Cellular Trail Cams Update

Went thru a bunch of old threads, and didn’t want to bump those up with a bunch of new questions. I’m looking at getting some cell cams mainly for the private land we gun hunt up north, and are developing the land for deer hunting. Based off the old threads and friend recommendations Tactacam Reveal Gen 2 and Spypoint LM2 were the most common recommendation. Is that still the case, or did someone reinvent a faster wheel? I’m mainly interested in ease of use (setup/batteries/connectivity etc) and a known cost (upfront and ongoing) for comparison sake. And any complaints? Or deals you see out there? And those of you new to the cell cam game, like me, wish you had done something different on the front end? Thanks in advance!

Mentioned it in your Metro Buck thread, but if your just looking for a simpler trail cam, Muddy Mitigator is a great budget camera and comes in well under $100. I don’t believe they do video, but they do everything else. Good range and pretty good anti-blur unless something’s really moving. I only get 2 bars of service where I hunt and have NEVER had a connectivity issue. The Command Hunting App is very easy to use, navigate and set-up units with. They have plan options but I believe the one I use is $12/month and I didn’t come close to maxing it out – mostly running one camera, I just added a second but I think I’ll still be good under that plan and an extra $5 per month per extra camera. You can have photos upload as soon as they’re taken but that takes more battery – I moved mine to 2 uploads per day – every 12 hours – and batteries were not an issue at all from Sept – Dec. If you buy a solar power unit, you’ll not have to worry about battery life. I’m sure SpyPoint and Tacticam are great units with a lot more bells and whistles, but for what I do I’m VERY happy with Muddy. It also seemed to have better reviews than the more $$ brands. I’m a newbie with them as well, and the only thing I would’ve done different is get them sooner! I’ll post a few sample pics from mine…

From the Muddy Mitigator…

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I have 3 Tactacam Reveal (2 are Gen 2, the other is Gen 1) and they have been great for me. I like them better than the Stealth and Spypoint cell cams I have had, for performance and the app is easier to use

Black gate r4g lites and tactacam reveal x pros are what I run. Black gate is nicer.
Cell cams are fun and frustrating. I use them to scout and look in to spots and then I pull them. No need to go crazy on a subscription, 4000 pictures of deer get old and waking up to 100 picture mornings is cool and frustrating at the same time. Don’t go overboard on cam or subscription

(Edit. I had a longer detailed write up, but I guess it didn’t post. So this is the generic.)

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Every time I go to buy trail cams these days, I go down the rabbit hole of looking through all of the options and end up just not getting them. Way too many brands and too many options throughout those brands. I wish there was just one or two industry leaders that everyone buys and that’s that.

queenswake wrote:

Every time I go to buy trail cams these days, I go down the rabbit hole of looking through all of the options and end up just not getting them. Way too many brands and too many options throughout those brands. I wish there was just one or two industry leaders that everyone buys and that’s that.

That would drive prices through the roof. Just buy a tactacam revealx 2

I just use standard SD cameras on my land north of the cities. But land we have permission on south the group runs Cuddyback link. It was intended to just use the home camera so you can pull that from a spot that was not intrusive but turned into using the cell coverage. No issues once all changed over to solar panels and now really do not have to do go in and touch them eliminated changing batteries. We are pulling all the cameras this month and getting them a break and will have them back out in the spring for turkey season. Many choices out there but from the last 3 years of starting this no issues but a deer ate the antenna on one camera and Cuddy replaced for us.

Hoyt4 wrote:

I just use standard SD cameras on my land north of the cities. But land we have permission on south the group runs Cuddyback link. It was intended to just use the home camera so you can pull that from a spot that was not intrusive but turned into using the cell coverage. No issues once all changed over to solar panels and now really do not have to do go in and touch them eliminated changing batteries. We are pulling all the cameras this month and getting them a break and will have them back out in the spring for turkey season. Many choices out there but from the last 3 years of starting this no issues but a deer ate the antenna on one camera and Cuddy replaced for us.

I run all lithium battery packs and haven’t charged 1 camera since I set them. Last year my tactacam would eat 12 regular batteries in 2 weeks on a busy spot.

Do all of them allow you to set intervals for when pictures are sent? My buddy could have them real time or at set times which I think is the most important feature of these things. You dont want your phone blowing up all day with pictures. In some cases you might, but not all cases. He has several cell cams out (not sure brand) and one he has real time because that is where the hogs mostly show up and he wanted to know if they were there during the day while we were at camp. The others he has at once a day at noon. Pretty slick.

Tactacam reveal 2 for my farm. Set up wasn’t to bad. AA battery usage wasn’t to bad but I’m going to look at lithium or battery boxes for next year. Their plans were a little frustrating as you buy the Pro plan then purchase one or two add on s. App was decent to use. I did have a Moultrie set on the same post as a Tactacam for a while. The Moultrie took more photos and longer distance at night but I ended up fighting with a stuck filter on it that would cause black night photos.

