Trail Camera Wi-Fi 4K 48MP Night Vision 0.05s Motion Activated

Know what walks past the camp at night.

The food drum has been rolled again. The shed door is open and you know you shut it. Stock keeps turning up on the wrong side of a fence that was closed. It happens after dark, it happens while you are somewhere else, and you are left guessing.

Guessing is what costs you. You replace a latch that was never the problem. You blame the neighbour's dog when it was a pig. It happens again the next week, and by then you have spent money and a weekend on the wrong fix. A camera that watches the spot removes the guessing, and everything downstream of the guessing goes away with it.

This is the KJK228, a card-based trail camera with a short-range wireless link. Three heat sensors watch a spread in front of the lens, and when something warm crosses them the camera writes a photo or a video clip to the memory card. The wireless link means you pull that footage onto your phone standing beside the tree, instead of unscrewing a wet housing and carrying the card back to the ute. It is not a camera that streams to town, and the Limits tab is specific about where that line sits.

What It Does

• Watches a spread: three passive infrared sensors, one centre and two side, cover a total sensing spread of 130°. The lens itself sees a narrower 90°, so the sensors reach wider than the picture does.
• Triggers fast: 0.05 seconds from detection to shutter with the side sensors switched on, which is the difference between a photo of an animal and a photo of the grass it just left.
• Works in the dark: 950 nm no-glow infrared LEDs light the scene for the sensor without putting out a visible red glow that spooks game or tells a trespasser where to look.
• Stores it locally: photos as JPG and clips as MP4 with sound, straight to an SD card. Nothing is uploaded anywhere and there is no service to pay for.
• Two working modes: motion detection, or a time lapse that fires on a clock from one second to 24 hours regardless of movement.
• Reads out on a phone: the TrailCam Go app on iOS or Android connects over the camera's own wireless hotspot to preview, change settings and download footage.

Key Features

• Photo settings: selectable at 4, 8, 16, 24, 32, 42 or 48 megapixels, plus an automatic setting the supplier calls Smart Best Photo.
• Video settings: 720p, 1080p, 2.7K and the supplier's top setting, which its own menu labels 4K Lite. H.264 MP4 with audio at 30 frames per second.
• Burst and delay: one to five photos per trigger, and a retrigger delay you set anywhere from 5 seconds to 60 minutes to stop a windy branch filling the card.
• On-camera screen: a 2 inch colour LCD screen and four keys, so you can aim it and review what it caught without a phone in your hand.
• Info strip on every frame: date, time, temperature and moon phase are burnt into the corner of each capture.
• Sensitivity control: high, middle or low, so you can wind it back in warm weather or in wind where false triggers are worst.
• Runs off AA cells: eight 1.5 V AA alkaline or lithium cells, or a DC 6 V 1.5 A external supply through the socket in the base for a fixed installation.
• Mounts two ways: a webbing strap is included for a tree or a post, and there is a standard camera tripod thread in the base.
• Kept honest: a four digit access code stops someone changing your settings, and lock holes in the housing take a padlock so the card cannot be lifted. The padlock is not included.
• Card included: this variant ships with a 64 GB card. The camera takes SD, SDHC or SDXC up to 128 GB.

Limits

It does not reach the internet. At all.

This is the thing most people get wrong about a wireless trail camera. It does not join your home or shed Wi-Fi and it does not send anything to a server. The camera puts out its own hotspot, named KJK followed by four characters, and your phone joins that. The supplier's manual asks you to stay within about 14 m of the camera with nothing solid in between. So you still walk out to it. What you save is the wet fiddle with the card, not the walk. If you want alerts on your phone from town, this is not that camera and no setting will make it one.

2.4 GHz only, and that catches people out.

The certification record for this model lists one Wi-Fi band, 2.4 GHz, and Bluetooth Low Energy alongside it. There is no 5 GHz. A newer phone that has been told to prefer 5 GHz, or one with a private address setting turned on, is the single most common reason one of these will not pair. It is a phone setting problem, not a broken camera.

Night is monochrome infrared, and infrared falls off fast.

There is no white spotlight and no colour night vision on this camera. After dark you get a black and white image lit by 950 nm infrared. Infrared light drops away with the square of the distance, so a subject at 20 m gets roughly a quarter of the light a subject at 10 m gets. Range figures on cameras like this are quoted at the near end of that curve.

