Advice on wireless trailcams

I want to buy and install a wireless trailcam for my elderly father-in-law so he can enjoy the wildlife at his cottage while he is in town. The cottage has WiFi and I would like him to be able to log in to his camera from his desktop or ideally phone and see live video. He has foxes who bask in the sun on his porch daily. 90% of viewing would be daytime. I understand that trailcams are event-triggered, but he is likely to want to look at his property even when no animals are there.

I don’t want to have to subscribe to a cellular service to send the images, he has a reliable WiFi signal for the cottage router. I could use an indoor camera aimed at the window or even an outdoor security cam, but I thought a trailcam is designed to get wet, be right in the action, etc.

Thank you for your opinion.

We just installed a Swan wifi security camera from menards to watch the water levels at the family cabin. I would go this route over a trail camera. It can then be viewed on your phone or computer.

If the camera can be placed where there is access to a regular AC electrical supply, you have a lot of options. There are a lot of WIFI security cams (I see them called “IP cams” a lot) that allow you to log in with any device and view the cam the “live”.

Usually, the catch is that if you want the cam to record to the cloud for later viewing, there’s almost always a monthly fee to do that.

You can also get battery-powered IP cams now that have a solar panel to top up the battery.

I have the Ring system at home complete with outdoor cams and it works great. I have both hard-wired outdoor cams that are connected to AC and then I have battery-powered cams with solar panels in areas where I couldn’t get AC. All cams are motion-triggered and all of them record to the cloud, so I can view both recordings or tap into the live feed from my phone from anywhere.

I will say that the AC cams sometimes go dead in very cold weather if it is cloudy for several days. The batteries can’t stand the combination of low temps and lack of daytime charging, but this happens only about once or twice per winter.

Grouse

Thank you for your reply. So far it looks like I am leaning toward more of a home security cam than a trail cam.

I’d go with Amazon Blink XT2. No monthly subscription. 2 year battery life. Free cloud storage. No wires. Just need WiFi. Very simple and easy to use.