I’m too invested in Tactacam to switch brands.

 

I bought two Gardepro non cell cameras a couple or three years ago and will never buy one of their products again. One crapped out after a year, and both had horrible battery life. Picture quality is mediocre at best. If their non cell cams are this bad on batteries, I bet a cell cam wouldn’t last more than a couple days sending pictures.

I‘ve run Spartans since the 2g days, and their quality isn’t at all what it used to be. They’ve also got left behind (in my opinion) by Tactacam with their rechargeable lithium battery pack and proprietary solar panel. I’ve still got 4 Spartans that I have rigged up external batteries for or have Herd360 solar panels on, but I much prefer Tactacams now (I have 6).

If you shop for deals, Tactacam 2.0 models can be had in the $65-75 price range, and I’m using Chinese copies of their lithium batteries from Amazon that cost half what the factory one do. I’ve had 4 of my Tactacams out for almost 2 years and never had to touch them.

 

My experience has been the complete opposite. I have 4 expensive Browning Dark Ops trail cameras that don't work. Several other brands that also stopped working after a couple seasons. I have had zero issues with my GardePro E5 cameras the past few seasons. I'm not knocking Tactacam, because I have no experience with them.

My E5 goes almost an entire year on 8 Duracell batteries, but I just do 8 MP pics. Night pics are way better than the Browning cameras that cost 3-4 times more.

I have zero experience with cellular cameras. I respect the reviews done by the Hunting Farmer.

 

The non cell Garde Pros have been working good for me. Battery life has been OK but I need to lower my setting to 8 MP pictures too. I usually get 250-400 pics per week and a fresh set of batts will last me 3 to 4 months usually. With any cameras I'm not too worried about pic quality as all I'm doing is seeing what's available in my area. I think my $40 Garde Pro's take as good/or better pic quality as the $100+ Bushnells Ive ran (and still use) for several years now. Just my observations.....

 

We put one of these at the farm this past weekend with the solar panel. When the camera was put out it had 54% battery life. Its taken a hundred or so pics and the battery life today is at 93%. Pics look great day and night. I'm impressed so far but time will tell. I've been using the same Tactacam at my house for the last 4 years. It's been out 24/7 365 and hasn't missed a beat even after being ripped off a tree and slammed on the ground by a bear. 😤 The Gardepro has a long ways to go till it reaches that level of reliability.

 

Was the one you guys put up the x66 or the x60? I was watching the video and it looked like it was the x60

 

I am running 4 Garde Pro cameras that are all 4 years or older and none of them has had a single problem. I get about the same usage times with them that I do with my Tactacam and Bushnell cameras but I don't put mine on a feeder getting thousands of shots either. Picture and video quality is pretty good also.

 

I was late to switch over to cell cams. I didn't think I had decent enough service for them to work. Tried my first Tacta Cam Pro last year it worked great. I am running 5 now and love them. I also run several GradePro std cams that work great. Some are at least 4-5 yrs old.
I am hooked on cell cams now. Plan on adding 3 more later this year.

 

I can not, and will not recommend this camera. Picture quality is great, price is great, but the battery life is beyond terrible. Utilizes a rechargeable lithium battery pack, that you can not buy spares of. So, when it dies, you're stuck charging it for 12+hours. Planning on trying to send it back to Amazon and getting a refund.

 

So after reading this I have to guess that the solar panels would not keep it charged. Is that correct?

 

I'm running a herd of Tactams If the solars are in full sun they last a long time. I've had some bad battery life results with the knockoff rechargeable batteries. The tactical rechargeable are better but still less life than the AA battery packs. The tactacams have so many features I think I burn batteries fast by getting pictures and videos transmitted to me and then HD pictures... So some of that lower battery life is cam pilot induced. This year I am trying to extend battery life and have them on pictures only and reporting once a day. That extends it out a lot. Keeping a herd of tactacams going for me is expensive.

