Remote Target Camera

[GJF]

Have watched the youtube use of remote wifi target cameras, so that  you can view / record grouping on smart phone / tablet.

Has anyone experience / advice as seem to range from £60 ebay to £700 1 mile range camera.

 

[GT3_richy]

I have the one mile Bullseye which I brought on a whim, about 450 from OW. Only used it to about 500 yards to date but it works as advertised - even after I managed to shoot it with a rimfire 😂 If you can maintain line of sight to the target I don't see why it wouldn't work.

If I have nothing better to do sometime next week I will try it and test it at 1km-ish which is about as far as I can put out a target with line of sight.

I'm pretty sure its possible to achieve the same a lot cheaper, but being a techo-tard this looked like it would do the job so I bought it.

[jcampbellsmith]

I looked at cameras in the past with little success. I prefer this. 

http://crispinengineering.co.uk/index.php/smt-solo/

Regards 

JCS 

[GJF]

How long do the batteries last on the target?

 

[Bianchi]

It’s not the Bullseye system that’s the performance bottleneck but the lousy antenna in one’s tablet or smart phone that needs to receive a signal over the distance being shot. 

I shared a Gen 1 system with a mate for a few years and the staple diet was 1k yards. As the battery’s performance started to wane, we began experiencing reception issues and had to start repositioning our tablets to reconnect. The problem was solved by replacing the rubber duck antenna with a 2.4 GHz Yagi, i.e. still using the antenna’s base which is actually an amplifier as well.

After my mate stopped LR, I no longer had access to the Bullseye system and had to find an alternative solution. The current set-up comprises a Reolink Eco Webcam with USB power connection and an external antenna (SMA) One Yagi antenna is connected to the camera which has built in batteries so one doesn’t even need a power bank. 

Reception is another Yagi antenna to a USB powered mini router with a power bank (also useful for supplementary power to the tablets during a day’s worth of shooting) at the shooting point which makes life far easier for the tablets, since they only need to connect to the local WiFi network.

Excellent reception and optical performance out to 950m (max range tested so far) without an amplifier,  thanks to the directional Yagis. The camera is out of the line of fire with adequate resolution when using the digital zoom.  

The downside: No software that shows where the last shot went, so I have to take a screen shot after every shot (easy with the Reolink software which includes the date and time) , record the time in my reloading log book, and analyze the target for groups later.

Total cost: Approx. 150€/130£ incl. three tripods for the camera and the Yagis.

[Popsbengo]

18 minutes ago, Bianchi said:

It’s not the Bullseye system that’s the performance bottleneck but the lousy antenna in one’s tablet or smart phone that needs to receive a signal over the distance being shot. 

I shared a Gen 1 system with a mate for a few years and the staple diet was 1k yards. As the battery’s performance started to wane, we began experiencing reception issues and had to start repositioning our tablets to reconnect. The problem was solved by replacing the rubber duck antenna with a 2.4 GHz Yagi, i.e. still using the antenna’s base which is actually an amplifier as well.

After my mate stopped LR, I no longer had access to the Bullseye system and had to find an alternative solution. The current set-up comprises a Reolink Eco Webcam with USB power connection and an external antenna (SMA) One Yagi antenna is connected to the camera which has built in batteries so one doesn’t even need a power bank. 

Reception is another Yagi antenna to a USB powered mini router with a power bank (also useful for supplementary power to the tablets during a day’s worth of shooting) at the shooting point which makes life far easier for the tablets, since they only need to connect to the local WiFi network.

Excellent reception and optical performance out to 950m (max range tested so far) without an amplifier,  thanks to the directional Yagis. The camera is out of the line of fire with adequate resolution when using the digital zoom.  

The downside: No software that shows where the last shot went, so I have to take a screen shot after every shot (easy with the Reolink software which includes the date and time) , record the time in my reloading log book, and analyze the target for groups later.

Total cost: Approx. 150€/130£ incl. three tripods for the camera and the Yagis.

Clever, I was looking at "lambing cams" as a solution but this seems much more economical

[1066]

If you're somewhere with a wifi signal you could "Zoom/Skype" yourself with two devices - Distance no object then - In fact you could do it as a meeting and we could all watch you shoot.
 

[blueheckle]

Phoenix on the night vison forum build one at a fraction of the cost using a WIFI camera app 650yds distance , but he also put a parts list up for anyone to build it , here is the vid       

 

[One on top of two]

I just use my drone . knicked the idea from the Mark and Sam after work shooting vids . great if your shooting mutiple targets/steels