Smart Scouter cellular/stand alone red flash 1.3 MP camera 08-14-2008

Camera purchased from: TrailcamPro.com

Didn’t think I would see the day when we would get down to a review on this type of camera. Out of the box it looks like something that belongs on the dash of a 55 Buick. It is a burgundy and black plastic case that is around eleven inches tall and just under eight inches wide. It will stick off the tree about six inches. The scale says that it comes in under ten pounds and requires a handle on to make sure you don’t drop it. There are metal saw like brackets screwed to the back at the top and bottom of the cam. These brackets similar to what we have seen on the Leaf River cams have holes for the straps and security cables. Sandwiched between these brackets is the battery compartment that is accessed by unscrewing two thumb screws where you insert a 12v twelve amp hour SLA battery. The top of the case has the suitcase handle and antenna that is required for the wireless cellular operation. The bottom of the cam has a port for the optional external battery system offered by this company. The front of the cam has a large IR array that incorporates fifty IR emitters. Just below that in a black plastic frame is the three PIR sensors. There is the two outside sensors which is used to wake up the cam and the center sensor is the shutter control sensor. Also centered in this frame is the camera lens and laser emitter. The bottom half of the front of the camera is a door that opens to a large LED screen and the off/on, run/setup, laser on, shutter button switches. In the center of the four switches is the joy stick up/down/left/right selectors with the enter button in the center. The CF card and LAN slots are under the ledge at the top of the door frame. This is a massive chunk of a camera and with its just under seven hundred dollar price tag it really needs to be secured to the max. I can put a Scoutguard in the battery compartment and close the door. This is a 1.3 MP camera that can operate as a stand alone or in a cellular mode to the internet reaching anywhere in the world. To use this camera as a standalone only would probable one of the worst buys you could make. There is a ton of other cameras that will do this function much better and for much less money. Where this camera shines is when you go wireless (provided the cellular service is in that area) and then you can be anywhere in the world that has internet and get your pictures. Of course the picture quality will be down because the file size must be small to work over the cell systems. That is why this cam is limited to the 1.3 MP rating.

About 2 this afternoon Anthony called the company and wanted them to send us some data on the camera. Well the fellow said it would be about ten minutes and the data would be E mailed. Well an hour went by and no information so I began to call the 888 number and that’s when I got somewhat pissed. The system would hang up on me and nothing I did seemed to work. I then tried to tear apart the web site for information and found it being a total waste of my time. They have nothing on that site that gives any tech data on their cams. There is no down load for tech information or anything of value other than things dedicated to their sales. At this time I could very easily put this thing back in the box and tell the world that it would be a bad idea to ever get involved with this camera. If you have 700 dollars to spend on a camera and are willing to invest the 15 dollars a month plus a fee per picture and have a limited access to any type of customer service support then you might want one of these. If this review continues it will not be in the same spirit it was started. Customer service is also very much a part of our reviews.

Follow up by phone still resulted in mostly negative results (that time the person there actually answered the phone) We then went to a private vendor and acquired a camera. For some reason it seems that these folks do not want for someone to dig into their system and find out if it has any faults. There are always some questions that we have to research and find the answers to but when it is 3pm on a Thursday afternoon EST and no one is at home, this leaves us cold. Previous attempts to get phone connections had basically the same results. We have always tried to maintain a rapport with all manufacturers and our nearly two hour phone conversation with a different vendor today in conference was an example. Anthony and I are going to have a sit down and talk about these folks and decide if we are going to continue. If their system is as good as they say then they would want everyone to know.

08-15-2008 update:  Was going to spend some time with this cam doing trigger and flash range tests but decided that the stand alone feature was of little use with this camera. Those who would want to spend the money would be using it for its wireless feature and the basic things like picture quality and flash range would matter but would probably not be the deciding factor. Trigger time on this camera would depend on whether or not the animal crossed two sensing cones. If the animal stayed in the peripheral and not cross the center beam he would probably not be shuttered. In this case trigger time would depend on how long the animal stayed in the peripheral before he hit the center cone. This could be one second to a week, so going through a lengthy trigger time evaluation would not be valid. This means that you just have to live with what you got and if you are in an area of fast moving animals then the trigger time would be fast. What we are going to have to do is go ahead and spend the time trying to use this in the wireless mode and report the results. I see this device as being far more valuable as a security camera than a scouting camera. In either case it would be a night mare of an operation to conceal it from the eyes of either the animals or bad guys breaking into the mountain cabin. We will log on and set up for the wireless operation and see if this thing will fly.

08-24-2008 update:  We have had about ten days to open the hood and kick the tires and dig through the trunk. This camera definitely has an area that it shines in. That area is that it will definitely transmit pictures to the site and get logged in so this company can collect a fee for each picture. The problem is that what is transmitted and received to be downloaded by the user is far from being acceptable. As stated about the IR array and its size. This cam puts out a lot of IR illumination. This illumination is so intense that it causes a total IR burn on anything that is remotely close to the camera. The daytime shots are fuzzy and weak and very lacking in detail. The distant night shots that are not wiped out by the IR burn are very small and totally lacking in detail. The programming also leaves a lot to be desired. It seems that this is another cam that must be programmed on the tree. You cannot set it up and turn it off then go out and hang it. You must program it and then hit run without turning the cam off to maintain the settings. This camera seems that it does not try to adjust to the conditions by reading feedback and adjusting to conditions like Buckeye cameras do. There is about a twelve hour period of time per day that the pictures are not usable providing the animal or subject is at the proper distance from the camera. This twelve hour timeframe is when the camera must use the flash. Chances of setting up and having that animal walk out at that exact distance and not be burned by the array or be to far to capture and degree of detail is pretty slim.

We did some trigger time tests and they came out somewhat respectable at one and a half seconds. What we found is that when the wireless mode is in AUTO, the camera will automatically deliver the photos as they are taken.  Studying the camera LED display during the trigger tests indicated that the after the camera triggered, it would transmit for 90 seconds then enter and wait the delay period before it was ready to take another photo.

Hours of digging around in the instructions still left us wanting a whole lot of answers to a lot of questions. These instructions do a very good job getting things arranged to set up an account and making sure that there is some good billing information but when it came to detailed camera information and operation it was very substandard. We will give this a few more days before we close the hood on this Yugo and go on to the next camera with the hopes of much better mileage.

08-25-2008 update:  We had a little discussion as to whether or not to go ahead and spend some more time on this camera. We concluded that it would probably be of little value. No matter how hard we try we cannot make this camera any better than what it is. This system does work and when setup it will deliver pictures as advertised. Some folks have situations where this type of system might fit and will find a degree of value in its operation. Setups that are many miles away that would require a lot of time and expense in gas might justify the use of this system. Just be advised that you will only get marginal quality pictures in the daytime and just about unusable pictures at night. Setups for security operations would be a great idea for this system. You could identify the type of vehicle and see individuals in real time but license numbers and physical description of those individuals probably would be difficult to pick out any details using these downloads. It would make giving law enforcement notification to a situation in a timely manner so the possibility of catching the bad guys might happen. You best hope that the camera was not found in the first couple minutes and has transmitted at least one photo prior to being destroyed by the violators. Rumors have it that there are other systems that work are in the mill and will find their way to the market within the next year. I will get someone to help me to lift this thing back into the box and get ready to pay the truck freight back to its source.  

Trigger time 1.5 seconds

Samples (640x480)