****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Works good to upgrade older non cell cameras. Only real issue is if the signal isn’t great where you put it you can burn through your free 100 photos quickly. But the cellular radio is strong and it seems to work where the spypoint link micro radio doesn’t. Both work good.1. Once you get it working, should be OK.2. Product Instructions Are Lacking.I bought one after reading the reviews knowing this could be a challenging product. I pulled the camera from my hunting spot after 2 days and zero pictures. I set it up in my backyard, jerked around with formatting, on/off sequences, etc. and have come up with the "secret" sauce to get these working. You'll watch a ton of YouTube videos...3. I'll update this review once I've had the Cell-Link in the woods for two (2) weeks. If it works consistently for two weeks, good-to-go. If not, I'll be looking for an alternative product.4. Don't Pay $60 Bucks. You'll want your money back. Price point is $39.00 so, Amazon is expensive for this product...While this could be a serious upgrade for an Old, photo-only trail cam that doesn't take videos, there are several drawbacks to using this device, and slightly misleading info that makes it seem, or you would think, it does more than it can. Not true, it's actually a very limited, though clever, device.First of all, as to its 'near universal' fit, it ONLY works in cameras with a full-size HC-SD card slot. That means it will not fit if your camera has a micro SD card slot. They say this, true enough, but hunters/ cameras seem to use the term SD indiscriminately. They say there are no plans to develop a micro SD adapter (that connects the cell link to your camera. )Second, if your camera takes videos, you will never see any of them, they are not saved anywhere, and as they say, they aren't transmitted and you won't see them in the app, either. Videos are out, gone, might as well turn that setting off in your camera. It will not copy, store or transmit videos, and with your camera's memory slot taken up by the adapter, there is No Video Capability of the camera with this attached.Third (geeks, this is for you), there is no two-way connectivity between your camera and the (yes, wait for it! ) Micro SD card you must install in the cell link. In other words, the cell link extracts still images from your camera, and stores them in the micro SD card you supply on the cell link (for the cell link to later transmit), but your camera can never see those images again, it's just a one way dump. So if your camera has any high falutin functions (good screen, wifi, etc.) you'd like to use in the field, it will never be able to read the images it captured. Gone (to cell link. )I did not try to reproduce the cable-crimp problem, I tested this all with open compartments.The manual is Excellent. The app and storage plans seem very good. It was easy to set up, and even in my remote neck of the woods I was able to get connected to Verizon in a few seconds (my phone cannot often boast the same.) I used a third party antenna booster (at 1/4 the cost of spypoints, it worked excellently boosting 1-2 bars. ) It does have an external 12V jack for a battery or appropriate solar panel/ battery.The concept is excellent. The manufacturing seems first class. And it's pretty cheap! If you've got old hunting cameras you don't want to be going to check, just know where the game is, this could be very valuable. If you're thinking you can kluge some high tech security system out of this, you will probably also be disappointed. Like I was, and returned it.Worked great for just over 1 month and 1k pictures. Suddenly it stopped working. Narrowed it down to the sd cars cord. Customer service was a pain. They made me run through every little thing from batteries to firmware just to make sure nothing else was wrong. This tied me up for over 1 hour. They will be sending a warranty replacement however it may be 2 to 4 weeks. If they can come out with a more durable sd card cord this item will steal the show. Until that day comes this is no good to me if it doesn’t work, especially during the active deer season. FYI the cord wasn’t pinched in the door. I went as far as cutting a hole in the bottom of my older Bushnell camera to prevent cord damage. Oh well………These are amazing. Turn any trail camera into a cellular camera. Depending on the connection get pics sent to your phone almost immediately.I wish Amazon would allow less than a 1 star review. I have been using multiple spypoint cameras and links for 3 years now, this is the first and last year for the links.Problem #1 - the coating on the wire that connect to your camera must be made with some kind of corn or soy based oil because the squirrels and raccoons will eat it before the corn in the bait pile. After multiple cables I have figured out a way to keep them from getting chewed but it’s not worth the hassle because even with good cables they don’t communicate As they should which leads me to…Problem #2 - just flat out unreliable. They will communicate and work perfect until you leave your hunting spot and get home, in my case 3 hours away, and then they will just stop after a day or two.So all in all I have 4 links, 2 link micros, and 1 link evo. All on Verizon and my hunting property gets great Verizon signal. I can stream video on my phone right beside all of the cameras (and the cameras show full signal).So with the equipment cost and the countless $15/month plans over the years i am probably at close to $1,000…and a TON of frustration! I have got very few months of consistent hassle free pictures. I will say the evo worked great for the 1st year, but now it just won’t connect. And I am fairly tech savvy and have followed all install and troubleshooting to a T…new sd cards, formatted correctly, updates installed, ect.So I have chalked it up to an expensive lesson and decided to move on. Being the nice guy I am I called spypoint and explained to them (very nicely) that I have decided to stop using their equipment and wasn’t calling go complain or ask for any type of refund but rather I though their company had great potential and I would like to send the cameras back to them for R&D so they could better their product. The only thing I asked for was a return shipping label. I got a very short and sweet answer of: we do not want them, throw them away. I think that tells you what kind of company they are.Tried multiple times to get this to connect to UK mobile network without success. Useless with no network connection so returned. May be because it was supplied from US - may be a difference in the networks??
