Reliable Trail Cameras

[Wise River]

Anyone experienced a particular camera that works consistently year after year? I have had decent success with Stealth Cams, but it is really discouraging to hike 2 hours up in the mountains to check a camera, to find out it took a few thousands pictures of nothing.

 

[taskswap]

Well I can NOT recommend the Spypoint Link Micro LTE. I own two of them and while they're OK cameras, I've found them very unreliable if cell service gets at all spotty (which it often is, anywhere it's actually useful to put a camera). I had one go offline for 2 months and not reconnect until I could get out to power cycle it. I also have found the software to be really crude - on their cell phone app you can show app pics from all cameras together, but on Web you have to make several clicks to view each camera separately. And I miss a lot of features from an old Browning I had that I lost, like the ability to program it to automatically take a photo every day whether there's activity or not, which is really useful for tracking things like snow accumulation/melt rates in a valley vs a hill, etc.

The hardware quality is fine. I think it's just the software.

 

[LostArra]

I've had good luck with
Browning - non cellular. I actually forgot about one that was out 14 months. Still clicking away. I watched a fawn grow up on those pics.

Wise Eye Data Cam -cellular. I just got this and I've been using it around the house

 

[TuckTruck]

I’ve had pretty good luck with the standard moultries, but all cams seem to be pretty hit or miss for reliability…

 

[11boo]

I bought 3 of the old stealth cams used here from another member. 25 bucks apiece. They just work, although one has been raked off a tree by an elk and another got chewed by a bear.
i got lots of pics of everything but didn’t see the need to keep using them.

 

[Next Ridge]

I’ve had good luck with the non-cellular spypoints

 

[Lapaiki39]

I cannot recommend Stealth cams. I had 6 and all crapped out within 3 years. There is an internal battery that needs replacement and it’s not the regular batteries. It’s difficult to open up the camera to get at the internal battery. If you don’t replace it, settings and adjustments will not work after a while. It depends how long that camera was sitting on the shelf. I’ve had good luck with Mountie non cellular cameras.