There are several good reasons to install a wireless wildlife camera in your garden. They provide entertainment and protection.
What’s been sharpening their claws on the door to your shed? Where do the half-eaten remains of rats and mice come from? How did your composter get turned upside down? Who has been devouring the cat food?
I have an uncle in Canada whose dogs routinely refuse to leave the house. The reason became painfully clear when footage from a newly installed security camera showed families of black bears passing through his backyard almost daily.
Foxes, badgers, hares, rabbits, deer, waterfowl, birds, owls, squirrels, mice, beetles, frogs, honeybees and of course, hedgehogs, are just some of the creatures you can capture in photos or on video with a wireless garden camera. And not in flickering, grainy black and white either, in high definition or sometimes in full colour, even at night.
Keep reading to discover the best wireless wildlife cameras for your garden.
Wireless vs Wi-Fi
Incidentally, the terms Wi-Fi and wireless are used interchangeably but they’re not the same thing. This is more than just pedantry, confusing the two can be misleading.
Wireless is any communication that doesn’t need wires: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, mobile networks and even infrared. Wi-Fi, typically, is the wireless protocol that connects devices to the internet across a home network.
Our TOP Wi-Fi Wildlife Camera Picks
The Best Wireless Garden Cameras to Buy
- Nexcam Hongc H85 Trail Camera
- K&F Concept 4K Wildlife Camera
- Crenova PH800W Trail Camera
- Bushnell Trophy Essential E3 Trail Camera
- BlazeVideo A262 Trail Camera
- Usogood SL503 Wildlife Camera
- Coolife H953 Wildlife Camera
- GardePro E6 Wildlife Camera
Nexcam Hongc H85 Trail Camera
Key Features:
- Image Quality: 1296p video in MP4 format, 20MP photos
- Connectivity: Bluetooth via the free Trail Camera Pro app
- Power Source: 8 1.5V AA batteries (not included)
- Night Vision: 36 850nm IR LEDs
- Storage: 128GB Class 10 SD card (not included)
- Motion Detection: 20m across 120⁰
The Nexcam H85 enjoys the distinction of being both fully featured and very affordable. Its night vision capability relies on 36 infrared light-emitting diodes (LEDs) with a wavelength of 850 nanometres (nm).
850nm LEDs emit more light than their 940nm counterparts resulting in a brighter image. The night vision they provide is better in bad weather as their light is less likely to be absorbed by rain, mist and fog. The downside is that light with a wavelength of 850nm and below, although faint, is still visible to animals.
Set-up and connectivity are achieved via Bluetooth and the free Trail Camera Pro smartphone app. The Hongc has a built-in wi-fi hotspot so you can monitor its performance in something approaching real-time.
Motion detection is affected by 3 passive infrared (PIR) sensors. Together they cover 120⁰ and a range of 20 metres. Its sensitivity is configurable via the app.
Pro tip: YouTube videos are preferable to the setup instructions that come with the camera.
Pros:
- HD photos and video
- Night vision
- Motion detection
- Smartphone app setup and controls
- IP66-compliant weatherproofing
Cons:
- The infrared LEDs are visible in low-light conditions
- An SD card is not included
- Substandard documentation
K&F Concept 4K Wildlife Camera
Key Features:
- Image Quality: 4K (3840 × 2160) video in MP4 format, 24MP photos
- Connectivity: Bluetooth
- Power Source: 8 AA batteries (included) or a car or similar DC battery
- Night Vision: 34 940nm IR LEDs
- Storage: A U3 64G SD card (included)
- Motion Detection: 20m across 120⁰
This camera doesn’t have a zoom capability but 4K resolution means you can blow up an image without it getting pixelated.
If you’re thinking of upgrading to a 128GB SD card, be advised that 4K on the K&F only works with Class 10 and the ultra-highspeed 3 (U3) varieties.
The infrared night vision uses a wavelength of 940nm so it’s not as bright as an array of 850nm IREDs but it is less visible to wildlife. In the context of a suburban or country garden, this is less important than it sounds. While it’s true that in the wild they’re likely to be put off by artificial light, creatures who live in and around human settlements are undeterred. The distinction only really applies to animals in areas without electricity.
