All Things Habitat - Lets talk.....
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Cuddeback's Cuddelink
- Thread starter Peplin Creek
- Start date
Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
Mark,
I think it's pretty nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule to come on this forum and post information about this system. Answer questions and inform all of us. It's a new system people have questions. I think that says a lot about your character and desire to help hunters out achieving our goals. I truly appreciate the affordable innovation this system can offer. Simply put, from one hunter to another, Thank You.
I think it's pretty nice of you to take time out of your busy schedule to come on this forum and post information about this system. Answer questions and inform all of us. It's a new system people have questions. I think that says a lot about your character and desire to help hunters out achieving our goals. I truly appreciate the affordable innovation this system can offer. Simply put, from one hunter to another, Thank You.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
I agree! It is refreshing to have someone from a company come on straight forward and tell us who they are so folks can evaluate the posts. This is much better than some of the gorilla marketing that took place on the old QDMA forum where company reps would pose as end users.
Thanks,
Jack
john volkman
5 year old buck +
I think everyone will be happy as they watch the cuddelink family of products grow, there will be an option that fits everyones needs in every situation . That said, if you are hesitant about the current offering contact any of our dealers who are currently using it or have customers that are and they can give you an unbiased opinion on the feedback they are getting from customers . I told Mark when he first let me use this system that i hadn't been more excited about trail cams since he brought out his first digital model. This system will make any scouting camera user a better land manager and also learn even more about Deer/game and what any type of human pressure does to alter their patterns. To top it off its affordable and you will be able to grow your network as funds and need arises.
john volkman
5 year old buck +
Cell module wont be available until 2018. It will work with the current Dual flash camera that is out now. Plans and final details are still being worked out. You will be able to run multiple cameras with one plan which will be a huge advantage. The Cuddelink network will also allow you place cameras in specific areas without cell service that then can transmit images to a Camera with the cell module in an area on a property that does have sufficient cell service.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Well that sounds like oversell. Mark flatly said they have no plans to support full resolution transmission which eliminates applications like mine. Working with both the 2mile and 5mile radio BECs, it is clear that practical transmission distances (regardless of brand operating in this frequency band) are a fraction of that. Rolling terrain and thick vegetation like pines can limit distances to very short range as Mark suggests. RF transmission is challenging. Like the BEC system, I see this as another niche system that simply fills a different niche, scouters with short distances or poor cell service. Most of the cell cam plans are pretty inexpensive when thumbnails are used verses full resolution pictures.
I'm sure this system will fit the needs of some, but no solution will be universal including this. The bottom line is this. RF transmission in this frequency range is challenging. Even the high end systems are limited by FCC and they physics. They represent an upper bound. One thing cuddelink does bring to the table is a significantly lower up front price for those who are ok with thumbnails.
Thanks,
Jack
john volkman
5 year old buck +
My Bad Jack , your right- i should have said " there will be an option that fits everyones needs but Jack" since you are the only person i have run into to date that needs full resolution images transmitted to apply to his management or hunting style. Like i said in an earlier post , i have a very close friend that has 50 BEC on two different properties, I would put the images the dual flash transmits up against the images i have seen from his BEC , i wasn't impressed with the BEC images- especially the motion blur. Ive spent 30 years in the hunting industry, and my education background is wildlife management, in the past 6 months i have talked to hundreds of hunters, industry personnel and wildlife management staff and each and every person agreed that this system would fit their needs and wants.(that is until i came upon this thread and read your comments). Im not trying to oversell anything , I'm wanting the people on this thread to pay attention to the cuddelink family as it evolves because its my opinion that they will be happy with what they see and experience.
Bill
Administrator
I hear that. Last I checked, it's still the USA!
Just wanted to thank you for stopping by and posting on our forum. I know it's not something you can realistically continue. As a long time, well invested "in product" BEC user I'm personally happy to see some real competition coming. I love my BEC's as much a Jack but maybe for different reasons. Long term Data is great but I'm a short term data guy. 2 years to 2 weeks is good for me. Particularly if the right deer is only showing for two weeks. Long term reliability is key for me. I run cams 24/7/365. You're personal tests look good.