I think the Garde Pros are great. I was running some of those with Spypoint cell units that you plug into the battery slot. The Spypoint battery life would go out 4 to 1 to the Garde pro. This year I have about 6 gardepros out there doing non-cell type pictures and videos. I think they really do a good job and nice videos for me and 8AA 's (is it 8 in there? Its been awhile since I put one out) run those things for a super long time.

 

Running 8 Tactacams for my 4th year now. SK’s and XB’s. I’ve had decent luck using the lithium packs. Trying stand alone 12V 10AH lithium batteries in a waterproof ammo style box and chew proof cables with the lithium pack as a back up in 4 cameras this year to see how well they’ll do. Cover is too dense where they’re being used to add solar panels. Been having great success with the Tactacams.

 

I'm running an oem lithium battery pack with oem solar pack in a densely covered area. Even though it doesn't recharge much through Spring and Summer, the cam runs off the battery pack in the solar panel first. Once the leaves drop it gets a little sun. That combo has been out over a year untouched and showing 60% battery life.

 

The Tactacam battery cartridge lasts about two thirds as long as the Eveready Ultimate lithium batteries, the after market cartridges last even less. I am in year two of also using the 12 volt battery in a cartridge box setup and so far it has worked very well. If I get three years out of it the cost will be half that of the lithium batteries.

 

My Tactacam runs all year long with only the solar panel hooked up and stays at 100% even after several cloudy days. It is in a field where it gets plenty of direct sunlight though. No batteries are in it at all.
Try this on yours and see if it will run off the solar panel only.

 

The solar panel I have has a battery built in, the one that gardepro uses is just a solar panel that charges the onboard battery. So, I'm not sure if theres some weird stuff going on with battery to battery charging or not, it's also an off brand panel. I ordered the solar panel that they bundle with their kit to see how that works out. I'm concerned now because I went from 100% yesterday to now 62%. At this rate, it'll be dead by tomorrow.

 

Personally, I have zero interest in cellular trail camera, but the Hunting Farmer just released a review on the new GardePro X66 cellular trail camera.

I'm not usually loyal to any brand, but I am currently using all GardePro E5 trail cameras (standard SD card camera) on my property. I used 5 of them to take an inventory of what's on my property. Since switching over to them, they have been the best trail camera I have ever used. I have bought them on sale ($39.99) most of the time, and you can't beat that price for quality "no glow" trail camera.

For those interested in cellular trail cameras, this review may be of interest to you.

Amazon prices for a GardePro X66 can vary from day to day, but the $62.99 price today is not bad for all the features this camera offers.

Cellular cameras are not my thing. I prefer simple, but I'm not exactly the norm either.

I have two - an E5 and an E6 non-cellular trail cams. Wife bought me the E5 a couple years ago for Christmas and I picked up the E6 on Amazon for under $25… Right now I only have the E5 deployed but will set the other out as time permits. For the $’s they are great IMO.

 

I have two - an E5 and an E6 non-cellular trail cams. Wife bought me the E5 a couple years ago for Christmas and I picked up the E6 on Amazon for under $25… Right now I only have the E5 deployed but will set the other out as time permits. For the $’s they are great IMO.

Those are some great bucks!

 

Personally, I have zero interest in cellular trail camera, but the Hunting Farmer just released a review on the new GardePro X66 cellular trail camera.

I'm not usually loyal to any brand, but I am currently using all GardePro E5 trail cameras (standard SD card camera) on my property. I used 5 of them to take an inventory of what's on my property. Since switching over to them, they have been the best trail camera I have ever used. I have bought them on sale ($39.99) most of the time, and you can't beat that price for quality "no glow" trail camera.

For those interested in cellular trail cameras, this review may be of interest to you.

Amazon prices for a GardePro X66 can vary from day to day, but the $62.99 price today is not bad for all the features this camera offers.

Cellular cameras are not my thing. I prefer simple, but I'm not exactly the norm either.

Been looking at trail cameras and I think I'm sold on this one. Price, features, and plan pricing is pretty solid.

