“The top line? It’s a wonderful piece of kit. You can watch wildlife remotely, in real time. It’s a whole lot of fun.
Now, I confess I wasn’t an immediate fan. There’s quite a bit to get the hang of. It’s theoretically plug and play, but you need to experiment a lot to get the best out of it. Tip: turn up the sensitivity of the PIR to 100% to get notified about animals. 80% will do people. You need a decent mobile signal and it is power hungry, so unless you can place the solar panel in full sun you’ll be removing it to recharge after a few days. A replaceable battery that can be charged, like the Spypoint solar cameras, would be better. But it’s what it is and the results, when you get it fine tuned, are brilliant. I’m currently watching a pine marten on a feeder while writing this. All day I’ve seen red squirrels back and forth to a feeder. You can move the camera (slowly) to follow the action. Picture quality is ok, nothing special but you’re streaming over a mobile connection. So it’s pretty impressive. Placed on a badger sett or a squirrel feeder, it’s a fantastic way of watching wildlife remotely. It’s not perfect. Nothing is. But the bottom line is that this will make your life a bit happier.”
“Relatively easy to set up. Only issue I had was how to activate the data sim card - I used an old 4G router eventually. It was easy to attach to a tree. I had planned to use the straps but they are very short. I set to record for 8 secs, 24 hours.
It takes 1 sec to set exposure and sharpness, so lots of 7 seconds clips. Daytime quality is very good, night footage less so although still decent. My browning trail cameras are far superior.
I have red squirrels active daytime and pine marten & badger overnight. The camera sensor picks up all of them. I've set the animal box size to tiny & sensitive, there are few false alarms. Receiving texts is great, especially in the evening when the larger species' appear.
I've had mixed results using the solar panel. I live in the Scottish Highlands and the camera is in a pine wood which does get a fair amount of sunshine. It worked well initially but by morning the battery charge was low. I switched to 30 sec clips, the battery went dead overnight. I'm going to experiment with the settings.
It is an excellent way of monitoring activity without having to switch out cards every day or try and watch on the tiny trail cam screens. I love how I can move the camera view remotely and being able to sit at home and watch real-time. Also checking back the previous night's footage in the morning.
I've given 4 stars because of the overnight picture quality and the poor battery life, but it's a welcome addition to my remote camera collection.”