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!
Your visit pushed me over the edge. I'm going to buy a few and give them a run. Even though you said directional antennas are not helpful I may have to fashion some. Again just the geek in me that has to try.
Thank you for stopping in.
Mark Cuddeback
Yearling... With promise
In regards to cell - CuddeLink will allow a user to have 1 cell plan that sends the images from up to 16 cameras. In monetary terms, this is $20 versus $320 per month. Most users won't have 16 cameras, I think the average will be 5 to 8. That would be $100 to $160 per month vs. CuddeLink at $20 per month.
As for CuddeLink transmission distance - the true connection distance is miles as the cameras will daisy chain - or bucket brigade if you prefer - allowing the transmission distance to go for miles. The radio technology in CuddeLink and BEC are the same 900 MHz MHz-hopping scheme authorized by the FCC. I even suspect we are both using the same TI radio chips. The difference in range will be a factor of radio design, camera setup (getting antenna above the tree tops vs on ground level), terrain, forest-vs-open terrain, etc. I can state that our radio range in line-of-site exceeds 2 miles, and in a forest its typically 1000 feet to 2600 feet. Considering that most users have 640 acres or less the entire property can be covered with CuddeLink cameras and the images will get home. Thus range is not an issue.
The cool thing about CuddeLink is setup is so darn easy. Set a few basic parameters (Channel, Camera ID number) and arm the camera and attach it to a tree. You don't have to install an antenna mast, aim the antenna, run cables, or hook up a bulky battery pack. Deployment is just like deploying a conventional trail camera. That was our design goal - to make the system so easy to use that everyone could use it. When cameras are deployed you can pick up a camera and move it and in most cases the network will continue to work. The network will "build" the network and automatically connect cameras that are deployed and remove cameras that go offline.
I do know there will be guys that want full rez images - I always did which is why we spend so much effort on image quality. But once I started using CuddeLink I quickly lost interest in our 20MP images as I found getting my images while sitting inside my cabin was a trade off I'd take any day. Attached is 2 wolf images. Notice the times. One of these wolfs is 75 yards from where I was sitting when it went past the camera. Then I noticed the same wolf was 1 mile down the road a short time later. I viewed these images 2 hours after they were taken - that's cool to see something like this happen in real time. With conventional cameras I would have viewed these images a week or 2 later and most likely never would of noticed the same wolf was on 2 cameras only minutes apart. Maybe some day I'll go pull the SD cards from these cameras to recover the full-rez image. Fun stuff.
As for CuddeLink transmission distance - the true connection distance is miles as the cameras will daisy chain - or bucket brigade if you prefer - allowing the transmission distance to go for miles. The radio technology in CuddeLink and BEC are the same 900 MHz MHz-hopping scheme authorized by the FCC. I even suspect we are both using the same TI radio chips. The difference in range will be a factor of radio design, camera setup (getting antenna above the tree tops vs on ground level), terrain, forest-vs-open terrain, etc. I can state that our radio range in line-of-site exceeds 2 miles, and in a forest its typically 1000 feet to 2600 feet. Considering that most users have 640 acres or less the entire property can be covered with CuddeLink cameras and the images will get home. Thus range is not an issue.
The cool thing about CuddeLink is setup is so darn easy. Set a few basic parameters (Channel, Camera ID number) and arm the camera and attach it to a tree. You don't have to install an antenna mast, aim the antenna, run cables, or hook up a bulky battery pack. Deployment is just like deploying a conventional trail camera. That was our design goal - to make the system so easy to use that everyone could use it. When cameras are deployed you can pick up a camera and move it and in most cases the network will continue to work. The network will "build" the network and automatically connect cameras that are deployed and remove cameras that go offline.
