here. Customer service has been really good so far. Cell reception where it is, is a best spotty.

Every time it sends a picture it provides battery charge and cell service strength. Service has run from 0 once, 50% most times, and hit a high of 90% for a short while, all in exactly the same spot. If it can't send at the set time one day, it sends them all, the following day. You can set it to send every time it takes a picture but I don't see the point of that. It is set to transmit all pictures once a day only. Battery has never shown less than 100% charge, despite the camera and solar panel facing north (tried that to check worst setup). Thing that I think is really cool is I can adjust sensitivity, trigger delay, how many shots in a burst, picture quality etc remotely and it updates at the next transmission.

Picture of a Lynx taken by the Spypoint. It isn't DSLR quality but still pretty good, though not as good as the non-cellular ones were. There is two quality settings on the Spypoint med and high, this was shot on medium but downloaded as one of the 25 per month HDs you get. You do have to play with all trail cams to get the best results. Be interesting to see how this camera fares over the next 12 months hanging on a tree.

kingrat · #15 11-24-2021, 11:09 AM

At and t works in canada for the reveal. I'm through sasktel and no issues.

MK2750 · #16 11-24-2021, 12:11 PM

I bought my son the Tactacam Reveal and he has enjoyed them. I believe they miss quite a bit and the new X model does not get the great reviews of the old one. I was thinking of getting him a couple of the X models but now hesitant after reviews.

It is hard to go by reviews as some companies like Amazon offer rewards for good reviews and some people are so technically challenged they can't figure out how to turn them on.

People are raving about using security cameras that you can link to directly and cost roughly the same as the top end game cameras. The Reolink Go seems popular.

Dean2 · #17 11-24-2021, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MK2750

I bought my son the Tactacam Reveal and he has enjoyed them. I believe they miss quite a bit and the new X model does not get the great reviews of the old one. I was thinking of getting him a couple of the X models but now hesitant after reviews.

It is hard to go by reviews as some companies like Amazon offer rewards for good reviews and some people are so technically challenged they can't figure out how to turn them on.

People are raving about using security cameras that you can link to directly and cost roughly the same as the top end game cameras. The Reolink Go seems popular.

Agree on the reviews. I tend to put a lot more credence in the info on AO than I do on google or amazon reviews. So much fake both positive and negative. At least on here it isn't to hard to tell which guys know what they are talking about.

Mohawklax8 · #18 11-25-2021, 10:54 PM

Browning works well

Mohawklax8 · #19 11-25-2021, 10:56 PM

App is easy to use too

DiabeticKripple · #20 11-26-2021, 12:32 AM

i like using the cell links.

you can take a cheap camera and for $70 turn it into a cell camera. I havent had any issues with mine, but i did have one stop talking, but i havent been out to go check out why yet.

WhistlePig · #21 11-26-2021, 01:02 PM

I run 2 spypoint link-s cameras in 2 different locations as security. One is using the spypoint signal booster. I run 8 lithium batteries and they last just shy of 2 years. I also have it set to 3 pic groups and send immediately. I have had 2 cameras fail but both were replaced with no issues. I even had the second one stolen off my doorstep when delivered (may have left that part out) and they sent another one. I have the unlimited plan on one and the free plan on the other as I don't need more than 100 photos per month on that one. I'm not sure about what someone said earlier about running multiple cams on one plan. Might have to call and find out.

GoneOutdoors · #22 11-29-2021, 04:40 PM

update to what I posted... The unknown of moultrie delta - it will take pics if there is no cell service.

Have not tried it with a plan - lowest being 9$ a month.

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