Cuddelink trail cams

[barlow96]

Anyone use these cams. I have a 300 acre of private land. Thinking of starting with 3. And add 2 every year. Do they work well. Cuddeback has always made good cameras before. From what I have read. I have never been a camera guy.

 

[baz77]

I have 2 and a home unit here on my property they work as advertised the range isn’t that great in the hills In The summer time when foliage is heavy I can only get 350 yards on my furthest camera. The pic quality Isn’t that great when it’s sent to the home unit but it’s adequate enough to see what’s going on.

 

[sixty4sedan]

I have 4 spaced out on a 40 acre farm. For the most part I really like them. But it did take some time setting them up correctly. I had cameras that were taking way more pictures then what they were sending. After swapping out 2 sd cards in the cameras with the most pictures, I ended up having both cameras go offline due to memory card issues. Once home camera goes down, you wont get sent any pictures ( my fault). Overall very happy with the product. I believe if you are going that far, you may have to use a camera as a repeater to relay pictures from the back of the property to the front, if so the repeaters do not take pictures, they just relay them. For me it was a way better option than running spypoints and having to spend the monthly money per camera vs 1 payment for up to 16 cameras

 

[barlow96]

It’s in the hills with hardwoods. Some very thick and untouched terrain. I try and keep it that way. At first they will be relatively close together. Does any use the dual cell one for home. Will it work with att network. Like allow me to get pics. Also I don’t know what Verizon service is like here. I don’t know anyone in my area to have it. Most folks here use att and c spire.

 

[barlow96]

Also I seen where it says if you don’t have active service the camera will not work. What if you have active service. But the camera has no service to send pictures. Does it still take pics and act as a home base.

 

[NATHAN]

I have 1 IR long range, 2 Black Flash and 1 home. When they are working, I love them. Pulling a card on my back porch to see what 3 cameras caught is nothing short of beautiful. When the batteries need replaced after a month, it's frustrating. If the home dies you have to visit and reset them all. I have not tried the cell version. I was a hardcore believer in them for a while. Now that the price of cell cams have come down, I believe the cuddelink should also. If you go with them, get the PTL mount. It's very nice. I will only get the black flash in the future. The deer see the red glow on the IR.

 

[neonomad]

I have 4 spaced out on a 40 acre farm. For the most part I really like them. But it did take some time setting them up correctly. I had cameras that were taking way more pictures then what they were sending. After swapping out 2 sd cards in the cameras with the most pictures, I ended up having both cameras go offline due to memory card issues. Once home camera goes down, you wont get sent any pictures ( my fault). Overall very happy with the product. I believe if you are going that far, you may have to use a camera as a repeater to relay pictures from the back of the property to the front, if so the repeaters do not take pictures, they just relay them. For me it was a way better option than running spypoints and having to spend the monthly money per camera vs 1 payment for up to 16 cameras

I set 4 up on Saturday, everything went pretty smooth, I paid close attention to all settings, but am having this same issue. Periodic report is showing more images recorded on the SD cards than what is actually transmitted. How was it that you resolved?

 

[dlist777]

Short battery life kind of kills the benefits. I have a set. They collect dust now.

 

[neonomad]

Short battery life kind of kills the benefits. I have a set. They collect dust now.

I have all remotes with solar panels, we’ll see if that helps.

 

[cspot]

The system works great. You do need to add additional battery banks if you want to leave them set out for a while. On stock batteries they will last about 30-45 days. I have added solar to a couple, one I have hooked to my solar setup at my cabin (home unit), and another I have an external battery bank. This has helped tremendously. The picture quality is plenty good enough for me.

 

[barlow96]

I see they have a model with the d cell batteries for a little more.

 

[barlow96]

Also thinking for the home one a solar panel.

 

[Weaver]

Overall the system works well in my experience.
As others have mentioned battery life is the weak link.
I have the home unit set up with the D battery pack extension and I'm on 106 days and it's still going strong. Sending an average id guess of 15-20 pics once a day.

Currently using lithium AA in the cameras and lucky to get 30 days out of them. Have discovered it makes a big difference on how close they're are to the home unit. Signal range of 99 gets a little over 30 days. 60 gets more like 20-25 days. Probably will add the D battery packs to the cameras as well.

I also have one spartan cell cam and if I had cell service throughout the property I'd forget about the cuddelink system and run all Spartans.


Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk

 

[cspot]

Overall the system works well in my experience.
As others have mentioned battery life is the weak link.
I have the home unit set up with the D battery pack extension and I'm on 106 days and it's still going strong. Sending an average id guess of 15-20 pics once a day.

