Cuddelink 101?

[john volkman]

lots of updates coming this year, gen 3 firmware is faster and more efficient on image transmission than current,Im running it now and happy with the increased speed. You will also get more images for the price on the plans as that will be updated soon as well. New app coming. Gen 3 firmware should be ready for release before mid year.
Prices are coming down on some cameras /units as well. Per the original question if you are new... buy a 2+1 starter kit and add L series remotes from there. If you want to run cameras year around, solar panels will make your life much easier.

 

[willy]

John, Will the panel prices be coming down too? Cheapest I've seen them is 55 for the small one and 90 for the big one?

 

[john volkman]

John, Will the panel prices be coming down too? Cheapest I've seen them is 55 for the small one and 90 for the big one?

price drop will be on on L series IR, Zoom and Strobe - accessories are all remaining the same MSRP

 

[Hoytvectrix]

lots of updates coming this year, gen 3 firmware is faster and more efficient on image transmission than current,Im running it now and happy with the increased speed. You will also get more images for the price on the plans as that will be updated soon as well. New app coming. Gen 3 firmware should be ready for release before mid year.
Prices are coming down on some cameras /units as well. Per the original question if you are new... buy a 2+1 starter kit and add L series remotes from there. If you want to run cameras year around, solar panels will make your life much easier.

Will the more images for the price be because the image size is going down or because more images can be sent for the current pricing structure? I understand if you need to be light on the details too.

This is all super exciting John. Seeing these types of advancements (Gen 2 firmware and eventually Gen 3) has been reassuring.

 

[john volkman]

Will the more images for the price be because the image size is going down or because more images can be sent for the current pricing structure? I understand if you need to be light on the details too.

This is all super exciting John. Seeing these types of advancements (Gen 2 firmware and eventually Gen 3) has been reassuring.

more images for current price structure - the image size will remain the same. The cuddelink images are also being optimized for better quality via firmware updates in the future. On the Tracks stand alone cell units the image size is going to full size for the images in most plan options.

 

[RGrizzzz]

Will CuddeBack have some PR for all of these changes?

 

[john volkman]

Will CuddeBack have some PR for all of these changes?

if you mean promotional material , yes once its all ready to go it will be announced , HT forum users just get early info from me

 

[Bill]

I guess I could research it but here's a quick question. Do they have a home system that would plug into a PC so pictures are viewable on the computer with no need for a cell plan?

 

[T-Max]

I guess I could research it but here's a quick question. Do they have a home system that would plug into a PC so pictures are viewable on the computer with no need for a cell plan?

If you run it non-cell, you just pull the SD card from the home unit and use a card reader in a PC. Will produce the same result.

 

[john volkman]

I guess I could research it but here's a quick question. Do they have a home system that would plug into a PC so pictures are viewable on the computer with no need for a cell plan?

Bill, they dont and no plan for it at this time. Originally the intent was to do it but it was difficult to build one that offered ease of use for a consumer for a cost that made sense for Cuddeback and the consumer . The high majority of users use a cell plan and a very small percentage use the SD pull method , not ruling out this for the future but noting in the works anytime soon. Trail camera market has become so competitive that the only profit comes from cell plan fees and almost nothing from the actual camera sale. There is some individuals who have figured out how to do it on their own though with a wi fi sd card.

 

[JJK]

One thing to note about the camera setup is that video is disabled when using the Cuddelink system. I was a little disappointed when I discovered this. I did not expect to be able to send videos via RF, but I was planning to record video while still sending the image captured before the video. It has not stopped me from continuing to use and buy more cameras, but it would be a nice feature. The manual does tell you the video will be disabled but I missed it.

 

[Bill]

If you run it non-cell, you just pull the SD card from the home unit and use a card reader in a PC. Will produce the same result.

I was thinking more along the lines of being able to log on to a computer remotely and accessing pictures without having to be present. Now John has me looking at WiFi SD cards

 

[john volkman]

I was thinking more along the lines of being able to log on to a computer remotely and accessing pictures without having to be present. Now John has me looking at WiFi SD cards

you can do that now but you need to have at least one cell home unit with a cell plan, you can look at all your images anytime on the cuddeback camp website. if you want to skip the cell plan and jsut use wifi you need to frankenstein your own system.

 

[RGrizzzz]

I guess I could research it but here's a quick question. Do they have a home system that would plug into a PC so pictures are viewable on the computer with no need for a cell plan?

You could put this unit by your house and not subscribe to a cell plan. It would dump all the pics to the card on this Home unit. Take the SD card into the house and look at the pics. You can do the same with the cell camera unit too, if you wanted a camera enable home unit. It would only gather the low resolution version of the pics that bounce between cameras. Full resolution pics require pulling the card from the cam that took the pic.

Product Detail - Cuddeback

 

[Pyhntr]

You could put this unit by your house and not subscribe to a cell plan. It would dump all the pics to the card on this Home unit. Take the SD card into the house and look at the pics. You can do the same with the cell camera unit too, if you wanted a camera enable home unit. It would only gather the low resolution version of the pics that bounce between cameras. Full resolution pics require pulling the card from the cam that took the pic.

