HCO Spartan Red Glow - AT&T Review

HCO Spartan Red Glow AT&T Trail Camera Review

 

Model # GC-ATTi (AT&T) | Cellular Setup Instructions

 

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Pros

• Low resting power
• Cellular setup is relatively easy
• Good picture quality
• Solid case design

Cons

• Average battery life
• Slow trigger speed

Trailcampro Analysis

The HCO Spartan GoCam is a red glow infrared cellular 3G trail camera. Red glow infrared simply means the camera emits a red glow when it takes a picture at night. For this reason, we would classify the Spartan as a wildlife camera and not a security camera. The Spartan GoCam works on AT&T or Verizon towers (you will need to specify the carrier the camera will use when ordering) but can send emails/texts to any phone no matter what carrier the phone uses.

One of the biggest challenges for cellular cameras the last several years has been the availability and hassle of getting the correct sim card. The Spartan camera has simplified the process and erased the need to go to a local AT&T or Verizon store and haggle over which sim card to get. The cellular setup for this camera can be done with your home computer, in just minutes. There is no contract and you can start/stop service at any time. We will talk more about cellular setup a little later, for now, let's see what else the camera has to offer.

Picture Quality:

Photo resolution: 8, 5 or 3 mpxl | Video Resolution: No video in cell mode | Flash Type: Red Glow Infrared

The sample pictures you will see in this review are directly from the camera via email. Any picture that is emailed is a compressed file, so the resolution and size are smaller. The full-size image will be saved on the sd card.

Daytime pictures are very solid. Good color and clarity are on display. We did not receive any blurry daytime photos. If you sign up for the premium service, the picture resolution can be set to 1280 x 960. This makes a huge difference in picture quality.

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If you sign up for the premium service, the picture resolution can be set to 1280 x 960. This makes a huge difference in picture quality.

Battery Life:

The Spartan camera operates on 12 AA batteries. We only recommend lithium batteries for this camera, as they deliver a high and consistent voltage that alkaline and rechargeable batteries simply can't maintain.

If this camera took 15-day pictures and 15-night pictures every 24 hours, it would last 3.9 months on a set of lithium batteries.

Detection Circuit:

Picture Trigger & Recovery Speed: 1.20 / 62.6 s. | Video Trigger & Recovery Speed: No video in cell mode | Detection Range: 100 ft.

The trigger speed on the Spartan GoCam is 1.2 seconds, which by today's standards is below average. The camera takes approximately 62 seconds to recover after each picture taken. This is very typical for a cellular trail camera.

The detection range is 100 ft. and wide. This camera can detect a rather large area and makes it useful in a variety of situations.

Quality of Design:

Dimensions: 6" x 5" x 3.25" w/o antenna | Battery Type: 12 AA Batteries | External Battery Jack: 6 Volt

Ease of use is our favorite category for the Spartan camera. Cellular setup has given us nightmares lately with some of the cellular trail cameras. The GoCam can be setup from your home computer, in just a few minutes.

HCO Spartan Gocam Red Glow AT&T Reviews Setup Process:

Activate the service at www.att.com/buyasession. From here, you create an account and select your desired monthly plan. Here are the options for U.S. customers:

• 250 MB of data fir 24 hours - $5.00
• 250 MB of data for 30 days - $14.99
• 2 GB of data for 3 months - $25.00 (in our opinion this is the best value)
• 3 GB of data for 30 days - $30.00
• 5 GB of data for 30 days - $50.00

There is no contract with these plans, you can start and stop at any time all with the click of a button. As with any AT&T cellular camera, the Spartan GoCam needs good AT&T cellular reception. We recommend taking an AT&T phone to the area you will set the camera, taking a photo with your phone and texting it to someone. If the picture goes through quickly, the camera should work in that area. One or two bars of reception will not be good enough for this camera.

This camera is only capable of sending pictures to an email address, it does not text pictures to a phone. However, you can bypass that by entering the phone number as 5555555555@mms.att.net for AT&T phones or 5555555555@vzwpix.com and it will come as a text message.

We are available for consultation for our customers. Due to cellular setup taking quite a bit of time via a phone call, we do charge $30 to walk you through setup if you do not purchase from us. If you did purchase from us, we will spend any amount of time walking you through it free of charge.

GoWireless Premium

HCO has a premium service you can subscribe to for $4 per month. Benefits include:

• Enables two-way communication from user to camera (remotely)
• Option of increasing thumbnail image to 1280 x 960 (which is up from 640x480). This makes objects/people easier to identify
• Up to 10 scheduled events. I.e. Tell the camera to send a status report or take a photo.
• Change or add email address' that the camera sends to.
• Check the battery status, signal level, temperature, SD card space, and number of photos taken

Since HCO charges for this service, we did not include these benefits in our rating of this camera. If they were to give it away for free (which we think they should do), then our ratings would reflect these added benefits.

Case design is pretty flawless in our eyes. The latch is big, sturdy and easy to operate (even with cold fingers!). There is a threaded insert on the bottom of the camera for a Slate River Mount and the back bracket is designed to fit a Python Cable as well.

Durability has been excellent so far with very few issues.

 

Enjoy our reviews? Please consider purchasing your next trail camera from us.

 

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