Test results
Have been running a Reconeco Kanuk, their latest model, and originally a Tactacam X3.0, not the Pro model, followed by the 3.0 Pro, on the same post, one above the other pointing in the same direction, in my back yard.
Reconeco has one plan, $16 a month unlimited, $180 for the Year. Tactacam has
Tactacam offers cheaper pricing for U.S. customers; Tactacam is the same price in the States as Canada as their plans are all priced in U.S. dollars no matter where you are. Thus their $13 plan actually costs $18.41 Canadian if you use a CDN dollar Visa. I would use a U.S. dollar card if you have one, to pay for the plan and renewals. If a guy uses the camera one month a year, no big deal, 12 months a year, availability of cheaper, lower volume, plans, like the $5 and $8 plans Tactacam offers, matter a lot, especially if running multiple cameras.
Both cameras are on the unlimited plan. Both only send the first picture in a 2 or 3 shot burst. With Reconeco you can't change that, it stores the second or more shots in a burst on the SD card. With Tactacam, you can pay an extra $9 a month to get the burst shots transmitted to you, it covers all cameras on your account. You also get unlimited HD phots, videos, enhanced maps and TactaColor (which allows you to color your night time shots), or it will store it on the internal SD, or the SD you added to.
The daytime pictures on the Reconeco has much nicer colour rendition, on 12 MP than the Tactacam on 4K UHD. The Tactacam has quite a bit wider angle lens, though their material doesn't seem to say what the actual angle of coverage is. The Kanuk says it has a 60 degree lens. The Tactacam has Low Glow whereas the Kanuk is No Glow Black Flash LEDs.
The Kanuk claims it has been tested to -40 and reports I have seen says they do work at temperatures that cold. Tactacam says -25 F. I have not personally tried either in real cold weather yet. Reconeco has a 2 year warranty, Tactacam is 1 year.
The Tactacam will work with the Antenna locked into its holder, it does not have to be up. This will protect the antenna much better as animals seem to like to bite the antennas off. So far, all locations have worked this way and it gets a slightly stronger signal than the Reconeco, even though the Recon has the antenna deployed, can't set it up without the antenna facing up. To be safe you should remove the antenna on the Reconeco when transporting them to locations as they do not fold safely out of the way.
Tactacam supports over the air Firmware upgrades, which is really handy if your cameras are located a long ways away. The Reconeco you have to copy the update to an SD and load it to the camera.
Customer support on Tactacam is by Chat, phone and email. The phone is not a 1-800 line so you pay LD to the States, hold times can be quite long. The Chat service is slow, often 10 to 20 people ahead of you when you go to sign in. The email takes at least 24 hours to get you a response, a couple took nearly 5 days. I did have issues setting up the Tactacam, the QR code would not read in their app, even though my QR reader read it fine and displayed the correct info. I had to get them to add the camera manually, did this on their Chat service. Lady that helped was good, once I finally got connected. Wait was about 25 minutes, and another 10 for the fix.
Reconeco has email support, Chat Support and a 1-800 line. The 1-800 I got an immediate connection to an agent, but I only used it once to try it out. Have not tried the support email, the sales email got an immediate response and the owner even met me at McDonalds in Ft Sask., which is where Reconeco is based, to deliver the camera so I didn't have to pay shipping. Heck of a nice guy and an interesting fellow.
Recon has a 2 year warranty. Tactacam has only a 1 year warranty unless you sign up for their user group, which extends it to2 years.
I tried 4 models of Spypoint as the 100 picture fee plan was an attraction. They are junk and the customer service is atrocious. Bushnell, the cameras are not reliable and the cell connections are poor. Between the Tactacam and the Reconeco, I was going to run them for 12 months and then decide, but so far I have to say the Reconeco is leading. Both take 12 AA to operate. The Reconeco has much lower battery consumption, still at 100% after 3 weeks, the Tactacam is at 65%. Using Energizer lithium in all cameras. Main pluses for Tactacam, multiple plan options, the ability to get the results of burst shots transmitted, and better quality pictures in the dark, along with over the air upgrades and wider configurability. That and they are $179 a pop on sale versus $229 on sale for the Kanuk. You can also save another $20 as the Tactacam doesn't actually need an SD card to work.
The big poop floating in the pool is; I took the first 3.0 back because it was missing about 30% of the animals that walked through the coverage zone. Pictures showed up on the Reconeco, NOTHING on the Tactacam, not even a triggered picture with nothing in it. I paid an extra $30 to get the upgraded 3.0 Pro model, it shows exactly the same pattern of missing about 1/3 of the animals. This is everything from fox and coyote to deer. All were well within the coverage zone, not out at the far reaches, and there is no bush or other impediments to the view of the camera.
There are examples below of the pictures the Reconeco captured that the Tactacam did not. I even checked the SD card on the Tactacam to see if the pictures were stored and had just not been transmitted. Not on the SD card either. No matter how many +s there are on the Tactacam side of the ledger, a trail cam that fails to capture 100% of the animals is not very useful, as the only way you know the shots were missed is if you run them together like I did. I would be very interested to see the results from anyone else who has tried this type of testing.
Coverage Area Reconeco
Coverage Tactacam mounted on same post. Tactacam has a slightly wider field of view.
Three examples of pictures caught on the Reconeco that were completely missed by the Tactacam.
Fox Near flower garden
Caught by both Tactacam and Reconeco. The time on the Reconeco was set manually, the Tactacam was set to Automatic time, so the two clocks don't match up exactly, they are out by about 40 seconds, with the Reconeco showing a time 40 seconds later than the Tactacam. I changed both to automatic later on, and they match closer.
