Trail cam that sends pics Suggestions please
 

OK
So with all the time spent hunting cows this year due to open gates, I am considering trail cams that send pics to my phone.

I am just wondering which would be good, pros and cons when looking for one.

I want it to send pics to tell me the gate has had some action and also know if the cows have gone through.

It will allow me to go up and close the gate and get the cattle in before they spread to the 4 corners of the earth!

Any help would be greatly appreciated

This is a fairly big decision, so I am willing to visit folks that have good advice to get it all figured.
I am NE of edmonton

I have used Spypoints for a while, do not get their Live or mini-live series. Its quite the hassle to get them set up. The Link series cameras work really well. No issues with mine, easy set up. Even have a free cellular option if only getting 100 pictures a month from the cameras (This is what I'm using). Only hassle could be having good cell service in your area. They are starting to get some nice options with their cell cameras also. They now have the solar one, which I haven't tried. But I have a few of their regular solar cameras, and haven't touched batteries in them for over a year now, and still fully charged. Great picture quality with these cameras. I'm sure there are other good options, but my only experience is with Spypoint.

I'm not sure of the brand, but my brothers father-in-law bought 4 or 5 that work very well and have a little solar panel that keeps them going pretty much trouble free. He uses them in the shop yard (not for hunting). I will try and get the brand name.

The free monthly plan sounds interesting.
100 pics a month free...can you trigger it from your phone to take a pic.
One pic a day to check the gate would be great!

I am sorry that I do not have anything to offer for trail cam advice,however,a few years back,I too ,was plagued by guys leaving gates open.I finally talked to the local bee keeper and had him put hives at each gate opposite from the opening end.End of problem.If you move slow,the bees will not bother you and not once was anybody stung while opening a gate.

Good thread, I too have been looking at converting from SD card cameras to Cell cameras, that said some of my spots will get 2000 pics a month... how do you decide which you transfer?

I guess I have to do some math to decide if the time/gas it takes to check cameras is equal to or less than the cost to operate a cell camera.

I am now looking at Spypoints mySPYPOINT as it looks pretty reasonable for 5 cameras for $30.

I have a spypoint link 4G. It only send pictures on motion detection or at a pre set intervals (30 seconds to 1 hour apart). It would be nice if you could trigger it to take a pic but you can't.

You need GOOD cell service for this camera to work reliably. You need 3 bars of service. I had mine in an area that had 2 bars. My phone worked fine but the camera would not work. I talked at length to spypoint about this and the bottom line is you need a certain level of signal strength for the thing to work reliably and that is 3 out of 5 bars. If you don't have that at the location don't bother.

Last e-mail from spypoint:
My engineer just told me that the best possible signal strength is -53 DBM’s. Your signal of -43 DBM’s is a result of the camera displaying false information as a result of the poor quality of the signal. Anything lower is a result of the camera not recognizing the exact signal strength (as a result of the signal quality being too poor). Your signal strength seems to vary between -98 and -100 DBM in the locations where the camera is unable to send the photos. It’s a matter of setting up the camera somewhere where it will get between 60 and 90 DBM’s in the “network test” mode. Doing so should then allow the camera to record and transmit photos normally.

You will need to get the 12V battery adapter and run it off a car sized battery. The AA's only last 2 weeks max (depending on your settings).

Good luck

Trail cam that sends pics Suggestions please
 

Ridgetech hands down (formerly UWay). Set it up at Telus for picture texting ($15 per month). Works awesome and best customer service. No I don't work for them, just a super happy customerhttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...a1346d938f.jpg

I only have 1 cellular game camera, which is a ridgetec. I originally bought a UWAY MB 600 last year, it stopped working after about 2 months in the field. I sent it back to UWAY after a conversation with them, they replaced it with somebody else's refurbished piece of crap camera which really Pi$$ed me off (I could tell because my camera was essentially brand new and I had written my name in permanent marker on it, the camera that they replaced it with was really badly scratched up, looked like it had been used for several years). I called back and they apologized and sent back a brand new Ridgetec camera.

I have had the camera up since Mid summer of this year and I have to say I was not happy with the Uway experience, but the ridgetec has honestly been great. I was getting texts sent to me (with 12 AA lithium in the camera) when it was -20c last week. The pictures as you can see from the post above are nice and crisp and clear.

I run about 20 cameras total, love the spypoint cams but have not tried their cellular cam as of yet. If the quality is anything like their normal cams, I don't think you would be disappointed with it.

DR