Pro tip: The default 4K bitrate of wildlife cameras is 30Mbps which is low for 4K but you can raise it to 40Mbps by dropping the frame rate from 30fps to 24fps. That’ll get you a total of just over an hour’s recording time on a 64G card.
A key feature of the K&F is a starlight lens with blur reduction and a proprietary algorithm that only switches to black and white when light levels are so low the camera can no longer render a useful colour image.
Starlight optics (also known as night colour) is very useful if your garden is illuminated after dark. It means the camera is smart enough to use its infrared just for motion detection, not night vision.
Pros:
- Exceptional 4K image quality
- Starlight low-light optics
- Comprehensive, detailed instructions
- A high-quality 4-layer lens
- Runs on DC (a car battery) or penlight batteries
- Batteries and an SD card are included in the package
Cons:
- It needs a U3 card to capture 4K video only works with U3 cards
Crenova PH800W Trail Camera
Key Features:
- Image Quality: 4K video in AVI format, 32MP photos
- Connectivity: Smartphone app via Bluetooth
- Power Source: 8 AA batteries or a DC power source
- Night Vision: 940nm IR LEDs X 42
- Storage: 32G Class 10 SD card
- Motion Detection: 20m across 120⁰
The Crenova makes up for its 940nm IREDs by having 42 of them. This combination ensures the right level of illumination without being intrusive.
The good news where storage is concerned is that, although the Crenova comes with a 32G card, it supports up to 512G for a total of 9 hours of recording time.
Like most of the cameras in its class, the Crenova supports Bluetooth operations by creating a wireless local area network (WLAN) or wireless ‘hotspot’ that your smartphone can connect to via an app as long as you’re within 10m of it.
Pro tip: The app is good for setting up and configuring the camera. For viewing videos and photos and copying them from the camera to your phone, you’d be better off removing the SD card and plugging it into a tablet or laptop card reader. Bluetooth isn’t fast enough to transfer big files between devices in a short space of time, but it’s fine for viewing photos and preview-quality videos.
Pros:
- Very affordable
- Excellent night vision
- Upgradable storage
- Highly configurable
- Multiple resolutions and frame rates
Cons:
- The relatively slow trigger speed of 0.8s
- Records video in AVI format rather than MP4
Bushnell Trophy Essential E3 Trail Camera
Key Features:
- Image Quality: 1280×720 and 640×360 video in MP4 format, 16MP photos
- Connectivity: Bluetooth
- Power Source: 8 AA batteries (not included)
- Night Vision: Yes
- Storage: SanDisk BC10 U1 SD cards (up to 32G)
- Motion Detection: Up to 30m
This is primarily a 24-hour camera for hunters but still makes a great garden camera. I’ve included it because most people aren’t necessarily nature enthusiasts, they simply want to satisfy their curiosity, in which case this is all you need.
If you configure the camera to only take photos and it takes them at a rate of 70 images a day, 8 AA batteries should last you a year.
Each photo is data-stamped with the phase of the moon, the time of day, the date, the temperature and the GPS coordinates.
Bushnell doesn’t recommend you use micro SDs or an SD adapter.
The E3’s casing is silver, not camouflaged, which makes it as easy to steal as it is to recover. To make matters worse, the camera is not password-protected, although this may not matter if your property is secure and relatively inaccessible.
Pros:
- Long battery life
- Day/night sensor
- Low-glow IR LEDs
- Data-stamped images
Cons:
- Video recording is limited to 15-second clips in 720p and 30-second clips in 640p
- Formatting the SD card in-camera stamps photos and video with the Bushnell logo
- No theft deterrence
- An SD card is not included
BlazeVideo A262 Trail Camera
Key Features:
- Image Quality: 2-24MP photos; 720p, 1080p or 1296p video
- Connectivity: Bluetooth via a wireless hotspot
- Power Source: 8 AA batteries (not included)
- Night Vision: 36 no-glow, no-flash 940nm passive infrared (PIR) LEDs
- Storage: a 512G SD/SDHC card (not included)
- Motion Detection: At a distance of 20m across either 70⁰ or 120⁰
In contrast to the stripped-down nuts-and-bolts bare essentials of the Bushnell E3, the BlazeVideo A262 has more bells and whistles than a steam-powered Christmas tree.