Have been running a Reconeco Kanuk, their latest model, and originally a Tactacam X3.0, not the Pro model, followed by the 3.0 Pro, on the same post, one above the other pointing in the same direction, in my back yard.
Reconeco has one plan, $16 a month unlimited, $180 for the Year. Tactacam has
Tactacam offers cheaper pricing for U.S. customers; Tactacam is the same price in the States as Canada as their plans are all priced in U.S. dollars no matter where you are. Thus their $13 plan actually costs $18.41 Canadian if you use a CDN dollar Visa. I would use a U.S. dollar card if you have one, to pay for the plan and renewals. If a guy uses the camera one month a year, no big deal, 12 months a year, availability of cheaper, lower volume, plans, like the $5 and $8 plans Tactacam offers, matter a lot, especially if running multiple cameras.
Both cameras are on the unlimited plan. Both only send the first picture in a 2 or 3 shot burst. With Reconeco you can't change that, it stores the second or more shots in a burst on the SD card. With Tactacam, you can pay an extra $9 a month to get the burst shots transmitted to you, it covers all cameras on your account. You also get unlimited HD phots, videos, enhanced maps and TactaColor (which allows you to color your night time shots), or it will store it on the internal SD, or the SD you added to.
The daytime pictures on the Reconeco has much nicer colour rendition, on 12 MP than the Tactacam on 4K UHD. The Tactacam has quite a bit wider angle lens, though their material doesn't seem to say what the actual angle of coverage is. The Kanuk says it has a 60 degree lens. The Tactacam has Low Glow whereas the Kanuk is No Glow Black Flash LEDs.
The Kanuk claims it has been tested to -40 and reports I have seen says they do work at temperatures that cold. Tactacam says -25 F. I have not personally tried either in real cold weather yet. Reconeco has a 2 year warranty, Tactacam is 1 year.
The Tactacam will work with the Antenna locked into its holder, it does not have to be up. This will protect the antenna much better as animals seem to like to bite the antennas off. So far, all locations have worked this way and it gets a slightly stronger signal than the Reconeco, even though the Recon has the antenna deployed, can't set it up without the antenna facing up. To be safe you should remove the antenna on the Reconeco when transporting them to locations as they do not fold safely out of the way.
Tactacam supports over the air Firmware upgrades, which is really handy if your cameras are located a long ways away. The Reconeco you have to copy the update to an SD and load it to the camera.
Customer support on Tactacam is by Chat, phone and email. The phone is not a 1-800 line so you pay LD to the States, hold times can be quite long. The Chat service is slow, often 10 to 20 people ahead of you when you go to sign in. The email takes at least 24 hours to get you a response, a couple took nearly 5 days. I did have issues setting up the Tactacam, the QR code would not read in their app, even though my QR reader read it fine and displayed the correct info. I had to get them to add the camera manually, did this on their Chat service. Lady that helped was good, once I finally got connected. Wait was about 25 minutes, and another 10 for the fix.
Reconeco has email support, Chat Support and a 1-800 line. The 1-800 I got an immediate connection to an agent, but I only used it once to try it out. Have not tried the support email, the sales email got an immediate response and the owner even met me at McDonalds in Ft Sask., which is where Reconeco is based, to deliver the camera so I didn't have to pay shipping. Heck of a nice guy and an interesting fellow.
Recon has a 2 year warranty. Tactacam has only a 1 year warranty unless you sign up for their user group, which extends it to2 years.
I tried 4 models of Spypoint as the 100 picture fee plan was an attraction. They are junk and the customer service is atrocious. Bushnell, the cameras are not reliable and the cell connections are poor. Between the Tactacam and the Reconeco, I was going to run them for 12 months and then decide, but so far I have to say the Reconeco is leading. Both take 12 AA to operate. The Reconeco has much lower battery consumption, still at 100% after 3 weeks, the Tactacam is at 65%. Using Energizer lithium in all cameras. Main pluses for Tactacam, multiple plan options, the ability to get the results of burst shots transmitted, and better quality pictures in the dark, along with over the air upgrades and wider configurability. That and they are $179 a pop on sale versus $229 on sale for the Kanuk. You can also save another $20 as the Tactacam doesn't actually need an SD card to work.
The big poop floating in the pool is; I took the first 3.0 back because it was missing about 30% of the animals that walked through the coverage zone. Pictures showed up on the Reconeco, NOTHING on the Tactacam, not even a triggered picture with nothing in it. I paid an extra $30 to get the upgraded 3.0 Pro model, it shows exactly the same pattern of missing about 1/3 of the animals. This is everything from fox and coyote to deer. All were well within the coverage zone, not out at the far reaches, and there is no bush or other impediments to the view of the camera.
There are examples below of the pictures the Reconeco captured that the Tactacam did not. I even checked the SD card on the Tactacam to see if the pictures were stored and had just not been transmitted. Not on the SD card either. No matter how many +s there are on the Tactacam side of the ledger, a trail cam that fails to capture 100% of the animals is not very useful, as the only way you know the shots were missed is if you run them together like I did. I would be very interested to see the results from anyone else who has tried this type of testing.
Coverage Area Reconeco
Coverage Tactacam mounted on same post. Tactacam has a slightly wider field of view.
Three examples of pictures caught on the Reconeco that were completely missed by the Tactacam.
Fox Near flower garden
Caught by both Tactacam and Reconeco. The time on the Reconeco was set manually, the Tactacam was set to Automatic time, so the two clocks don't match up exactly, they are out by about 40 seconds, with the Reconeco showing a time 40 seconds later than the Tactacam. I changed both to automatic later on, and they match closer.
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