I am going to setup some Outdoor Cams as trail cams, using the solar panel to extend battery life. The Base Station will be positioned within wifi range, and the Cams will of course be within Base Station range.
I am trying to wrap my head around what I would gain with Cam Plus under this scenario, vs just putting an SD card in the Base Station.
Is the only advantage having Cam Plus in this scenario the longer than 12 second videos?
Will I be able to access videos through the app either way?
Cam plus will give you event videos for the duration of motion to the cloud. No cam plus will give you only event thumbnails to the cloud, aka no cloud video. If you were to add cam plus lite to the cameras, you would get 12 second events of the motion to the cloud.
If you were to use these scheduled recording function on the WCO cameras, that would save event videos to the card in the camera which can then be downloaded via the camera album to your phone to watch.
So, if I understand correctly, without Cam Plus I would see thumbnails on the app, and would get the videos from the Base Station SD card?
And these would be 12 second videos? Would there be a cooldown for these videos?
Sorry, I know these questions should be easy to answer with a little searching, but I have searched and can’t get clarity.
The backup up to the base station does not work with cam plus but it does work with cam plus lite which you can get for free and you will get 12 second videos on the events page with a backup to the base, and the camera will have a 1 min. cooldown between videos. There is no playback from the base, you have to take the card out to read it…
I would get cam plus lite, set the camera for scheduled event recording, MOTION ONLY, set it for 30 day 23 hours, no cooldown period and a max video length of 5 min for each video.
Or you could get cam plus and do scheduled event record to the SD in the camera at the same time.
You said Trail Cam? How far will the camera be placed from the base ? You do know that the cam connects to your base WI-FI signal so if you are planning on more than 40 feet or so you might have issues depending on where the base is.
You can playback the videos on the SD card from the cam album but you must tap the download icon to view, and the video will also be saved on your device.
I have put the cams out, and it seems to work. I am trying Cam Plus on one, Cam Plus Lite on one, and nothing on the third. Just to see practically speaking how each works for me. I have the SD card in the Base Station, and I am running the Cams in the normal mode, no scheduling or anything fancy.
The furthest one is about 300 ft out, and it is “on the edge,” but works.
One thing to consider, if the cam and base with only the SD card gets stolen, there goes your footage. With Cam Plus or Lite you would still have 14 days of Cloud videos.
Yeah, no benefit to the “nothing” plan, so I have put 2 of them on Cam Plus Lite.
The Base Station is obviously intended to be mounted indoors. That said, is it possibly safe to mount it outside, under the eaves, or otherwise protected? Or has anyone ever installed an outdoor antenna for it?
Here is an External Antenna Mod.
I have a good signal for most of my cams with the furthest at 50feet. I’m lucky if can 2 Bars for the one outside at the back of the house which is about 50 feet from the base through four walls one of which has the electrical breaker box in it… Any further the signal is to weak to be useful for me.
My Base Station is in a window, and the far away Cam is across a field, and about 75 feet in the woods. But, I set it in a place where I can see the window through the trees.
It has no bars, but it works. I am going to work towards improving it, probably with a directional antenna.