Cuddeback's Cuddelink

[FredG]

Thanks for the heads up on the new firmware Gordy!

 

[tdawgcj7]

I confirmed that the new firmware download does in fact contain the 7.7 verison. The file dates in the zip are from 8/27/19. I will do this update as well tonight just to provide feedback to everyone. Do you recommend i do the remote cameras first or the home?

 

[Potter co notill]

I’ve noticed when it rains hard my G series start taking pictures of nothing over and over.

I have one also that does this

 

[JLemon]

I confirmed that the new firmware download does in fact contain the 7.7 verison. The file dates in the zip are from 8/27/19. I will do this update as well tonight just to provide feedback to everyone. Do you recommend i do the remote cameras first or the home?

I just updated all of my cameras to 7.7 and unless I'm really missing something FAP is no longer an option in the settings and neither is a burst rate.

 

[FredG]

I just updated all of my cameras to 7.7 and unless I'm really missing something FAP is no longer an option in the settings and neither is a burst rate.

I was afraid of that being the case. I guess I can get by without FAP, but I use it often even though I know I won't get all the images sent home. I don't use burst mode at all but I would guess that some others do. Oh well.....

 

[JLemon]

I was afraid of that being the case. I guess I can get by without FAP, but I use it often even though I know I won't get all the images sent home. I don't use burst mode at all but I would guess that some others do. Oh well.....

I don't either. I had them all set to 1 picture FAP.

 

[FredG]

I don't either. I had them all set to 1 picture FAP.

Yeah.... That's generally been my go-to mode for white flash setups. But it won't hurt much to use a 5 second delay and across the board maybe it will be better to insure all images get transmitted.

 

[RRAB58]

I dont own Cuddebacks, but I do own other cell cams, and they will stop taking pictures while they are sending pictures. So if it takes a picture, and another animal, or whatever walks in front of the camera while it is trying to send the picture, it wont take another picture. I have tested mine with 2 mounted cameras side by side, and found that I will catch every single animal that walks by, but when there is multiple animals, I will sometimes miss the ones that walk by after the first one. My newer LTE cameras send the pictures much faster, and is less of an issue. Just a thought! You could shut the cell/link off, so it doesnt try to send the picture, and see if it picks up the missed pictures, and compare.

On Cudde’s, it’s only the home unit that will pause picture taking while it’s sending pic via cell. And the higher the batch is set the longer it will pause. Just like a cell phone, the bigger the message and slower service the longer it will takes. I’ve tested my home unit. I have pretty good service, I have home set on batch 10 and it sends in less than 30sec.

I have noticed my Cudde’s misses some pics also , but I’ve been running 20 club cameras of all makes and models (Browning, Stealth, Moultrie, Eyecon, Wildgame and others). Some plots we put 2 cams side by side. They all missed pics. Can see deer in one camera and not in the other. 50lbs of corn gone and only got 2-3 pictures? All PIR’s are technically the same. IMO, Cudde’s have the PIR reset set a little long to prevent irrelevant pics and save on battery consumption, as you could literally take a gazillion pics of birds. Everybody seems to want a high sensitivity, more pictures, less blank pics, and more battery life. There has to be a balance of all of them. Granted, there are some mfg defects.

As far as driveway test, this is not a valid test. If you had a thermography camera like electrical techs use, you would be overwhelmed by the heat signature from the concrete or gravel or car. If the car and concrete have similar temperatures, the sensor may not trigger. It’s like adding 100 degree water to a pot of 100 degree water. You still have 100 degrees. Also, as the ambient temperature gets closer to the heat of the subject, it will dilute the differential value. If both sides of the PIR have similar heat values, it may not trigger. There is also a time value. If a deer is just standing in one place or moves extremely slow, it may not trigger either. The sensor has a reset (timer or delay) to re-establish a normal temperature state. It may reset to the heat value of deer being normal, even if deer is moving. It may be called a motion sensor, but it is only sensing the overall heat upon 2 heat sensitive elements in the sensor. Movement is assumed as one half senses more or less heat than the other half.

Do a Walk Test in the woods.

 

[crenshawco]

I spoke with CS this morning and was informed a new firmware is available 7.7 . They have linked the camera delay and CL delay together to avoid this. I plan to update this evening.

Dang, I just updated firmware on all of my cameras last week. Guess I'll do it again next trip to the farm.

What is this FAP feature that's been removed y'all are talking about?

