A camera for woodlands ?
by The blog at woodlands.co.uk, 2 February, 2023, 1 comments
We, like many woodland owners, have stand alone battery powered trail cameras that record photos and videos onto a SD card. They work well but obviously need regular monitoring to check battery state, and if the SD card is full. Some time ago, I found a Reolink Go which is battery powered with the option of a Solar panel. This camera records photos and videos onto a SD card, but differs from a Trail camera in that it has a SIM card.
This allows remote access with live and remote viewing of photos and videos 24 hours a day. The daytime viewing is full colour, and black and white at night.
There is sound, two way speech and an alarm all controlled from your mobile handset. There is an option of "Push" notifications when the camera is triggered. We live almost 50 miles from our woods and find it works well. When I was researching the camera there was a review saying it worked well from 3000 kilometres but I cannot imagine many UK woodland owners would require it to work over such long distances.
My original camera came with a V Sim which is a Vodafone data-only card, costing £4 per month with a monthly rolling contract. These Sims are only available via third parties now and are very expensive to buy but the subscription remains the same. The cameras work on mobile Sims obviously using only the data aspect. The full technical data is available via the Reolink website and cameras are often discounted via the Amazon website.. There are other similar cameras, some more expensive but I do not have experience of these.
We have seen deer, hares, squirrels, rabbits, mice, pheasants, extremes of weather and the occasional trespasser! We enjoy the ability to see part of the wood from home when we are unable to visit.
(The above post received from one of our 'woodlanders').