Think I’m going with 2 more Tactacams (4 total) for the farm this fall.

Forgot to mention SD cards. Plan on becoming a SD card expert. Every number, symbol, ect on the SD cards is important for the Tactacams and they spell it out poorly in the owners manual. If you can find the cameras with SD card in the package buy it. It amazes me that cameras are sold without them. Get a card reader to as all photos are not sent to your phone.

Did I mention EVERY number, symbol, size, speed, ect on the card is important and needs to be correct to work properly.

Mike W wrote:

Get a card reader to as all photos are not sent to your phone

Yes, your card will have have a bunch of pics not being sent to your phone. Also, for reveal anyway, your cameras will still work as a “normal” camera if you deactivate service. So if you want deactivate service and keep them out they will still keep taking pics. It’s pretty easy to deactivate/activate service in the reveal app.

weedis wrote:

Get a card reader to as all photos are not sent to your phone

Wait, it doesnt send all the photos? Any idea which ones would be excluded? I am assuming that if something is stationary in the FOV for a while it may not send all pics taken, but I would sure hope if something new showed up that it would send that??? Example a deer shows up and is standing there feeding for 5 minutes, 1 pic probably suffices, but then another deer shows up while the other one is there I sure hope it would send that photo. No idea how it would know to so this though. Seems sorta strange to me

here is such a great resource with articles that explain the features that matter for your needs with up-to-date reviews to find cameras that match.
https://www.trailcampro.com/

i’ve had very good success with the Browning cellular cameras.
great image and video quality, fast detection-to-image speed, a detection range that matches image range – so important for not getting cut-off pics!. i ran both of mine from early August to the end of November with video the last 5 weeks with uploads 4x/day and the batteries were still 75%. i never touched an SD card until after the end of the season. the cameras are very nicely priced and the cellular plans are scalable and reasonable. easy to use both the phone app and the website to review/delete/download images or video.

ThunderLund78 wrote:

From the Muddy Mitigator…

I have been wanting to get a couple cheap cell cams to put up when scouting new properties. Glad to hear someone with real life experience.

Anyone have any real life experiences with Browning cameras? I see they have some good package deals fairly regularly.

Not sure how it picks which photos are not sent.

I should of added Tactacam does have some fantastic, to the point of almost being creepy customer service. Their CS called me out of the blue from a comment I made on Facebook. She took my name off Facebook, cross refrenced it through the Tactacam accounts, checked my camera photos and settings then called with suggestions on adjustments for the camera.

Mike W wrote:

I should of added Tactacam does have some fantastic, to the point of almost being creepy customer service.

By far one of the best Customer service’s I’ve ever worked with

Did not have an SD card issue with Muddy, only requirement was over 32 GB. When I checked my chip on my laptop after I pulled my cam for the year, I thought maybe I had one or two that I didn’t recall seeing on my phone, but I think it’s because I errantly deleted one or two pics from the app view when I was viewing the upload that day. I like that the chip had all the pics because sometimes I’d get punchy using the app and delete something I didn’t want to, But it was backed-up on the card. I don’t believe the upload ever excluded a pic for me though.

One thing I did notice with the Muddy Command Hunting app is that it gives you a notification when the upload starts AND when it finishes. So when I first started using it, I’d look after the first message, see some pics and then noticed I’d get another notification a few minutes later and there would be a few more pics. Not sure why it does that but it was just something to get used to. Depends on the number of pics but my uploads never took more than 5 minutes to complete.

Jake D wrote:

Anyone have any real life experiences with Browning cameras? I see they have some good package deals fairly regularly.

yes, mine are in the post immediately prior to yours…

Oh awesome thanks. I totally missed that. they have some BOGO sales fairly regularly on some older models im guessing. I will have to check them out

CaptainMusky wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>weedis wrote:</div>

Get a card reader to as all photos are not sent to your phone

Wait, it doesnt send all the photos? Any idea which ones would be excluded? I am assuming that if something is stationary in the FOV for a while it may not send all pics taken, but I would sure hope if something new showed up that it would send that??? Example a deer shows up and is standing there feeding for 5 minutes, 1 pic probably suffices, but then another deer shows up while the other one is there I sure hope it would send that photo. No idea how it would know to so this though. Seems sorta strange to me

I should have clarified, it all depends on your settings and what you’re willing to pay for. If you have it set for multi shot, it will send you one picture unless you pay the extra $9 monthly flat rate then you get sent all the pictures. You could just shut multi shot off and set delay to lowest setting, which I think is 5 seconds for a reveal but this would all depend on location/activity. In multi shot mode, it sends you the first picture. Also, these cameras work as “normal” cameras if you want to deactivate service on them. You can leave them out and still get pictures.

Ok thank you weedis the multi shot thing totally makes sense!

I picked up a reveal pro a couple months ago and think the 20 dollar price bump is worth it over the gen2. Has a screen to check images on the camera and has its gps location on the tactacam app. Worth the peace of mind being able to track it down if someone steals it.