To acces SPYPOINT's Accessbility Statement, click on this link
Does Solar Power Matter for Trail Cameras?

Does Solar Power Matter for Trail Cameras?

Putting solar power to use for your trail cameras can give you the edge when hunting season rolls around. It doesn’t get nearly the attention of some other features, but I’m here to tell you, not only can solar help you save time and money, it just may make it more likely that you tag your target buck this fall.

HOW CAN SOLAR TRAIL CAMERAS SAVE YOU TIME?

Making trips to your cameras takes time. Maybe you’re lucky and it’s only an hour or so round trip? It may be a full weekend investment. Regardless of exactly how much time, solar power can cut down on the number of trips you need to make to visit a camera.

If you’ve already made the switch to cell cams to save time by not needing to pull SD cards, you may still be on a schedule of visiting the cameras when the batteries need replaced. Murphy’s Law says this won’t happen when you have a free weekend to run to your cameras and get it taken care of. It will happen at the most inopportune time.

A cellular trail camera using solar power, especially an integrated panel charging an internal battery like in the FLEX-S or LINK-MICRO-S, can keep taking photos and stay powered for months on end in the right conditions without you ever needing to visit the camera to maintain a card or batteries. Saving one or two trips is great, but saving a year’s worth of trips? Now we’re talking serious time.

It’s hard to put a value on time, but isn’t the ability to stay connected to your hunting property without having to sacrifice family time worth something?

HOW CAN SOLAR TRAIL CAMERAS SAVE YOU MONEY?

Let’s start with the obvious. If you’re able to run a camera off of an internal battery that is recharged by the sun, even if you’re using AA batteries as a backup, you could save multiple sets of batteries every year. We can be conservative and say every set saves you $20. Save three sets a year, that’s at least $60 you save no matter what.

Gas isn’t cheap. If we assume that a gallon of gas costs roughly $3.25, and if we use easy math and say your truck gets 15 miles to the gallon, you’re saving $3.25 for every 15 miles of every trip you don’t take.

If your cameras are 60 miles away, that’s 120 miles/15 = 8. Take 8 x $3.25 and you save another $26 every trip you don’t take.

The battery figures are per camera, so if you have multiple cameras per property, combine the battery savings and add in the fuel savings, you could be looking at hundreds of dollars saved pretty quickly.

HOW CAN SOLAR TRAIL CAMERAS HELP YOU HAVE A SUCCESSFUL HUNT?

A trail camera that isn’t actively taking pictures doesn’t do you much good, and dead batteries are the leading cause of cameras stopping taking pictures. The more pictures you have, the more information you have, and the better plan you can make for your upcoming hunt. That part is pretty simple.

Something that is a little tougher to quantify but is absolutely a factor in a successful hunt is the ability of you the hunter to not spend all year disturbing the animals you are hunting. Every time you go into your hunting property you are disturbing and educating the animals that live there. As careful as you are, you can’t be perfectly silent, perfectly scent-free, or completely undetected.

The animals will know you were there.

The only way to mitigate that is to not be there. You will have to make trips to trim lanes and tend to stands, but why make extra trips to change batteries if you can avoid it?

Every hunter’s routine is a little different, but my goal is always to try to get my stand maintenance out of the way by early August. That’s also the last time I want to go to the woods until I start hunting. Solar cameras are very likely able to make it to the end of hunting season if they are fully charged with backup AA batteries at that time of year.

This allows the deer to settle into their routines, hopefully in front of my cameras, so I can make a plan for my hunts. If for some reason I have to service a camera in-season, chances are I will be able to do so go in or out of the woods to hunt.

Solar trail cameras give you flexibility that you need to be able to stay out of the woods when you want, but your cameras to keep going. That means fewer animals disturbed and should up your chances of having a successful season.

HOW CAN YOU USE SOLAR TRAIL CAMERAS?

If the idea of saving time, money, and having a more successful season leads you to wanting to use solar trail cameras, how do you do it? Well, as mentioned before you can choose a SPYPOINT trail camera with integrated solar panel and internal battery like the FLEX-S or LINK-MICRO-S, or even the FORCE-PRO-S if you hunt an area where you can’t be solar and cellular.

If you want the benefit of solar without buying all new cameras, you can also add the SPYPOINT SPLB-22 to virtually any existing trail camera you have. The SPLB-22 is great because it combines a solar panel and lithium battery into one unit. Where older 12V battery systems that used solar had to connect a standalone panel to a battery, and then the battery to the camera, this is a single unit that does both. That means fewer exposed wires, fewer items to pack into the woods, and less potential problems from curious wildlife. The SPLB-22 has multiple mounting options and goes right on the same tree or post as the camera. Just plug it into the 12V jack, and you’re connected to a massive battery and a panel capturing lots of solar power to keep it charged!

There are multiple ways you can put solar power to use for you this season. It’s not too late to adapt your strategy now, save time, money, and maybe even have your best season ever.

Related Posts

Subscribe to receive news and promotions

Subscribe