Cuddeback CuddeLink Trail Cameras

I live in California but hunt a lease in Illinois. So, I can't be pulling cards and changing batteries. About a year ago, I put out my first 4 Cuddelink cameras and setup a Verizon cell account for $7.50/month. The pictures started hitting my cell phone before I landed back home.This quickly became part of my daily ritual. I transmit images once/day to preserve battery life and every morning I look forward to flipping through the previous 24 hours of trail cam pictures while I have my morning coffee. I now have 14 cameras out on 180 acres. I still run the network on the $7.50 / 750 images a month plan (30 images/day) but occasionally it runs over the limit so I'm going to have to upgrade to a bigger data plan. You can pause the plan after hunting season and then reinstate it in mid-summer as the racks start growing if you want. I have the best understanding of my resident deer population that I've ever had. I can even track individual deer as they move around the property. I finally have a real time picture of my hunting lease...2,000 miles away.Battery life is good. You get a daily report from Cuddelink regarding total images, recent images, battery status, etc (see below). The J-series cameras that run on AA batteries all lasted between 60 and 74 days and transmitted 400-500 images per camera on duracell alkaline batteries before going dead. I have since put (4) of the cameras that are on the edges of the Ag fields on solar panels. I expect that they will run forever since they have solar as a primary power source and a set of backup alkaline batteries. The other cameras can't get enough light to charge the rechargeable battery in the solar panel so those 10 cameras are on the extended battery packs that Cuddeback makes. They have been in the field since April 10 (it's July 27, so 108 days so far) and all cameras have "OK" battery status (that's the same as brand-new batteries).I have had only limited exposure to Cuddeback customer service since the cameras are all fairly new and have been functioning perfectly. However, about 4 weeks after I set it out, one of the J-series cameras had a water intrusion event that killed the camera. Cuddeback replaced it with a new camera without a hitch.Image quality is good (see below) although night images are not quite as sharp, particularly since I am mostly running the covert IR cameras. The low-glow IR does much better with night images. I wish I had bought all low-glow cameras since I really don't have to worry about camera bandits.. Cellular images are transmitted as thumbnails with much smaller file size than what is recorded on the SD card.I have two criticisms. One, the solar cable is only 2 feet long. If they would make a 10 foot cable, I could find an opening in the canopy to power nearly all the deep woods cameras with solar panels in good sunlight. I am planning to splice 10' of wire into one of the solar cables as an experiment, I'll update when I see how that goes. WARNING: This will void your warranty.My second criticism is that there is no temperature reading on the pictures.Overall, these cameras have been a game-changer for my hunting season. I am so glad I made this investment. I strongly endorse the Cuddelink system.

So I read a lot of reviews and really wondered if these would work for me. You can find more bad reviews than good, but thats pretty normal these days, most will not take time to write a good review. I opened the box, read instructions, very in depth, three different instruction books... I think is silly. They should put everything in one book, start from the top and work you through set up, usage and maintenance, etc. Having three different pamplets is silly to me. Makes it more confusing to a basic level consumer. Sure I figured it all out, just again, keep it simple. Surely they have a reason for it, but my personal opinion... silly.Moving on... the cam sequence to move through the menus is fairly user friendly. Like any cam, you will need to get to know it. I still struggle with getting to the transmission stregnth screen... very annoying when your trying to be scent free, get in and get out, all while being bombarded with mosquitos. Not Cuddybacks fault, I should have memorized the sequence to get there prior to getting in the field. But yea, one of the most used funcions in the actual field and it's a pain in the butt to get to.That being said, on my first set, I really truly wondered if the range would work as advertised. I only have 21 acres. Lots of hills and pine trees. The range was terrible. There is a radio signal strength indicator on each cam. Before you set your second cam, away from the home cam... you are suppost to make sure the signal strength is one of three things...weak, good or strong. Well, I was only about 150 yards away from the home cam, tried to set the second cam and it was weak, had to move around, closer to even find a spot that read good... I found one, problem is, now you have to set your cam based on if it has signal, not if it's where you want your cam. 110-140 yards, basic line of sight with a small hill is not too much to ask I would think. O well, moving on... had the sam problem from there on out. The signal would read good... I'd go to set the cam and it would switch to weak, standing in the same spot. So do I set the cam or not? Frustrating... so out of four cams set, that I tried to make sure the signal strength was good or better (note it never once read strong)... only three cams registered the next day on the home cam... one is out of range. Seriously on 21 acres, you would think....Then, I pull the home cam the next day, just to see how it all worked out. All of the dates and times I had set on the cams were wrong. Everyone had some random date in 2017... granted it's July 2019 currently. This was super frustrating. Every cam of the four were the wrong date on the photos. Grabbing some random date and time. Now I have to go to each Cam again... and figure out whats going on.Look, I love the technology. Three of the four took pics and sent pics home. One of the three cams took blurry photos, not sure why yet, have to play with it. Two of the cams took nice pics. The tech is great, if you can get it to work. I wager it will take some serious time this year making these work on my property. Thats somewhat understandable... but it's going to be a frustrating process I think.Great idea... lots of bugs in my opinion. If you have hilly pine terrain, all I can say is good luck. Your going to likely have problems. Maybe I just need more cams to keep the signal strenght up, move them closer together. However putting cams where you don't need or want them is expensive.... more batteries to deal with, more cost, etc.I'm not sure yet on my rating of these... will take some time. First impression though... they need some work.I'll be back to update this...

Concept is neat, when it works. Nuisance to refresh and link cameras periodically when connections mysteriously get severed.Picture quality is OK but not spectacular.Battery drain is abysmal, even with rechargeable batteries.The computor interface feature as advertised for the Home unit in the literature is NOT yet available.Have invested in 6 repeater/home units and 20 cameras - overall a poor choice - would not do it again if I knew then what I know now.

First the good:Product has great range. I can reach from my house to daisy chain in field half mile away. Set up, subject to issues below, easy.Now bad:1) Support website is terrible. Half links are broken. Sparse info. Phone support slow. This has been reported before. Puzzling failure in basic customer service.2) Manual confusing. I am computer programmer and found difficult to understand manual and camera menus.3) Remote images are very low resolution. Fine for game camera close ups but > 20 yards and can barely see antlers. Not deal breaker but FYI. See images below. Full size retained on Camera SD.4) Battery indicator has no % left. Just OK or WEAK. Would be nice to know if on brink of needing new batteries before leaving field for prolonged period.5) Website inaccurate. I also bought CuddePower® Model 3358 D cell adapters that were listed as compatible for my camera. They are not compatible. Pain to return.6) Camera has Easy and Advanced mode which has time lapse feature. Despite reverting to Easy Mode Time Lapse stays stuck on. Support suggested removing batteries and replacing SD card. Seems buggy. Happened twice draining batteries and clogging network.7) Time Lapse mode more battery intense than other cameras.