Busy charging and not sure where to put it, but excited
I have a popular IG hummingbird account, so I was sent one of these with the hummingbird feeder attachment to try out. I was excited to get it, but sorry to report that Iām very disappointed with it. Not a good device for getting good videos of hummingbirds. Admittedly, Iām a semi-professional photographer, with very expensive gear and over 40 years of photography experience, but I was hoping for at least decent results with this device.
Hereās what I donāt like and what I think should be improved:
The lens is an ultra-wide angle lens, and itās just too wide for small hummingbirds, especially since the hummingbird attachment connects to the front edge of the feeder, putting the hummingbirds even further away. I had a bit more luck putting some hand feeders in the bird seed tray to get the hummingbirds a bit closer. Even then, the video isnāt very good and is quite warped by the lens distortion of the ultra-wide angle lens.
The hummingbird attachment is too big, and the holes are too far away from the perches, so the small hummingbirds canāt sit on the perch to feed. Again, better luck putting some hand feeders in the bird seed area and for the ones on the side, the hummingbird could perch on the edge of the seed tray and feed.
You only get 10 seconds of event recording time. This seems to be just a false limitation they put in place to force you to subscribe to one of their cloud recording plans.
I bought a micro-SD card, hoping I could use it to record longer videos, but that was a huge ordeal in itself. Itās next to impossible to get the card fully secure in the slot, and, even after I did, it seems that every other time I launch the app, the SD card is not detected. Once I finally got it working, it seems all the SD card is good for is the horribly designed timeline review, where, again, you can only see 10 second clips. So, again, even with a large SD card, they want you to pay a monthly fee to be able to record and view more than 10 seconds at a time.
Also, with the SD card installed (when it is actually recognized), there is a little item in the settings for your camera that says āSD Card Videoā with an icon of an SD card. That item does absolutely nothing! Itās right next to the motion detection settings that you can select to update those settings, but trying to press the SD Card Video item does nothing at allā¦ so, I donāt even know what the purpose of that is.
Overall, the app is poorly designed and unresponsive half the time, forcing me to refresh or reload it to do anything. I find myself repeatedly stabbing at something several times before it finally responds.
AI bird detection is a complete joke for hummingbirds. No matter how many times I send feedback, it has not once yet detected the bird as any kind of hummingbird at all. It comes up with all sorts of different birds (not hummingbirds) that it thinks they are, but all those birds are much bigger and not even close to looking like the Annas hummingbirds we have here.
It took about 2 days before it started pushing notifications to my phone of detected motion. Not sure why it took that long, but at least thatās working now. Although, the 10 second limitation makes it pretty useless to watch those clips.
On the positive side, itās been running for a few days now, and the battery still says 100%. So, either it uses very little battery power, or the power level indicator is not working right. I have not tried to hook up the solar panel that came with it yet, as I havenāt decided if Iām going to permanently mount this, or just give it away to someone else. Plus, we donāt get a whole lot of direct sunlight in our backyard, so not sure how well that will work anyway.
The website also doesnāt seem to realize I have a camera, even though I logged in with the same account I used for the app. I was hoping that maybe there were some more advanced settings I could access on the website, but no luck there since my camera doesnāt even show up. If I go to the Devices page, nothing shows up and there is no way to add a device. I think maybe they need to hire some better programmers for both the app and the website, as they are both poorly designed and seem primarily designed to get you to sign up for a subscription plan.
Overall, if I could pop the camera out of the feeder and mount it on its own, it would make a decent security camera, if I was willing to pay for one of the subscriptions (but I already have Nest). I think maybe it would also work better if you just got the camera only and mounted it much closer to another hummingbird feeder. But, with the ultra-wide angle lens, it would have to be VERY close to get decent hummingbird videos.
I am having a similar problem. My birdfy camera randomly goes off line during the day and I have to go out to reset it. Itās getting frustrating. I love the camera and watching my birds but I donāt want to have to keep re-setting it. Is there a fix for this problem? My daughter bought it for me for Christmas and I love it.
THank you
Patricia Gibson
Hi,
When the camera is added successfully, you can see the camera on the homepage of the App. Next, you can tap the arrow button to view the live stream of the camera. The following reasons may lead to the failure to open the live feed of the camera, please check one by one.
The camera disconnects from Wi-Fi or the cameraās Wi-Fi connection is unstable
- The router does not work
Please check whether the router is working. You can judge by checking whether other devices (such as mobile phones) can connect to the Wi-Fi and can access the Internet. If this router is indeed not working, please make sure it works first.
- The Wi-Fi signal is unstable
Please move the camera as close to the router as possible. If possible, please boost the signal strength of your router.
You can try restarting the router.
You can try connecting the camera to another Wi-Fi or another phoneās hotspot.
The mobile phone cannot access the Internet or its network connection is unstable
Please make sure that your phone can access the Internet.
Please make sure that the mobile phone has enabled the network permission for the APP.
You can try to access the live stream again after pulling down on the APP homepage to refresh the device list.
You can try to access the live stream when the phoneās Wi-Fi connection is good.
You can try to connect another Wi-Fi to your phone or switch to a mobile network to access the live stream again.
Netvue