Cuddeback's Cuddelink
- Thread starter Peplin Creek
- Start date
You can’t change the J camera.
snootalope
Buck Fawn
I updated to version 8.2 over the weekend and to my surprise, I'm seeing my neighbor's camera's on my device report. Heck I even got a picture from one of his cameras some 300yds away from my home cam. I don't get it, I made sure I selected the same channel I was using before, which I can see via the device control it is indeed what I set to. Plus, I can see my SD Image Queue going up on the camera's yet I'm not getting any pictures sent to me. The Image Queue (for images waiting to send) is steady at 0 so it's not trying to do anything. I went in and told all the cameras to capture an image, only image I got was from the home/cell cam. Now I'm worried my camera's are sending my pictures to my neighbor and not me. The channel I chose was the same one I've been using for two years now and never had a problem. Ugh, I originally upgraded to 8.1 then went back to 7.9 because of issues with 8.1. Now with 8.2 it's even uglier. Big ugh.. I've got no desire to try and work with Cudde support as I've learned through all these issues that their support is lacking to put it nicely.
john volkman
5 year old buck +
what channel did you choose on 8.2? it should be two numbers and the second one should be 17 or higher. example -01-17
john volkman
5 year old buck +
you cant change the J series flash, you purchased black flash J's it should have said this right on the front of the boxI’ve just purchased a cuddlelink system I have one K camera the takes good pictures such as this one.
And it has this red symbol at the bottom left.
I also have some J series cameras that don’t take good night pictures such as this.
And it has the black symbol.
I’ve changed my IR commands but nothing has worked.
Can any one explain this to me because as some of you said cuddleback support is a joke.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
JDEROUIN
Yearling... With promise
what your seeing with the images not sending to you after a deer is walking by the camera when your on stand is what I've seen as well. when you pull the card the deer is most likely on there it just did not send the pic to you. its a goofy system that does not send all pics it takes. So set your cams up so you can access them when going to stand check card to get those missed sent images I figure about 30% don't send and another 10-15% get missed entirely which I've tested with other regular cams. also putting them lower does work but I have theft and need to keep mine more hidden. I still get a ton of pics keeping mine up 5-6' high. you need to make sure your cams are parallel with trails so point down the trail if you try to set up a cam as they pass by its much harder to capture them.
I also send a test image if im questioning weather a cam is working correctly or not. 20' is pretty far off a trail or scrape just my observation you need to be as close as you can get it really does help to be 10' instead of 20'
In regards to the pics not getting to you in an hr there is nothing you can do to change that it will happen at times. if you have a few links to get home expect it regularly. you can always clear your images que. or Sd card it has helped me before. but you loose all images on Sd so pulling a card to see the extra images is out the
question until they build up again.
About that system going down you can also try sending a test image from home cam. That has got my system up and going again when it was not antenna related. for over a day all my cams said offline and there was no indication anything was wrong. So I tried that and within 2 hrs they were all working again.
JDEROUIN
Yearling... With promise
this could easily be firmware related. I would have recommended the update before setting them up. since you are having issues with no images sending you may have to try relocating home to better signal. if your phone shows only one bar of LTE you might not have enough 3-4 is best. How many cameras do u have deployed.
john volkman
5 year old buck +
Below is my procedure for setting cameras and it will work. if it doesnt, and you have an issue with a specific camera pm me your contact info and ill have someone contact you regarding returning it for service or helping you out with issues.as many on here can attest ot ive done the same for multiple forum users. i run hundreds of these cams and i dont have sensor issues. They are designed to limit false images, but if you dont follow the procedures i lined out below you will be frustrated.