Worth saying plainly: the supplier's own manual gives three different night figures in three different places, 30 m in the specification table, 27 m in the feature list, and an ideal working band of 3 m to 20 m in the mounting instructions. We have not tested any of them. Treat 20 m as the honest working figure and anything past it as a shape rather than an identification.

The megapixel and 4K numbers are menu settings, not a sensor.

No sensor model and no native resolution is published anywhere by the supplier, not in the manual and not on the packaging. The same model designation is sold by other retailers as 84 megapixel and as 8K on identical hardware, and the supplier's own comparison artwork in the gallery above puts up two photos that are the same photo. The camera will happily write a 48 megapixel file. Whether the sensor behind it captured 48 megapixels of real detail is a different question, and nobody has published the answer. Judge it on the sample frames, not the number.

We are not publishing a sealing rating.

The supplier's marketing artwork prints one ingress protection rating and the supplier's own user manual prints a lower one. They contradict each other, we have sighted no test certificate for either, and we are not going to pick the flattering one. What we will say is what it plainly is: a sealed outdoor camera body with a rubber gasket, built to sit on a tree through rain. Do not submerge it, do not hose it, and seal the external power socket in the base if you use it, because the manual specifically warns that rain gets in there.

Other things to know before it goes on a tree

• Batteries are not included: it wants eight AA cells and it eats them at night. The supplier does not recommend rechargeable NiMH cells because they sit at 1.2 V rather than 1.5 V, and says they are not suitable for night video.
• Night vision cuts out early: the camera switches its infrared off once the battery drops to a third, to protect what is left. You will get daytime photos and blank nights, and it looks like a fault when it is not.
• Night clips are capped: whatever length you set, video at night stops at 30 seconds.
• The 0.05 second figure is conditional: it applies with the side sensors enabled. The supplier quotes a range of 0.05 to 0.5 seconds otherwise.
• Card ceiling is 128 GB: Class 6 or faster, and format it in the camera before the first use, especially if the card has been in something else.
• No dimensions we trust: the only size figure the supplier publishes gives a height of 383 mm, which is nothing like the object in the photographs. We are not passing that on. If it has to fit a specific box, measure ours on arrival.
• Marks on the artwork: the manual lists compliance marks. No certificate has been sighted for any of them, and no Australian approval mark is claimed here.

Recording other people is your call to check

This camera records sound along with vision. What you may lawfully record, where you may point it, and whether audio changes the answer is set by the law that applies where the camera is standing, and it varies. That is yours to look up before you mount it, and it is worth doing properly if the camera can see anywhere the public or a neighbour goes. Nothing here is legal advice, we name no rules, and we make no claim about what any authority or any process would or would not accept.

Q & A

Will it send photos to my phone while I am in town?

No. There is no mobile network in it and no cloud service behind it. It is a local link only, and you need to be near the camera. If remote alerts are what you actually need, you want a camera with a SIM card in it, which is a different and dearer class of gear.

My phone will not find it. What is wrong?

Nine times in ten it is the phone. The camera is 2.4 GHz only, so a handset locked to 5 GHz will not see the hotspot. Turn on both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth before you open the app, do not stay joined to a house network, get within about 14 m with no wall in between, and make sure the switch on the camera is at ON rather than SET.

How far will it actually see at night?

Plan on 20 m and be pleased if you get more. The supplier quotes higher numbers elsewhere and we have not tested any of them. Infrared drops off with the square of the distance, so past that band you get a shape and a size rather than something you could identify. The manual also asks for a minimum of about 3 m, because closer than that the infrared blows the frame out white.

Is a memory card included, and how big can I go?

Yes, a 64 GB card comes with this variant. The camera reads SD, SDHC and SDXC up to a ceiling of 128 GB at Class 6 or faster. Format the card in the camera before the first use, not in a computer.

Can I run it off mains or a solar panel instead of AA cells?

There is a DC socket in the base rated 6 V at 1.5 A, taking a 3.5 x 1.35 mm plug, so a suitable supply or a solar pack with that output will run it. Neither is included and neither is sold with this listing. The manual warns to seal that socket against rain, which is the weak point of any powered installation.

Will it spook game or give itself away at night?

The infrared LEDs are 950 nm, which is the no-glow end of the band, so there is no red flare on the front of the housing the way there is on cheaper 850 nm cameras. It is not invisible in daylight though. It is a camo box on a tree, and anyone looking for it will find it.

Specs