Currently using lithium AA in the cameras and lucky to get 30 days out of them. Have discovered it makes a big difference on how close they're are to the home unit. Signal range of 99 gets a little over 30 days. 60 gets more like 20-25 days. Probably will add the D battery packs to the cameras as well.

I also have one spartan cell cam and if I had cell service throughout the property I'd forget about the cuddelink system and run all Spartans.


Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk

That is my issue with using other cell cams. I only have service at my cabin so I need a system like the Cuddelink. As a note they also have external battery packs to extend the range.

Do not bother running lithium batteries with the system. I did some tests and my battery life was only mildly better. It wasn't worth the extra cost.

 

[sixty4sedan]

It’s in the hills with hardwoods. Some very thick and untouched terrain. I try and keep it that way. At first they will be relatively close together. Does any use the dual cell one for home. Will it work with att network. Like allow me to get pics. Also I don’t know what Verizon service is like here. I don’t know anyone in my area to have it. Most folks here use att and c spire.

I currently have the cell camera as my home camera due to the fact that its over 2 hours of driving to check cameras and the land owner/ buddy that also hunts there is too lazy to check them. As far as the terrain goes, you should be ok, when you turn on the cameras to set back in the woods, it will let you know what the connection strength is to the home camera. This way you know how far you can go before having to add in repeaters.

 

[sixty4sedan]

I set 4 up on Saturday, everything went pretty smooth, I paid close attention to all settings, but am having this same issue. Periodic report is showing more images recorded on the SD cards than what is actually transmitted. How was it that you resolved?

I believe it had to do with the camera delay and cuddelink delay. if the camera delay is shorter than the cuddelink delay, it will take more pictures than its able to send. not allowing all photos to be transferred to the home camera.

 

[barlow96]

I ended up getting one dual cell camera for now. It has d battery’s. Set it up tonight. Will see if I get some pics to my phone and email tomorrow mourning.

 

[Gordy77]

We bought into the Cuddelink system this year at camp. Started with a Cellular unit and a J series which runs off of 12 AA's. Bought 2x G's to go with it, so we now have 4 total with plans to expand. The J cameras are all being updated to run off of D cells like the cellular camera currently does. We do notice the D cells last longer for us than the unit powered off of AA's. Emailed photos are decent, good enough to see whats a shooter or not. I believe on par with any other cell camera emailing/sending thumbnails. Want a poster photo? 20mp copies are stored on the camera. My only complaint is they have a very soft focus on their cameras, photos are not as "sharp" looking as others. I got over it real fast.

Their tech (cuddelink) linked with a cellular service in my opinion is the future and without a doubt makes the most sense for anyone looking for more than one camera. Especially if you want to do cellular. As of right now, 1 camera can send photos via cell for 16 cameras, under 1 plan!! No one else offers this. In the link below, it has already been mentioned they are looking to increase this to 24 cameras. Again, all under one cellular plan.

To answer a few questions.

-The K cell unit does require a cell plan to do anything. Take pictures, transmit, receive, etc. It was mentioned recently that if you pay for a year long subscription, it will actually unlock the camera to be used in any manner regardless of the cell plan being active or not.

-With any wireless tech, foliage, terrain, etc will all affect transmission signals between cameras and cell service.

-They have an ATT version for cell that was recently released.

-If you see a CL delay option, update your firmware. It can be very confusing figuring out how to link CL delay with camera delay. The newest firmware marries the two settings and solves a lot of issues and confusion.

-Read the manuals, play around with the settings. The user interface is not immediately easy like other cameras. Learn with the system before deploying and complaining it doesn't work. I think a lot of people are hoping to have a camera you put batteries in, change time delay and megapixels and be done. Just expect everything to work.

-Also, they're report can be confusing. If you have questions feel free to reach out.

There's a 184 page thread discussing the system at the following link. A guy named John is an employee for cuddeback and offers a lot of insight and information. I believe the CEO also responded to a question or two at the threads beginning. Cuddeback uses their heads for development. Super capacitors, steel braided wires to deter squirrels, etc.

Cuddeback's Cuddelink

Just FYI, I was told by CS that the $10 a month or $120 annual cell plan is not available for the Special. You must get the $15 a month or $180 annual cell plan is the minimum you can get. this is correct, i think i lined it out in an earlier post here but to simplify- the total investment would...

habitat-talk.com

 

[barlow96]

Yea I have tried setting it up twice with no pics being sent to me via text or email. Just a verification that it has service.

 

[Gordy77]

You paid for a plan on their website correct? Every morning around 4-6, the camera offloads any photos ready to send and a report. Are you at least getting your report?