In respect to CS, couple things to understand - this is a very unique year. Sales have tripled after doubling last year. We had covid hit the call center and our staff is working from home , on top of that several staff members cant work full hours because their kids are in virtual school , I take issue with the statement that CS is useless , i monitor this site daily, along with facebook and other outlets. Our VP calls people all hours of the day and weekend helping people out. I'M not even in CS, im a sales rep that only covers WI . i do this out of desire to make sure questions are answered correctly and i love this forum. I also currently have COVID myself but here i am typing away on a saturday afternoon. Our cameras have a 2 year warranty and if you buy them at a brick and mortar cuddeback dealer they can replace them over the counter if they desire. There has NEVER been a year like this in the sporting goods industry and ive been doing it my entire adult life. That said ,All is good ....my wife shot her target buck last night. Im glad to help, but i think you are expecting a little to much considering the situation we are all in. Sending an email and getting an immediate response just wont happen this fall.
Regarding sensing here is what i do .
1. set camera waist high at the highest, oftentimes high thigh area. Make sure its level. I use a post mount in most cases.
2. my target area is inside 30 FEET(10 yards) when using standard lens. I shoot for 15-20 in most cases. Beyond 30 feet sensing is not guaranteed but will often sense further depending on conditions , if you want sensing beyond 30 feet change out the fresnel lens to the 9004. IF you do so, know that images beyond 30 feet are not high quality and the deer will be small. You will also get more false or blank images with the 9004 lens which uses up data so there is a trade off.
3. put camera in test mode and walk in front of it at a 90 degree angle. The red LED will let up when you trigger the sensor. this tells you a deer should trigger the camera in that spot.
4. Put a cleared sd card in the camera , arm it and walk in front of the camera 90 degrees several times making sure you wait for the proper delay time to expire. Pull the card and confirm the images are on it.
5. IF at this point the camera isnt sensing and recording images you would need to send it in for service but know that its extremely rare. Often times when people think its not sensing they have put set up wrong or the deer they "see" in front of it arent really in front of the detection area or are to far to trigger it.
6. Fresnel lens should be replaced every couple years if they are in direct sun as UV degrades them over time. they are very inexpensive and easy to replace.
Houston_Hunter
Yearling... With promise
I appreciate the response, John. I have started to move the cameras down. I'm assuming this will help as you and others have mentioned, however I won't really get to confirm whether or not I'm still having issues until next year as I'll likely only get maybe one more hunt in on my property at this point.
RE customer service - I'm not looking to get into an argument. I appreciate the help that you provide through this forum; it's the reason that I posted on here. However, covid situation or not, Cuddeback's customer service has been completely unacceptable. I understand the situation everyone is in and am not expecting "immediate" responses. But I am expecting help sooner than 22 DAYS later. I don't think that is "expecting too much". As I mentioned- I emailed customer service on October 19th. It was not until NOVEMBER 10th, 22 DAYS LATER, that someone actually looked into my account and responded with the same recommendation that you provided. The only troubleshooting that I was provided until that point was to change the SD cards, even though that is very clearly not the problem. This was the response that I received from CS on Nov. 2nd after explaining for the 3rd time that the SD cards were not the problem, and that I was also starting to experience delays in transmissions.
"You asked for troubleshooting and we provided you with what would need to be done, if you don’t want to try our suggestions on how to resolve the issue then there is nothing more we can do for you."
How is that an acceptable response under any circumstance? Delayed respones are one thing. Although frustrating given the time of year, it's understandable It is completely another to get argumentative with your customers, and basically refuse to help them. When I do finally get a response after a week of waiting, I do expect it to be remotely helpful. How is it that over the course of 22 days, someone couldn't spend 10 minutes with me on the phone?
You can use the pandemic as an excuse all you want, but if your sales have really doubled last year, and trippled this year on top of that, then I would imagine the company should have suffienct cashflow to staff a reasonably sized and trained customer service department that can support its customers during the peak 3 months of the year when your customers really need it. Covid hit in March -there has been plenty of time to adapt; I've dealt with many companies this year that have figured out how to continue to support their customers during this time. For a company that is fortunate enough to be "booming", I find this as even a less acceptable excuse.