 

[RRAB58]

Yeah.... That's generally been my go-to mode for white flash setups. But it won't hurt much to use a 5 second delay and across the board maybe it will be better to insure all images get transmitted.

I have Batch 10, Delays 5 sec, Burst 3. I get a lot of pics on the 2nd and 3rd pic of the burst and 1st pic was blank. I guess it’s difference in Detection Angle vs Field of View Angle. If it takes a pic or burst out of FOV, the next pic has to wait out the delay that’s set. So it’s possible for 3 blanks before deer steps into FOV.

I think FAP or Fast as Possible is 2sec. So I guess the burst is 2 sec between pics also?

 

[JLemon]

Dang, I just updated firmware on all of my cameras last week. Guess I'll do it again next trip to the farm.

What is this FAP feature that's been removed y'all are talking about?

How long the delay is between pictures being taken. I ran all my cameras on 1 shot with the delay at Fast As Possible so theoretically I should get all pictures taken sent back home. If you have a 3 shot burst you’re only getting 1 of those pictures sent home. This firmware update took away the FAP and burst option. So all my cameras are now set to a 5 second delay.

 

[JLemon]

If I don’t like this firmware update is it possible to go back to 7.6? I still have the ZIP files.

 

[RRAB58]

How long the delay is between pictures being taken. I ran all my cameras on 1 shot with the delay at Fast As Possible so theoretically I should get all pictures taken sent back home. If you have a 3 shot burst you’re only getting 1 of those pictures sent home. This firmware update took away the FAP and burst option. So all my cameras are now set to a 5 second delay.

I’m not updating FW then!

 

[FredG]

If I don’t like this firmware update is it possible to go back to 7.6? I still have the ZIP files.

It should be possible to go back on these incremental firmware upgrades... one of the few brands that allows it. The problem would be if there is something else vital in this current upgrade that we don't know about.

 

[BC18]

I’m not updating FW then!

Me neither, I've been running FAP and 3 shot burst for over a year now. Majority of the time the best pic is on the 2nd or 3rd shot.

here is a recent example, without the burst shots I wouldn't have been able to tell how young this bear is.

 

[john volkman]

i know i have went thru this many times on this thread but if you run FAP or burst you will not get all the images sent home when in cuddelink mode. IF you run camera delay at 5 seconds and one image per trigger all should make it home. We have a ton of confusion out there on this, and this firmware update(and also 7.6) is designed help to eliminate the constant questions and calls CS receives on why some images are not getting home when people set cameras a certain way , this update will remove that issue. if you still want to run it the other way ,dont update your firmware.This system like anything has limitations, you need to decide if those limitations are worth the advantages it offers, which in my opinion are many. Everyone wants to run there cameras a specific way without any limitations , someday that may be the case but for right now this is where we are at!

here are the details on the new firmware, we also added another feature in this update called primetime. i was going to post this last night but we are in an extremely busy time for CS, sales reps and everyone involved with Cuddeback, im literally running and talking my butt off all hours of the day.
Prime time allows you to run time-lapse during certain periods of the day instead of all day- like early morning or afternoon to monitor foodplots etc. PLEASE NOTE if you enable this on a camera it will DISABLE PIR until your turn prime time off.
7.6 already linked camera delay to LINK delay so that issue was corrected before.

New firmware for CuddeLink cameras is online. It is version 7.7.0. It does a few things:

Adds Prime Time
Removes CL DELAY
Disabled FAP camera delay in CuddeLink mode

New firmware and manuals are on this page: https://www.cuddeback.com/update

This is NOT a mandatory firmware. Update only if you need PRIME TIME. See ADVANCED USER INTERFACE manual for detail on Prime Time (manual is in manual downloads).

 

[RRAB58]

i know i have went thru this many times on this thread but if you run FAP or burst you will not get all the images sent home when in cuddelink mode. IF you run camera delay at 5 seconds and one image per trigger all should make it home. We have a ton of confusion out there on this, and this firmware update(and also 7.6) is designed help to eliminate the constant questions and calls CS receives on why some images are not getting home when people set cameras a certain way , this update will remove that issue. if you still want to run it the other way ,dont update your firmware.This system like anything has limitations, you need to decide if those limitations are worth the advantages it offers, which in my opinion are many. Everyone wants to run there cameras a specific way without any limitations , someday that may be the case but for right now this is where we are at!

here are the details on the new firmware, we also added another feature in this update called primetime. i was going to post this last night but we are in an extremely busy time for CS, sales reps and everyone involved with Cuddeback, im literally running and talking my butt off all hours of the day.
Prime time allows you to run time-lapse during certain periods of the day instead of all day- like early morning or afternoon to monitor foodplots etc. PLEASE NOTE if you enable this on a camera it will DISABLE PIR until your turn prime time off.
7.6 already linked camera delay to LINK delay so that issue was corrected before.

