Best Game Camera That Send Pictures To Your Phone

How Do Cellular Game Cameras Work?

The Network

A cellular trail camera acts as a second set of eyes for you in woods. The trail camera has a cellular sim card that connects to a cellular network like Verizon or AT&T. The cellular camera takes takes photos and videos just like your non-cellular camera does however it has the capability of sending you notification alerts to your cell phone or sending you the photo or video to you as a text message.

Our favorite cell camera and in our opinion one of the Best Trail Camera That Sends Pictures To Your Phone – the Covert Blackhawk camera comes equipped with a mobile app that notifies you whenever your camera is triggered (BUT check out our Cuddeback Cuddelink trail camera system review below…we like this one a lot too!). When you have the Covert Blackhawk cellular trail camera set up to shoot video, you get super crisp videos like the one below sent to your phone:

One of the biggest headaches you’ll come across with while searching for the best trail camera that sends pictures to your phone is making sure you have cell phone service where you want your camera. We hunt mostly high mountain backcountry in Idaho and cell phone service can be a real pain.

A few years ago, these Covert Cameras were on the AT&T network and we had to be extremely strategic about placement. If your cell service is spotty, you will miss photos. Your camera will still take the pics but you just won’t get them sent to you. Covert really stepped up with their Verizon LTE cellular cameras like the Blackhawk above. We’ve literally had ZERO issues with service on the Verizon LTE cellular network. It makes getting your cameras setup super quick, and requires less time boogering around your honey holes in search of cell service.

Fees

There will be some sort of service fee you’ll need to pay for the cellular usage. On our Covert Blackhawk cameras we’re paying less than $20 a month for the cellular service and we can turn it on and off whenever we’d like. Plans are as low as $7.99 a month. You can see the various plans below to get an idea of what it will cost you to run a cellular game camera.

Time Saver

It’s truly incredible the amount of time you save by not having to hike in and pull the memory card – or check the batteries or just to make sure it’s still attached to the tree you placed it on and working properly. With a cellular trail camera like the Covert Blackhawk, you get all the above information + more right on your mobile phone app.

Cellular Trail Camera Set Up Tips

When it comes to getting your cellular deer or elk camera setup, it’s important to pay attention to the details. These wireless game cameras aren’t the cheapest on the market. I have a couple cheap cameras that I don’t really care if they get stolen (I actually do care – just won’t be livid if a fellow hunter accidently mistakes it as their own and does me a favor by taking it down for me.) With these cheap cameras I’m a little more relaxed with placement and how secure I make them.

3 Tips For Expert Trail Camera Setup

1 – Bear box/Security lock box 

There are a few reasons why you need to lock your cellular game up inside of a security box.

• Secure way to procure your trail camera to a tree.
• Makes it more difficult for a dishonest person to tamper with your camera or open the camera up and steal your SD card or delete your photos.
• Eliminates the threat of animals like elk and bears from moving the camera around on the tree or completely knocking it off. Make sure you use long screws and that security box isn’t going anywhere.

2 – Cut-proof lock 

A cut-proof locking system is a must for your prized hunting trail camera. It’s unfortunate that we as a hunting community need to do this, but ask any outdoorsman who has had a camera stolen – yea it’s worth it. 

Amazon is a great place to find the best cut-resistant locks for your hunting trail camera. The key is to make sure the lock or cable fits through the hole on your security box. If you’re unsure at all about the diameter size and things fitting, the free returns on Amazon is great for dialing that in. The Python trail camera lock is a great option that can be found on Amazon. These cables are a cut resistant 5/16″ (8mm) braided steel cable. Their patented locking mechanism holds the cable secure at any position from 1′ (30cm) to 6′ (1.8m) for infinite locking positions. The heartless individual will have to pack a chainsaw and cut your tree down in order to get into your trail camera with the python locking system in tact.

Camera placement 

Camera placement can make all the difference in your camera lasting the entire season or even multiple seasons. Have you ever come across a money “honey hole” placed a camera there, and returned to no camera? Chances are, if you’re on public land and not too far off the beaten path, you’re not the only one that knows about your new honey hole. To be safe, instead of placing the camera in plain sight right on the wallow or spring, go find the main trail that leads to the honey hole and set your camera up on that trail somewhere. Sure, you’re probably going to miss a few animals, but your camera should stay put. Moral of the story, don’t set your camera up where everyone else does or would.

