Right now I am using Eufy Solocam S220 cameras to monitor wildlife around my place. They are solar powered cameras that only need a couple hours of sunlight each day to keep the battery topped off. In my experience over the last 4 months if it is cloudy and the camera needs to run on battery alone it will use 2-3% of the available charge per day so that means that the camera will function for extended periods with no sunshine.
I appreciate the local storage option on this camera. It will also use the HomeBase series local storage devices if you want to do that. These are WiFi cameras so you need to install an app on your phone and then set them up on your network and then you will be able to see videos in near real-time. The delays that I see are about 5 seconds though I haven't measured.
The detection settings can be tailored from low to high. With mine in place I can regularly monitor insect activity for insects as small as 1 cm moving across the field of view if the sensitivity is set to middle setting. It will detect beetles, ants, grasshoppers, moths, butterflies, centipedes, spiders, etc. I have multiple videos of animals including deer, raccoon, opossum, fox, rabbit, rat, two species of mouse; also reptiles like lizards, and a snake; also birds including roadrunners, cardinals, wrens, chickadees, mockingbirds and others.
The night vision works well too. I don't mind being awakened at 2 am to watch a fox nosing around. I had seen the tracks several times over the years and my neighbor said that they saw it moving back and forth across his place but I had never seen it alive and moving until I got that camera. Pretty great.
That model camera may not work for his needs. It only has a 2X zoom. Eufy does have other solar models that use cellular network I think. I will likely upgrade to 4K models later with higher zoom and use one of their HomeBase storage devices since they can store up to 16TB if you provide the disk.
I haven't used their AI since it trains on local data on a HomeBase and I don't yet use a HomeBase. It does work though since one of my relatives has several different model Eufy cams and a HomeBase and they tagged photos to train for people and set up exclusion zones and it all works for them.
All in all I am glad I chose Eufy cams over standard game cameras. It ends up being less expensive and near zero hassle to use them.
I have the earlier eufy stuff at home, the viewing distance is nowhere near whe he needs let alone the wifi network range. (Cam 2 Pro, and Cam 2C)
just looking at the S220 i dont think it would be much better in terms of range. but the solar cam idea is worth thinking about.
The solar charging/recharging cam is the way to go. That was my #1 consideration since mine are deployed too far from any infrastructure and using a battery game camera just adds to the maintenance load.
I chose the inexpensive S220 cams because they fit my use case but I would expect that for your use case a different model would be needed. Here at my place I can use WiFi cams and do the nature monitoring with the only consideration or parameter that I have as a constraint being that the camera needs to be installed in a location that gets a minimum of 2 hours of sunlight daily on average.
When I first deployed one of my cams I had it in a non-optimum orientation, facing NNW instead of South so that the panel did not get direct sunlight at all. In that orientation working from a full charge on utility power pre-deployment I used the camera for two weeks before I redeployed it at the same location facing SSE. My initial plan was to position it using the Eufy mount installed on a post and the only post was N of the location I needed to monitor. After watching the battery charge cycle I determined that it would eventually discharge and require a utility top-off. I redeployed the camera on an old, cheap camera tripod a few feet from the initial location facing SSE so that the solar panel got adequate sunlight and in a matter of a few days it was topped off again.
I really like the solar powered cameras. They add flexibility to any deployment plan.
I appreciate the local storage option on this camera. It will also use the HomeBase series local storage devices if you want to do that. These are WiFi cameras so you need to install an app on your phone and then set them up on your network and then you will be able to see videos in near real-time. The delays that I see are about 5 seconds though I haven't measured.
The detection settings can be tailored from low to high. With mine in place I can regularly monitor insect activity for insects as small as 1 cm moving across the field of view if the sensitivity is set to middle setting. It will detect beetles, ants, grasshoppers, moths, butterflies, centipedes, spiders, etc. I have multiple videos of animals including deer, raccoon, opossum, fox, rabbit, rat, two species of mouse; also reptiles like lizards, and a snake; also birds including roadrunners, cardinals, wrens, chickadees, mockingbirds and others.
The night vision works well too. I don't mind being awakened at 2 am to watch a fox nosing around. I had seen the tracks several times over the years and my neighbor said that they saw it moving back and forth across his place but I had never seen it alive and moving until I got that camera. Pretty great.
That model camera may not work for his needs. It only has a 2X zoom. Eufy does have other solar models that use cellular network I think. I will likely upgrade to 4K models later with higher zoom and use one of their HomeBase storage devices since they can store up to 16TB if you provide the disk.
I haven't used their AI since it trains on local data on a HomeBase and I don't yet use a HomeBase. It does work though since one of my relatives has several different model Eufy cams and a HomeBase and they tagged photos to train for people and set up exclusion zones and it all works for them.
All in all I am glad I chose Eufy cams over standard game cameras. It ends up being less expensive and near zero hassle to use them.