A feature-rich hunting camera, its trigger intervals are fully programmable. As well as being able to choose anything from a fraction of a second (time-lapse) to 1 hour (time interval), you can also decide what times of day you want the settings to be active.
Pro tip: Set the motion detection sensitivity to low or it’ll be triggered by every gust of wind and you’ll end up with hundreds of pictures of nothing at all.
If you’re not inclined to pair the camera to your smartphone, you can set it up with the built-in keypad and LCD screen.
Provided you don’t set the recording frequency too high, a set of batteries can last as long as 8 months.
This camera comes with a mini-USB port for copying the contents of the SD card to your phone, tablet, laptop or PC.
Pros:
- Password-protected
- Fully-programmable trigger intervals
- High-quality sound recording
- Side sensors that extend the range of motion detection from 70⁰ to 120⁰.
- Long battery life
- A fast trigger speed of 0.1 seconds
- IP66-compliant
Cons:
- Batteries and an SD card are ‘user-supplied’, therefore an additional cost
Usogood SL503 Wildlife Camera
Key Features:
- Image Quality: 4K video at 30fps, 30MP photos
- Connectivity: Bluetooth via the Hunting 4K app
- Power Source: 8 AA batteries
- Night Vision: 38 940nm low-glow IR LEDs
- Storage: A Class 10 128G SD card
- Motion Detection: A 0.2-second 3-sensor PIR trigger effective up to 20m
I get excited when I see a company take the time to make a device user-friendly. It denotes pride in workmanship, attention to detail and a fully-integrated design team that’s invested both professionally and personally in delivering the best possible product to market.
The SL503 has managed to avoid all the mistakes other brands are guilty of. The battery compartment is removable so you don’t have to take down the camera. The SD port is on the outside so you don’t have to open the case. A 6cm colour screen assists with setup and the 6 buttons on the control panel are all you need to configure the installation.
The SD card setup is a little fiddly. The default format of cards exceeding 32G is exFAT. For a 128G card to work with the SL503, you have to format it as FAT32 first, then reformat it in-camera. This might’ve been avoided by the simple expedient of including a pre-formatted card in the package.
Pros:
- Time-lapse facility
- Excellent UI design
- Quick setup
- Ease of use
Cons:
- Fiddly SD card setup
- An SD card is not included
Coolife H953 Wildlife Camera
Key Features:
- Image Quality: 4K video, 32MP photos
- Connectivity: USB cable
- Power Source: Batteries or DC power source
- Night Vision: 46 850nm IR LEDs
- Storage: 32G card included, supports 512G
- Motion Detection: 0.1-second trigger up to 35m
I must confess at this point that this is not a wireless camera. I went ahead and included it anyway because it’s my personal favourite. If I was buying a garden camera, this is the one I’d get. In fact, I’d buy 2 of them.
The H953 incorporates all the features of the Osogood SL503 and then some – at half the price.
It comes with a 32G card, but it supports 512G which is a huge advantage when dealing with 4K video. Instead of stopping the recording or looping around and overwriting material, it just keeps going.
The device is password-protected so if it gets stolen, you have the small consolation of knowing that it will be useless to whoever takes possession of it.
An interesting feature I haven’t seen elsewhere is shot lag, also known as shutter lag. Shot lag is the length of time it takes the camera to emerge from standby, autofocus and adjust the shutter speed to prevailing light conditions before taking the first shot.
Pros:
- Very affordable
- Password-protected
- Shot lag facility
- Excellent customer support
Cons:
- No wireless connectivity
GardePro E6 Wildlife Camera
Key Features:
- Image Quality: 2304 x 1296 20fps or 1920 x 1080 30fps video in MP4 format, 24MP photos
- Connectivity: The GardePro Mobile app
- Power Source: 8 1.5V AA batteries or a 12V DC power source (not included)
- Night Vision: 940nm IR LEDs effective up to 30m
- Storage: SDHC/SDXC SD card (not included), upgradeable to 256G
- Motion Detection: 23m
While much the same as other wildlife cameras, the GardePro E6 has one feature not found elsewhere: an external antenna. Quite why this should be unusual I’m not sure, since a more reliable connection means the camera is easier to conceal.