New firmware for CuddeLink cameras is online. It is version 7.7.0. It does a few things:

Adds Prime Time
Removes CL DELAY
Disabled FAP camera delay in CuddeLink mode

New firmware and manuals are on this page: https://www.cuddeback.com/update

This is NOT a mandatory firmware. Update only if you need PRIME TIME. See ADVANCED USER INTERFACE manual for detail on Prime Time (manual is in manual downloads).

Thanks John. I see Burst is still an option in the new manual. Is that correct? (I also see FAP under EZ Mode & Surv Mode??). I can see removing CL Delay and disabling FAP is not a game changer. Any other logic changes associated with the CL Delay removal? Are all pictures immediately transmitted now?

Other than Prime Time (which I definitely am not interested in at all!!), if that is the only changes, I do not see the update affecting most users. Just an added Prime Time option.

No offense John, but the constant questions and confusion could have been eliminated with a better manual and online help site connected to Cuddeback webpage. CS (including yourself) have been great, but I can see where it is question overload. I, like many others found this site by accident. Many other forums will suggest and link to this forum (mostly due to your help John). These cameras have many useful functions, but it is not for the casual user that wants to install batteries, turn it on and hang it on a tree. Nobody in my club will even change the batteries for me, much less change some settings. I'll have to agree with critics, Cudde's are huge by today's trail camera standards. IMO, Cuddeback should test the market with some smaller cameras. Don't get me wrong I like the system. But you really have to get involved to get the best out of it.

Thanks again, John!

 

[Bpressley]

Just a fyi, when I was testing my cuddelink cams in the yard I had them set to 5 sec delay. They definitely took the second pic faster than 5 seconds. So if you're worried about missing anything with a follow up shot you probably won't. This was on firmware 7.6

 

[john volkman]

Thanks John. I see Burst is still an option in the new manual. Is that correct? (I also see FAP under EZ Mode & Surv Mode??). I can see removing CL Delay and disabling FAP is not a game changer. Any other logic changes associated with the CL Delay removal? Are all pictures immediately transmitted now?

Other than Prime Time (which I definitely am not interested in at all!!), if that is the only changes, I do not see the update affecting most users. Just an added Prime Time option.

No offense John, but the constant questions and confusion could have been eliminated with a better manual and online help site connected to Cuddeback webpage. CS (including yourself) have been great, but I can see where it is question overload. I, like many others found this site by accident. Many other forums will suggest and link to this forum (mostly due to your help John). These cameras have many useful functions, but it is not for the casual user that wants to install batteries, turn it on and hang it on a tree. Nobody in my club will even change the batteries for me, much less change some settings. I'll have to agree with critics, Cudde's are huge by today's trail camera standards. IMO, Cuddeback should test the market with some smaller cameras. Don't get me wrong I like the system. But you really have to get involved to get the best out of it.

Thanks again, John!

When in Cuddelink Mode FAP is disabled. It remains in the manual in case a user is running the camera without cuddelink mode on( very rare IMO). CL delay is now linked directly to the camera Delay the user chooses insuring that all images are sent home.
The manual and online help could always be better...... but if we eliminated all the questions that can be answered already in our manual, this thread would be 2 pages instead of 132 . I know nobody likes to read manuals, im one of those people.
The cameras are larger than most but they need to be if we want battery power to be sufficient, theres that limitation thing again... its a trade off on what is more important at the current time and how can we design them to work the best.
I would love to see a very simple camera that can be turned on and hung on the tree and thats it, but to do so we would have to limit many of the options that people want and if we did so there would be 100's of comments on threads like this asking why cant the camera do this?, or do that? or i wish it would do this! etc etc. That said, it may happen someday but we would almost certainly need multiple models to accomplish this and keep all of our users happy.
I do think prime time will be a useful tool to many. i plan on using it late season over my food plots , when scouting turkeys in the spring and a few other instances, its not for everyone but we are continually trying to build the cameras so that they do anything and everything the consumer wants.

 

[RRAB58]

How true...

A past Quote of Bill- the Administrator:

"Fair warning, you hit a forum that isn't really a typical hunting site. We're self admitted plant, tree, deer and anything related geeks that over think everything!"