I do know there will be guys that want full rez images - I always did which is why we spend so much effort on image quality. But once I started using CuddeLink I quickly lost interest in our 20MP images as I found getting my images while sitting inside my cabin was a trade off I'd take any day. Attached is 2 wolf images. Notice the times. One of these wolfs is 75 yards from where I was sitting when it went past the camera. Then I noticed the same wolf was 1 mile down the road a short time later. I viewed these images 2 hours after they were taken - that's cool to see something like this happen in real time. With conventional cameras I would have viewed these images a week or 2 later and most likely never would of noticed the same wolf was on 2 cameras only minutes apart. Maybe some day I'll go pull the SD cards from these cameras to recover the full-rez image. Fun stuff.
Mark Cuddeback
Yearling... With promise
Bill
Few things to keep in mind with antenna. Directional antennas will prevent the daisy-chain from working as cameras can be deployed 360 degrees around a remote - the remotes need to "hear" all directions. However, if you can deploy as a "hub-and-spoke" arrangement I suspect a directional antenna will greatly extend distance, but, how would you aim the home camera antenna? Perhaps a 180 degree HOME antenna would be beneficial with 45 to 90 degree remote antenna. We have never tested that as the CuddeLink concept is to build a networks and let images daisy chain home. What we did test was using coax cable from the radio coax output to the antenna - does not help. I even tried a 25 foot cable and the antenna on a 25 foot mast. Performance decreased due to the signal loss in the coax. The cable was expensive so I do not recommend you waste time and money on that experiment. Good luck and thanks for your interest. Let me know if the directional antenna work out.
Bill
Administrator
Check on that. Not looking for a 360 to bounce very many cameras. My current set up only calls for 1 camera with a large directional yagi. It grabs pics from a cam that is really close (less then 400 yards line of sight with very little foliage to slow signal). The directional then sends to the base at a mile away. It's a 5 foot high gain directional and it is also at a high point sending to a high point darn near down a highway. All other cams that I have to bounce off have 360 high gain omni's
I like the ability to daisy chain but try to avoid it as much as possible. This is high tech for cams but we're not bouncing off satellites.
Keep up the good work. IMO you're about to change the game at a price point that is realistic for most hunters and not just us nuts.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
John,
First, it is not going to be a fit for many. Given my experience (Bill and others can confirm), there are many situations where the distances will be too short to be practical.
On the subject of picture quality, you are spot on! BEC produces reliable systems with long lifespan unlike most of the trail cam industry. I've been running my Orions since 2008 with no camera related failures. I did recently send some back for refurbishment but those were things like replacing scratched lenses and warn connectors and such. I think I did have one that did have a broken connector that did need the board replaced (I dropped the SLA while connected).
This reliability is achieved from using components that have been tested in a wide range of conditions proven over time. This mean the technology will be older. More reliable but older. The current cheap Chinese cams produce some of the best picture quality out there. There is no doubt in my mind that the pictures the Cuddelink will store on the SD card will be much higher quality than the older BEC technology. Reliability and lifespan is still to be seen with Cuddelink. The older cuddeback cameras had faster triggers than much of the competition but suffered the same reliability and lifespan issues.
Don't get me wrong. I fully hope the Cuddelink succeeds, but folks need to have realistic expectations. Nothing Mark had provided identifies any technology that extend range beyond what the FCC and the physics limit.
The lack of full resolution pictures will limit it from data collection applications like mine, but that won't be an issue for most hunters. While lifespan and reliability are still to be seen, most will struggle with the distance limitations in the real world.
Keep in mind that I'm an end user with no relationship with any company. If you look at threads on here, you will see that while the BEC system works well for my application, it has limitations that I'm quick to call out. By the way BEC and trail cams are not my only experience with RF communication systems.
While companies tend to try to market and get folks excited about their products (BEC, Cuddeback, or whomever), I tend to try to inject some realism into their expectations.
Thanks,
Jack
Really interested in the Cuddelink system, think it would work well in my situation, for scouting and security. Have a couple of questions though:
1) Can a home camera take pictures as well as collect remote images simultaneously? What about repeater cameras, can they take pictures as well as send remote images to the home camera at the same time?
2) What keeps two separate cuddelink systems from interfering with each other in close proximity, as in two neighbors using them on each property? Is there a password/PIN/unique ID set on the home/remote cameras that keeps someone from setting up another home camera and pulling pictures from the remote cameras? As in stealing pictures?