Advantages and Disadvantages of a Cellular Trail Camera

Advantages 

I think it’s obvious what the biggest advantages are about a cellular trail camera when you’re searching for the best game camera for your situation. 

Real-time intel 

If you have multiple areas that you hunt and have cellular game cameras set up in the different areas, you have all the intel on your phone that tells you which location you should hunt. If you didn’t have a cellular trail camera, you’d have to randomly pick a spot, or, go pull all the SD cards to see which area is most active at the moment. As you know, that can take up a ton of time while also boogering an area. 

Easier to learn animal patterns

It’s fun when you can almost start predicting when your phone is going to start blowing up with photos and videos from your cellular trail camera that it sends to your mobile device. Where you are reminded everyday or every other day of when your game camera gets hit, it stays top of mind and helps you remember when certain animals are hitting your hunting spots. 

Know your trail camera status 

When you don’t have a mobile connection to your trail camera you don’t know the status of things like:

• battery life
• memory card
• camera placement
• If the camera is still where you placed it

Directly on your cell phone, you can view the battery life, how much space is left on your SD memory card, and see when the last update was – or time when your phone connected to your trail camera. You can also use your phone as a remote control and request a real-time photo. This quickly lets you check to make sure your camera is still shooting at the right angle or direction. 

Disadvantages 

There really aren’t any disadvantages of a cellular camera other than battery life. If your camera is set up to shoot video and you get a lot of animal action on your camera with very little interval time (like 5 to 10 seconds between captures) your batteries will die quicker than you are probably used to. Cellular cameras also tend to require more batteries than a non-cellular. The Covert Blackhawk wireless camera takes 12 AA batteries. For this reason, we like to use rechargeable batteries as they are more easy on the pockets. 

Best Cellular Trail Cameras {the cameras we use}

We’ve used mostly Covert trail cameras with one of our favorites being the Blackhawk LTE (see below), however, we got our hands on the Cuddeback Cuddelink hunting trail camera system last year and found it to be an awesome system.

Check out the setup:

The main differences between this Cuddelink system and our cellular Blackhawk camera are:

• Further coverage – we found we could get deeper in the canyon because as long as the main unit has decent service,(picture it like up on top of the ridge) we can link the other 3 units to each other (think leap frogging) moving away from the main unit.
• We don’t get photos sent to us (via text or email) instantly like with the Blackhawk – we have to have it send to our email address every hour. Once we got used that that it wasn’t an issue at all. It actually made the top of the hour fun as we anticipated what strolled through recently.
• No video with these guys. Don’t get us wrong, we love the video. But, the deeper coverage made us forget about not getting video. We weren’t trying to make a production film off of our trail camera footage.

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Covert Cameras Blackhawk w/Verizon LTE

Description from Covert: This cellular camera is a few years old but still includes some solid LTE technology which will improve battery life and the speed of the wireless functions. The Blackhawk LTE continues with the ability to send texts, emails or both within the Covert Wireless mobile app and web-portal. The app includes guest access abilities and the power to retrieve high resolution images. The Blackhawk LTE sends instant pictures or 5 second videos using Verizon’s approved cellular network. Reliability at its finest, Covert Scouting Cameras continues to revolutionize the wireless trail camera industry.

Features:

• Dimensions: 6in x 4.75 inx 3.5in
• 12 Megapixels
• 58° field of view
• .65 second trigger speed
• 60 No Glow LED’s
• 100 foot flash range
• 12 AA batteries
• Invisible flash technology
• 1-10 turbo shot burst
• Maximum Silence Image Capture™
• Time/date/temp/moon phase stamp
• 2” color viewer
• Pipe through security
• Up to 32GB SD card

If You’re Looking for a Good Cellular Deer Camera…

Why We Love the Covert Blackhawk as the Best Trail Camera That Sends Pictures To Your Phone

Who doesn’t love getting videos like this sent to them on their phones while at work? The Verizon cellular service has been a huge upgrade and with how easy these cameras are to set up it makes a wonderful addition to your hunting arsenal.