Product Detail - Cuddeback

I have used the Spypoint cable to connect a Home unit in the house window to my laptop/computer with USB 2.0 male to usb b mini female. Used Synctoy to copy pictures from this "cable/sd card" to my Onedrive. Set up Task Manager to run Synctoy between the 2 folders every 5 minutes. You need to keep up with deleting the pictures that you don't want. This keeps space on the cable/sd card. Works for me.... https://www.spypoint.com/en/products/cell-link-cable/cl-cbl

 

[davidhelmly]

I have had10 cuddelink cameras for about 5 years now, a few black flash and the rest IR. I am very happy I didn’t get more black flash because the night picture quality is terrible compared to IR, if/when I add more cameras, black flash will not be considered.

 

[Foggy47]

SD did you purchase your cam's yet? I have run 7 Cudde units for 3 years now. Generally speaking, I really like the system as I no longer need to run the circuit and exchange cards and then load all those to my computer and spend lots of time loading and looking at the pics. I have G and J series cams and they all have worked fine together. Now I just go to cuddlink each day and have a look at the thumbnails from anywhere I happen to be and at my convenience. Really a big time and frustration saver.

I set mine up at my home for a few days and became familiar with the set up and options to some extent. Still there was a little learning curve to set them up the first few weeks. Usually the case with anything new.

Couple of points I would offer:

I just put solar on my home unit.....and also have a battery back-up on this home unit. It stayed in the field for over 2 years without needing any battery replacement or attention in any way. Tho I cut the number of cameras to two in the winter for just security purposes. I feel its cheaper to replace the other batteries about 2x season (July to December) than to purchase solar for all my cams. Plus its easier to alter the locations without allot of work. I keep two cam on those genius posts and sometimes move them about to see what's making a trail...etc.

I use the plastic genius mounts and screw them to the trees. If a bear gets after a cam he generally breaks the plastic genius mount and the cam has been fine......so far. I feel it's easier to replace a $130 camera than to buy all those bear cages. So far I have not lost a cam to the bears despite a few attacks.

My pics wont win any monthly photo contests because they are all thumbnails and not of the highest quality. I have never gone to the camera to get a pic at full resolution. I am not wanting to win a pic contest.....rather I want an inventory of the critters using my land.

I'm kinda tight.....and don't want to invest in all the solar gear and bear proof cages....when I can buy a bunch of quality batteries each year and be in biz throughout the year for about $60 IIRC.

Edit: Buy a few extra PLASTIC Genius mounts for when one becomes damaged or you want to run the camera in a few locations....thus leave the mount in the tree. They are only $1. I just was about to get some more.....and will add two L cameras this year @ $130. and an L base unit.

 

[SD51555]

SD did you purchase your cam's yet? I have run 7 Cudde units for 3 years now. Generally speaking, I really like the system as I no longer need to run the circuit and exchange cards and then load all those to my computer and spend lots of time loading and looking at the pics. I have G and J series cams and they all have worked fine together. Now I just go to cuddlink each day and have a look at the thumbnails from anywhere I happen to be and at my convenience. Really a big time and frustration saver.

I set mine up at my home for a few days and became familiar with the set up and options to some extent. Still there was a little learning curve to set them up the first few weeks. Usually the case with anything new.

Couple of points I would offer:

I just put solar on my home unit.....and also have a battery back-up on this home unit. It stayed in the field for over 2 years without needing any battery replacement or attention in any way. Tho I cut the number of cameras to two in the winter for just security purposes. I feel its cheaper to replace the other batteries about 2x season (July to December) than to purchase solar for all my cams. Plus its easier to alter the locations without allot of work. I keep two cam on those genius posts and sometimes move them about to see what's making a trail...etc.

I use the plastic genius mounts and screw them to the trees. If a bear gets after a cam he generally breaks the plastic genius mount and the cam has been fine......so far. I feel it's easier to replace a $130 camera than to buy all those bear cages. So far I have not lost a cam to the bears despite a few attacks.

My pics wont win any monthly photo contests because they are all thumbnails and not of the highest quality. I have never gone to the camera to get a pic at full resolution. I am not wanting to win a pic contest.....rather I want an inventory of the critters using my land.

I'm kinda tight.....and don't want to invest in all the solar gear and bear proof cages....when I can buy a bunch of quality batteries each year and be in biz throughout the year for about $60 IIRC.

Edit: Buy a few extra PLASTIC Genius mounts for when one becomes damaged or you want to run the camera in a few locations....thus leave the mount in the tree. They are only $1. I just was about to get some more.....and will add two L cameras this year @ $130. and an L base unit.

No. I diverted those dollars to build the ultimate Ruger Charger.


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[Trlblzr3]

John will the new firmware address the runaway G camera issue. I have a brand new G that I bought at the GAOS from Cuddeback booth that suffers from this issue.

 

[john volkman]

John will the new firmware address the runaway G camera issue. I have a brand new G that I bought at the GAOS from Cuddeback booth that suffers from this issue.

new firmware will be gen 3 cuddelink, they can change the capacitor in your camera to fix that issue but you would need to send it in or exchange at the retailer you purchased it from.