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 | Every 15 seconds at first, stretching to about every 4 minutes if it stays put |
| Scouting Mode | Fast photos about every 15 seconds while an animal is active, with the same stretch-out if it stays put |
| 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, in every mode (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 keeps sending photos. The two modes use different photo types:
- Armed Mode: a full-quality photo about every 15 seconds.
- Scouting Mode: a fast photo about every 15 seconds. Scouting saves the full-quality shot for the moment an animal reaches the trigger distance (the Scout Trigger photo).
If the animal stays put, the trap stretches the spacing to protect battery: after the first few photos the gap doubles each time, up to about 4 minutes. Fresh movement toward the trap (about 3 inches) snaps it back to 15 seconds. In Scouting Mode photos are movement-based, so a parked animal or a fixed object like a branch will not generate an endless photo stream.
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. Repeat alerts from the same visit are throttled so your activity feed isn't flooded, but photos keep coming either way. 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 takes periodic time-lapse photos in every mode: unarmed, armed, scouting, even while holding a catch. The default is every 6 hours. 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 Requesting photos.
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.