john volkman
5 year old buck +
its way deeper than this, you cant just hire anyone off the street and get them trained on a technical device at this time, couple that with the fact that the intensity and duration of the busy time is extremely defined. I deal with people every day that cant even open an email and those and many other calls clog up the lines during peak times . Can we do better ? yes much better, but This is a completely different year unlike any other. Try to find some ammo right now, or a xbow ,or arrows or a multitude of many other things. - those companies had months to get ready for this and they knew it was coming. you can't just flip a switch regarding technical support or production. I would hope if you have been a member of this forum for any time you would not wait 22 days ot reach out to me. i get your not happy with the answers you received. Your first post said it was 5 days now its 22 days. I understand you want to vent but if you want help it would have been much faster to just PM me from the beginning. offer is still open if you want ot PM me ill walk thru any other questions you have over the phone. I get a little defensive when my company is attacked by those who dont know the whole story.
Houston_Hunter
Yearling... With promise
I was not a member until a week or so ago when I was referred here through another forum. I would suggest then that Cuddeback doubles your salary and the customer support page just provides your contact information. It was clear that the person that I was dealing with had no idea how your cameras actually worked.
john volkman
5 year old buck +
please pm me your name so i can have the head of CS look into the transcripts and who handled it incorrectly. id like to make sure they are trained correctly.
kellenmcclure
Buck Fawn
Hi John - I noticed this afternoon that you guys are on fiirmware 8.3 at Cuddeback.com. Are there any noticeable updates from 8.3 vs 8.2? Thanks!
john volkman
5 year old buck +
8.3 randomizes the cell batch hourly settings. This means that the hourly setting begins when you arm the camera instead of setting the send time for the top of the hour. This spreads out the volume of images that are sent to the cuddeback site and thus onto each individual email or phone #. The batch 1 hour setting is extremely popular(especially during hunting season) and this allowed us to insure consistent image transmission. You dont need to do this update until its convenient. if you are already in 8.2 your can just update the cell home unit unit you get time to update your remotes. IF you are on 8.1 or earlier , all cameras would need to be updated in order for them to communicate. So wait until you can update all cameras if you are on 8.1 firmware or earlier.
HB_Hunter
A good 3 year old buck
Came here to ask this question. I am going to be adding cams and would really like to pick up the J's two for $300. A rebate for a cell cam would be a nice bonus :).
Edited to add - John, thank you again for all your help here. Some of the posters obviously have never been on the CS side to understand how challenging it can be to find/hire/train new people. Especially when dealing with a system like this. This system has been awesome for me. The amount of time/intrusion saved is priceless. I sure hope that you are getting a great Christmas bonus this year. If you were on commission and had a way to tie all the satisfied customers/sales to you, you would have a very merry Christmas :).
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westonwhitetail
5 year old buck +
This looks like a good deal at Fleet Farm.
If a guy bought two of these bundles, so they would have 2 G-5109's and 2-J1521, can those 4 cameras be set up on one cell plan? IE: can a cell unit G-5109 just link pictures to another G-5109 or are these units intended to be the end of a network only? I've tried to do some googling but can't find the answer. Thanks.
Hoytvectrix
5 year old buck +
Probably not. Nearly all of the Cuddeback cell cameras are sold at a loss with the stipulation they have a cell plan for the camera for at least the first 12 months.
That said, this is still a terrific deal for anyone looking to getting into a cell-based cuddelink system on the cheap.
john volkman
5 year old buck +
each g cell unit needs a plan to function. so you cannot do as you stated. This is a very good deal, , actually to good, they are losing money on this. The other benefit is you only need to buy monthly plan to get the cell unit to work. So you could run it for a couple months in the fall and turn it off. If interested in this deal, be there early, they will sell out of these extremely fast, and they dont have very many. Without getting into to the details this deal shouldnt be happening, but it is, and some consumers will benefit as a result.
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john volkman
5 year old buck +
i appreciate the comments. We have a lot of room to improve but know they are always trying and listening , this system is complex and that can cause frustration at times. I am confident that next year we will make great strides. Im just a sales rep for Cuddeback , i dont actually work directly for them. my territory is eastern wi so i only get paid on what sells into Eastern wi. I really enjoy this forum and the people on here are always great. i cant say the same for some other sites/socail media pages lol.
