When Your Trap Takes Photos
When and how often your OcuTrap takes photos—approach photos, scouting photos, capture photos, and time-lapse—and what controls the timing.
Your OcuTrap takes photos automatically at different times depending on what mode it's in and what's happening at the trap. This page explains when to expect photos and roughly how often.
Photos only flow when the trap has cellular signal and enough battery. On low battery the trap pauses scheduled photos to protect runtime, and it never starts a new photo while the previous one is still uploading.
Quick reference
| Situation | When photos are taken |
|---|---|
| Armed — animal approaching | A photo the moment an animal is detected, then more as it moves deeper in |
| Armed — animal lingering in range | About every 15 seconds while it stays in the detection area |
| Scouting Mode | About every 15 seconds while an animal is in the detection area |
| At capture | One photo when the door closes |
| After a capture | A short burst (~every 15 s for the first minute), then one every 2 hours |
| Time-lapse | Every 6 hours by default while armed (adjustable, or off) |
| On demand | Instantly, whenever you tap the camera button in the app |
Approach photos (Armed Mode)
When the trap is Armed and an animal enters the detection area, the camera powers up and takes a first photo right away—even if the animal never comes closer. As the animal continues in, you'll get more:
- An initial burst of up to two quick photos.
- After that, a new approach photo each time the animal moves about 3 inches (75 mm) closer.
- If the animal stops and lingers, the trap still checks in with a photo about every 10 minutes.
Approach photos use a fast, lower-resolution setting so they arrive quickly during the action.
Presence photos (Armed or Scouting)
While an animal stays within the detection area—without triggering a capture—the trap sends a full-quality photo about every 15 seconds.
In Scouting Mode, this is how you watch what's visiting without closing the door. You'll also get a Scout Alert when an animal first enters and a Scout Trigger if it reaches the trigger distance. Each alert type is limited to once every 5 minutes, but photos keep coming during that window. The scouting photo interval is adjustable in settings (from 15 seconds up to 5 minutes, or off).
See Scouting Mode and Pre-Capture Notification.
Capture and after-capture photos
- At capture: the trap takes one photo when the door closes.
- After capture: to document the catch, the trap takes a short burst (about every 15 seconds for the first minute), then settles into one check-in photo every 2 hours while the animal is held. See After a Capture.
Time-lapse photos
Independent of animal activity, the trap can take periodic time-lapse photos while armed—every 6 hours by default. You can change the interval (up to 24 hours) or turn it off in Settings.
On-demand photos
Any time, you can request a photo from the app—tap the camera button for a full-quality image or the lightning-bolt for a fast image. On-demand photos ignore all the timers above and capture right away. See Taking Higher-Quality Images.
What affects the timing
A few things can stretch out the intervals above:
- Low battery / power-saving: scheduled photos pause until the trap is back on normal power.
- Slow cellular or a photo backlog: the trap automatically spaces photos out so uploads can catch up.
- Detection range: the trap only acts on animals within about 34 inches (875 mm) of the sensor—anything farther out won't trigger a photo.
Need image quality, night-vision, or resolution settings instead? See the Camera FAQ and Settings Reference.