The minimum focal range of the E6 is 1.5m. If you want to record animals at a distance, I recommend the E8 which has a focal range of 2.5m.
Pros:
- A starlight lens
- An external antenna
- Advanced imaging algorithms
Cons:
- An SD card is not included
How to buy the best wireless wildlife cameras
Any of the cameras on this list are enough to satisfy your needs. They’re all good and, for the most part, eminently affordable.
Resolution
It is pointless investing in a garden camera with poor resolution. Spend a bit more to get one with good resolution for quality images. Ideally, you want 1080p or higher. This will deliver crisp clear images.
Memory
I’m willing to bet most people will buy a second SD card that they can swap out manually when the first one is full. Note that the SD card is often not included in the price so will be an extra expense.
With that in mind, it’s worthwhile factoring in the price of a card upgrade. All the cameras, on or off this list, support better cards than those included in the package. A 512G card will guarantee you the most coverage and you’ll never have to worry about missing out or overwriting footage.
App and cloud storage is available on some models.
Durability and Weatherproofing
The UK weather can be rough at times and you’ll need a camera that can handle this. The way a device can withstand harsh conditions is measured is the IP (Ingress Protection) rating. It applies to rain, snow, dust and sand. The higher the rating, the more durable the camera.
Low-light Functionality
Some cameras work better in the dark. IR (infrared) backflash technology performs well to get clear images in the dark.
Motion Sensors and Trigger Speed
If you want to capture the action, you will need effective motion sensors and a fast trigger speed. Some are adjustable according to your requirements and environment.
Connectivity
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity allow you to access the footage remotely, often in real time. A compatible mobile app also helps with control and settings.
Battery Life
Consider the battery type and battery life of the camera. There are various options available. Some last longer but may be more expensive.
Budget
Wireless wildlife cameras range in price from cheap and nasty models to more affordable options and advanced feature-rich models that are a fair investment. Consider your budget and your needs to make the right choice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use lights instead of night vision?
Yes! As long as they’re on all night, provided they don’t flash or flicker. Two soft lights, strategically placed, will overlap, providing all the illumination you need while being no more threatening to nocturnal animals than the light of a full moon.
What are the dos & don’ts for wildlife cameras?
- Location
Be circumspect. Wildlife is at its most vulnerable when eating and drinking so don’t put the camera right next to birdbaths, water features, bird feeders or anywhere else animals are likely to congregate. They will interpret this behaviour as predatory and make a point of avoiding that spot.
- Lights
Flashing lights don’t occur in nature. If a camera has a tally lamp (a flashing light that comes on when the camera is recording) or a spotlight, you must disable it, either in settings or by covering them up.
If you plan on lighting the garden, don’t use security lamps. Bright lights of high intensity also don’t occur in nature.
- Sound
Disable all beeps, clicks and siren noises so as not to startle or scare the animals. Avoid the temptation to remotely tilt and pan the camera: animals’ hearing is extraordinary and the servos that trigger these movements make an audible whining noise.
- Be Respectful
Wildlife shouldn’t be approached, disturbed or interfered with in any way. If a creature is injured or in distress, call the RSPCA or a similarly accredited animal rescue organisation.
Conclusion
There are all kinds of good reasons to buy a wildlife camera: as well as providing a measure of security, they’re educational and entertaining. It’s a worthwhile investment, even if it’s just to find out what you’ve been missing.
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Charl is a full-time writer with a range of passions and expertise in lawn mowers and other garden power tools. After many years in the corporate rat race, he decided to follow these passions. When not writing, Charl can be found in his garden, tending to or propagating plants, keeping the lawn near perfect, and enjoying the outdoors with his dogs. He is also fascinated by emerging technology and tries to squeeze in a round of golf as often as possible.
