wireless trail camera recommendations??

I have been running Bushnell Trophy Cam Wireless for about the last 4 or 5 years and have had pretty good luck with them. As they are getting older they are starting to not work as well. I purchased the new Bushnell Impulse wireless and am not very happy with it. It just takes a lot of pictures of nothing. I was looking Spartan GoCam or maybe Snyper Commander. Any recommendations on a good reliable wireless trail camera would be greatly appreciated.

Search for "wireless" and you'll get a ton of threads. One starts on the topic about every 2 weeks. First you have to match your available carrier to who makes what.

I'm using Cuddeback's new Cell Home and a Cuddelink camera as I can't run a cell camera where my hunting area/pens/feeders are (no reception), but have the Cell Home a couple hundred yards away on a rise that does get reception. Not the cheapest cell plan and no remote control of camera settings since the camera talks to a separate receiver, but it's the only solution that will work for my location.

I picked up a Spartan Gocam recently and it's worked flawlessly so far. Did a lot of research and was happy with my purchase. My area has pretty decent AT&T coverage so pictures are sent within a minute or so of taking.

It is a bit sensitive though - I have a lot of pictures of birds and squirrels heh. Haven't had any pictures with nothing though.

I run covert wireless. Have for 4 years now. I’m happy with them and the plans are pretty competitive. What I like best is their customer service is great. I’ve had to replace a camera via warranty and I received the newer model from them. Their cameras are expensive but can be found on sale if you know where to look. I just bought a new code black LTE for 269.99. They retail for 439 or so before shipping and tax. They are worth it when you can find them for under $300.00. Whatever you buy make sure it has service in the area you are using it. I chose ATT because I have an ATT phone and can check the signal from my phone.

I might try a Covert for my 2nd camera. Spartan Gocam works great, but the plans are a bit pricey compared what I'm seeing now on Coverts website.

I have 4 of them and a couple of my friends have them as well.

I've been pretty satisfied with the moultrie mobile 4g system. I see they have a new camera coming out soon. My system is the mv2 modem with separate camera. I use an external 12v solar charged battery with it. No issues at all and been using it since Jan.

Just don't buy any 3g cams

They will help

we have 3 coverts. Never any issues

Have 4 coverts that work great, however they are 3g cameras and no longer supported after 12/31/19, so I will be upgrading to the LTE cameras this summer.

I run a Spartan GoCam on Verizon and like it. It can suck down some batteries, so I put it on an external battery this weekend. You can either activate the data through Spartan or through Verizon. I chose to go through Verizon for the data. 20 bucks a month. I pay Spartan another 4 bucks a month to use their photo server through their app. Would have been a bit cheaper to go through Spartan, but I wouldn't have gotten as big of a data plan, and I have no idea how much data to expect to use per month, as this is the first season I've ran it.


The main challenge, to me anyway, is the battery situation. The external battery is a 6v 12ah battery. That's too many amps for a standard feeder timer solar pack to keep it charged. I think Spypoint runs on 12v, and that size solar charger is seemingly easier to find. I do have a solar charger on the way, but it's from a small shop and will take 8 weeks to get it. Long and short of it, make sure you get service where you need it and get one with a good option for external batteries. You're going to be changing double a's every three to four weeks if you don't, and that kind of defeats the purpose IMO.

Guys,
I have been doing more research on cellular cameras recently and asked a camera company about 3G and this was their response:

Our cameras connect to the At&t network and send data through that network.
June 2021 At&t will stop authorizing new 3g devices (like phones) to connect to their network.
Our cameras only pass data through their network and do not need authorization to connect – like phones do.
At&t’s 3G data network will continue to be in place for many years to come just like 2g is still available in many areas.


I am not sure this applies to everything and if each one is using data but I wanted to share this just in case this applies
to some of your cameras and you may not have to go and trade out cameras. Maybe you can save some money for other hunting needs.


thanks

How much for Cuddeback cell service plans for 3 cameras?

3 plans -- 10, 20, or 30 if I remember right -- all based on bandwidth. 30 is unlimited.

Camera count doesn't matter for Cuddelink as you typically only have one cell connection and all use the mesh network to transmit to that cell connection.

I've got 2 Snyper cameras. Flawless. SIM Hero works on any cellular network available...including places my AT&T phone doesn't work at all.

I'm running a couple also on the SIM Hero...the only downside that I've found is I wish we could change camera settings thru the app like SpyPoint and Ridgetec. The SpyPoints are junk from what I've seen, I know of more than one person who has either taken them back or wanted to smash them into a 1,000 pieces. One recently told me that his emails have gone unanswered and phone calls never returned and he is returning his last one.

Main reason I tried Snyper was to take one for the team to see if we could find something better than SpyPoint. I feel like I've been successful but it's not perfect.

I still think when you get those settings tweaked, you'll be happy with the camera, even though I can control everything in my camera with the exception of the PIR sensitivity, your camera takes amazing pictures compared to mine.

My Spypoint experience was abysmal at best. I really like the Ridgetec cameras paired with the custom cabled Stealth solar battery packs. The quality of images is my only complaint. I have two cameras and the $20 plan is more than enough for video and pictures, with several thousand pictures a month combined I have still yet to have to use my reserve pool points.

Snyper is a pretty good camera but hope that you never need anything from them. Their customer service is HORRIBLE Was going to buy three more but had a couple of questions I called and emailed for two months and never got answered so I gave up and purchased another brand. So far good cameras and TERRIFIC customer service!

Okay, update on the images, I tweaked the quality of the images uploaded to the cloud and those then delivered to the app, very happy with the quality of the pictures now.

If I was doing this on a budget, I would seriously consider(hell, I'd buy them) the new Moultrie cellular cameras, especially at $130 after the rebate.

I have 3 Spartan cams. Two are the GoCam 4G and one is a Ghost 4G.. I love the new Ghost one as it runs on 12V and the external power cord screws in and it can be opened with the external power pluged in. It also no longer has a setup position on the internal switch. So it is either on or off. The older models had three positions off, Setup and on and often you would forget to switch to on after setting it up. And if you went home you would not be getting any pictures until you went back and switched it to the on position... And yes I have done that several times over the years on my older cameras.

I also have all of them set up with external batteries and solar. I have had them out for 6 months without needing to visit them. Unless something messed with them. And that can happen with the older cameras that don't have screw in external power cords.

I average 20 pics a day and sometimes more when a sounder of hogs spend hours at one site.

There is $50 discount right now on the Ghost version at a website herd360.com Mike is a great guy to work with. That is where I got mine.

Also if you already have a Verizon account it only cost $5 to add each of these cameras and they share your data plan. I have an unlimited plan so has never been an issue.

Update....they (Snyper) did something to the network opening morning and I've not gotten a picture since. I've applied the firmware upgrade this past weekend and called to discuss with them on Monday only to find out they have another firmware update. I'm in the software business and if I'm releasing firmware within 2 weeks, I've got quality or functionality issues.

If they would take them back, I'd send them. I've honestly thought about beating them with a hammer and sending them back in a box. Super nice folks to deal with but I've got enough headaches in my life that I don't need this one.

So I was on the wagon and now off. I'd make someone a deal on them if they wanted them.