Really appreciate that you are reaching out and answering questions, it's much appreciated.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Mark,
Great post! I really appreciate you directness and recognition of the limitations. In fact, at one point BEC was looking at the same kind of self-healing network you seem to be hinting at. I was one of the end users that advised against it unless they could include more accurate battery state information into the cost model. This kind of network may actually work well for you since you don't transmit full size images.
One of the most challenging considerations is power balance (which I'm sure you know). You've opted to take that out of the equation for the most part by limiting transmission to small images. The problem with the dynamic network approach for BEC is that some cameras, depending on setup have different loading. If I the end user can define the network topology, I can ensure that cameras receiving heavier loads because of forwarding packets have additional power available. In a benign environment, it may not matter, but when topography and pines are involved defining the path, it does.
I'd love to see this kind of network protocol used in the BEC system if they could accurately measure battery life (with solar panels attached) and include the battery level in the cost model for establishing the network path.
It is great to see you in the market place with this system. I wish you the best of luck. I realize that some of your cheerleaders are not happy with my critique, but I'm sure you would rather have happy customers who understand your system rather than folk with more challenging RF environments having unrealistic expectations.
Thanks,
Jack
Peplin Creek
5 year old buck +
I did just get two cameras yesterday, to answer number 1. Yes the home unit still can take pictures those are stored on the card like any normal trail camera full Rez. Until the repeater units are sold I can't see a reason to set a camera up as a repeater unless it's to save battery life maybe? Since remotes daisy chain to one another and help build the network might as well have it take pictures while it's at it.
2. There is no pin or password, there is a channel id though that gets set 1-16 I believe and all remotes and home unit need to be set to that. Still seems like there could be risk there however odds are small.
I haven't deployed mine the woods yet, but I did set one up on my deck at home and then took the other for a drive in the neighborhood. Some trees, appartment complexes between myself in the truck and the home unit. I was able to get 1/3 mile "good" signal. With the cameras daisy chain abilities and how I put out trail cameras on my hunting property. I feel good about my chances of building a cuddelink network on my property (80 acres) with a couple more devices.
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Outstanding Pep! keep us updated.
hilltopper
5 year old buck +
For "data" collection and to satisfy our curiosity and reduce our disturbance, I get the huge advantages of this system. If it works as advertised I would like to have the system on my property. One question I'd like to bring up: Is anyone concerned about the ethics, or just say the "fair chase" aspects of having this system. Does it take something away from the hunt? Having real-time surveillance can't help but affect your hunting strategies. Are you going to the north 40 stand when you know the old bruiser was just spotted at the south end food plot? It just doesn't seem right...
Bszweda
5 year old buck +
When the cell phone plan comes i'll make the switch. This is exactly what I need as I want one camera for my cabin, and then the rest for deer with out paying for multiple plans. do photos upload nightly or instantly. I'd like my main camera at my cabin to instantly upload taken photos. Is the wireless constantly on or are you time syncing to save batteries?
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
It is probably not a good fit for data collection but certainly can be for the others. The ethics question is not a new one. It exists with all technology including firearms themselves. Except where they have been outlawed, we all have to draw our own line. I've been using the BEC wireless system for years. My primary purpose is data collection for basing and evaluating QDM management decisions. I don't use the realtime aspect for this. I look at the pictures and process the data about once a week.
I will say the system has changed my hunting strategies, but again not the realtime aspect. I suppose one could try to use it in a realtime sense for hunting, but it would not be particularly effective in my habitat. With my kind of hunting, you need to be in position long before deer arrive, and camera can only sense a tiny fraction of what humans can. The system has not affected my hunting tactics much, but it has affected strategies. You can see seasonal changes the occur from changing food sources and added human pressure in the data.
My use has not really posed any fair chase issues for me but some folks may draw the line differently. Some folks won't use any form of trail camera because they don't see it as ethical and some even stick to bows because they find firearms hunting gives them too much advantage. It is certainly something we all have to answer for ourselves and it is a good point to discuss.
Thanks,
Jack
