Cellular Cameras

Is there a thread on these?
If not what are y’all using?
I’m looking at buying two and not sure what I want. Hoping I can benefit from y’alls experience with them.

I really like the Spartan Gocams I have. Only other one I have had was a Covert and it was ok. My Spartans are Verizon service and I added them to my cell plan for $5 a month. AT&T is a little higher I believe.

I will say be mindful that 3G service is being fazed out. Verizon has announced December of 2019 as their stop date for 3g service. Not sure about other service providers. So be mindful that you will need to need to buy 4G cameras. And you will also need to make sure whatever service provider you have works in your area.

AT&T will keep 3G until the end of 2021. I have had good luck with 4 Bushnell Aggressor cellular cams. Long battery life using Lithium AA batteries.

What does the service for ATT run for a useable plan? I see they have different plans avaible but that doesn’t really break down to how many pictures I can receive.

Use the cheapest plan. They text pics to you so they don’t need minutes. I added my coverts to my plan for 9 bucks a month.

With the Bushnell AT&T cams the first month is free and then you have a choice of plans through Bushnell, I use the 1500 pics /9.99 plan. The AT&T chip is embedded in the cam so you do not deal with AT&T. They have an app for viewing, you have the choice of thumbnails to text or email or both and they always go to the app and website when you are signed up. You can get individual high res photos for extra if you don't want to wait till you pull the SD card. You can also change cam settings from the app or the website when enrolled....

BTW with the Bushnell cams the pics are not always transmitted immediately, mine are about 75% immediately with the rest showing up later....this is prolly due to mine being in the woods and in a bottom in Northeast Tx. The cams actually show a better signal than my S9+

I use Spypoint and Stealth cellular cameras.

Spypoint point will be $120/year for unlimited data (Verizon version or AT&T)

Stealth is $75/year/4gb data for AT&T. It is enough data for over 3k pics a month.

I have both of them on 12v battery boxes with solar attached to battery, so they last forever if in good sun. If I put the cameras in the woods, I use AA batteries. The spypoint last a little longer because it transmits pics in much lower resolution (still good enough to see).

Stealth should be coming out with Verizon version soon....Verizon is difficult to work with.

I would stay away from Moultrie. I had the MoultrieMobile MV1 for over 2.5 years. During that time, I've had countless issues with cameras and service. Pretty much the first year that I had Moultrie Mobile, I was without service for or without a functioning camera for more than half a year. Suffice to say, the quality of service is severely lacking the competition.

During one my calls to Moultrie Mobile support last spring, the customer service rep said that once the MV2 came it out that Moultrie might consider discounting it for existing users wishing to upgrade, but that never materialized. I literally just sold my MV1 modem on Ebay on Sunday for over $100. I’ll be switching to Spartan sometime this spring.

Four guys on my lease switched to Spartan last fall with absolutely no issues. In that time, 5 other guys with Moultrie have had A) gone extended periods of time w/o service despite having full batteries B) made the 400 mile round trip out to the lease just to troubleshoot their cameras or C) ditched Moultrie Mobile altogether and just went to old SD cards.
Regarding Moultrie, I personally, I went a 3-week period in early October with no service at all. And then it all started working magically again on its own. These issues are par for the course with Moultrie. I think almost every Moultrie customer would agree that owning the hardware and paying for the service has been far from a painless experience. I paid $20 a month for many months where I literally had no service at all.

Faulty cameras, as well. Countless time troubleshooting issues until they finally replaced my POS m999i with a new s50i. More issues after that with the actual service from Verizon. Service would just randomly stop (this happened to all of the guys on my lease). Sometimes it would start back up again on its own. Sometimes it would require a trip to the lease to reset the modem. Total PITA. And 3G is obviously a dinosaur that has more and more towers going out of service every month and will be obsolete by the end of this year.

Also had MANY battery issues. The instructions that came with the cameras state to use one kind of battery, while Moultrie support tells you to use a different kind of battery. Same with SD cards...had to replace with the most antiquated cards that you can find. Also would get out there to the lease with them on the phone and they had me move the equipment around and move it back to the original spot...all kinds of stuff like that, as well that put me out of commission. App was REALLY spotty and crashed a lot for quite a while, but it's working well since the last major update.

I had several of the Bushnell cams. Moslty I was happy but I did have a a couple of issues. I sold them when we got off our lease figuring I would buy new ones a few years down the road when I find a new lease.

IMO wireless game cams are still game cams and I've had issues with every single brand over the years. I wish Cannon would come out with one. It would probably be more expensive but definitely higher quality.

Good to know. I ordered a Spartan that is due for delivery today. Would've gotten a cellular game cam sooner, but the choices and reviews were overwhelming. After seeing a large sounder appear at one of my feeders on a non-cellular game cam while I was BBQing on a Saturday night... I felt it was time to bite the bullet and get one.

Fortunately, AT&T signal is very strong in my area so I'm mainly interested in reliability - which Spartan seems to have.

Here is a place with honest comparisons of cell camera's.
Trailcampro.com

I run the Spartan Go cams and they work great. They don’t take the best day time pics, but I use the primarly for hogs and raccoons at night. Night time pics are very good.

I bought a SpyPoint after seeing a buddy in KS use it with no problem on his wetland. Now 3 of us have them on our least in Paint Rock. We've had zero problems. I like how easy the app is to use as well as it comes with it's own sim card you can activate thru the app. No one to call. They also give 100 free pictures/month. So, unless you want unlimited pictures the service is free once you purchase the camera. I also like that you can do a 3 month unlimited plan as well without having to buy a yearly plan that I woulnd't use the other 9 months out of the year. There's some stuff I don't like about their software they could easily fix, but due to the other ease of use I've seen I've looked passed that.

I will say buying the Link-S that has the built in solar panel is well worth the money. I like how it's all integrated into one package. I have the Link-Evo with the external battery pack. It will run for months on unlimited, but I saw right away having to charge the battery was going to be a PIA to me. I did learn that it's easy to add a solar panel to SpyPoint's external battery pack. However, after some research I found the external battery pack with solar panel from Spartan that Academy sells will plug right in and work for under $50; and I think the SpyPoint just battery pack without solar panel was near that. No brainer to buy the one with the integrated solar panel that has the stainless braid over the exposed wire as well. Already had something chew thru my wires on the SpyPoint battery pack in the field.

I still like the Link-S the best. No exposed wires for something to pull out and kill your camera like with the Link-Evo with external battery pack attached.

https://www.academy.com/shop/pdp/st...B&gclsrc=aw.ds#repChildCatid=5368938

Great info!
I’m hunting in the same area so I’m glad to hear the service works well