 

Just got tactacam 2 weeks ago , 1st cell I've own still not got it to send pictures ( think its me LOL ). Got the $5 plan 50 pictures but thinkling about it that not many in a month . We'll see ??

 

It's not uncommon for me to get 200+ pictures a night on one of my cameras.

 

We typically have about 30 to 40 trail cams running. Have used Bushnell, Browning, Reconyx, GardePro, Spartan,StealthCam and others In non cellular versions. The GardePro have good battery life and excellent images. Have recently been migrating to cams with solar panels given the cost of batteries. Spartan has a new version with an integrated solar pane and battery, AA as backup. They have been doing very well. Gardepro offers a bulk deal with camera and solar pane that is reasonably priced but the integrated solar panels and battery on the Spartan is convenient

 

The only down side to solar is if you hunt in the woods with canopy it’s gonna be difficult to keep them charged. They just don’t get enough sun light. I have two Tactacam solar panels and neither would stay charged on the woods. Another factor is solar panel size and wattage produced

 

Sorry for your poor Gardpro experience Retrievr.... I have 5 Pro's now and they take an excellent pic with good range...

As far as cheap,you get what you pay for thought...when cams get stolen as fast as they do ,Im gonna buy em as cheap as I can...

 

I picked up a new revel 3.0 that’s week . Picture are considerably better than my old gen 1s, I love that they work off what ever carrier that has best signal where they are.

 

About to go set mine out this morning. Was going to leave the stealthcam setup, but I don't have a spare mount for it. But, I also have several pictures already to compare to the new camera. If it works, great. If not, I only paid $50 for it and the first month of use is free. Worst case scenario I buy a new stealthcam or tactacam.

 

I am using the Wing Home solar panel off Amazon and it does either 6 or 12 volt recharging and has not had a single problem in 3 years usage 365 days a year.

 

That's the one I have. I'm just not sure if it's compatible with the gardepro. The gardepro uses rechargeable batteries, where my stealthcam relied on either a panel with a battery pack or ran off AA batteries. I'm not sure. I'll see what the battery looks like later if it's charged from the sun at all. I have the gardepro panel on order, will be here Sunday and I'll be up there hunting Monday, so it'll be swapped out then.

 

It's a real shame the battery life on this camera is atrocious, because it does take some nice pictures.
Had this guy show up this morning.

 

I bought two of the x66 , the battery life is not great, one is at 36 percent after 3 weeks, the other is 59 right now at 2 weeks. Night pics are not good. IMO the best thing about the camera is the live stream.

 

I was thinking I had heard they were having battery problems. I bought one of their first cell cameras and returned it and guess I will hold off on this one too.

 

I have been having good luck with Camojojo cell camera. Best of all the basic data plan is only $4.99 per month. If you get Live View in addition it is $7.99 a month.

Payment

space.camojojo.com

Bill

 

Here in Georgia the woods are thick. I had mine in oak flats. Charged them fully up before deployz around 2 months they were dead. Also in the fall and winter. You have less daylight hours. You add in rain or storm days and it just wouldn’t work for us. Maybe a better brand of solar powered unit and higher wattage might change that but I went the way of external battery boxes and run 15 to 20 ah lithium batteries. They last a long time

 

I wonder if it was the solar panels on the Tactacam? Had a friend who had the same experience as you. We have some that are still running that have not been changed since we put them out last year (Spartan, GuardPro and one Browning that is a celuar) Also we do not do video but we get hundreds of pictures a week

 

I got my order in just in time. Ordered two and ironically Amazon gave me a 3 week ship date. Showed 3 left when I ordered & 2 days later the special was down.

 

Just ordered an x66 pro earlier, was listed at 62.99, but then had a 20% off coupon that brought it down at $50 or so. Put my stealthcam deceptor out the other day and most of my night pics were terrible. Seems it's either getting moisture inside and fogging up or the IR flash just isn't working right. Reviews seemed solid, only complaints were battery life. I believe my solar panel will work with it, so hopefully that'll extend the battery life indefinitely.