New REVEAL Trail Cameras

In this episode of the Hunting Gear Podcast, host Dan Johnson interviews Gregg Farrell from Tactacam about their new camera, Reveal. They discuss the company's history, the current rain situation in Wisconsin, and their personal hunting plans for the year. They then dive into the details of Tactacam's transition from action cameras to trail cameras, focusing on the reliability and ease of use of their products. They also talk about the evolution of trail cameras and the importance of not over-engineering them. Finally, they discuss the specific features and differences between the Reveal X 2.0 and Reveal X 3.0 models. The Tactacam 3.0 cameras have been redesigned from the ground up, with improvements in form factor and antenna design. The new antennas are mounted on the top of the camera and have a two-position pivot, allowing for better transport and positioning. The external antennas are necessary because the areas where the cameras are hung typically have poor cell service, and the antennas maximize signal strength. The new cameras also feature high-quality 4K photos and 1080p videos, improved image sensors for fewer false triggers, and an internal storage option that eliminates the need for SD cards. The cameras are more efficient with batteries and are priced the same as the previous models. Future updates include new accessories and an app update that will simplify the user experience.

Takeaways:

• Tactacam started as a company producing point of view cameras before transitioning to trail cameras with their Reveal line.
• The company focuses on building reliable trail cameras and providing excellent customer service.
• The Reveal cameras are designed to be easy to use, with a simple setup process and an intuitive app interface.
• Tactacam aims to strike a balance between incorporating new technology trends and maintaining ease of use for customers.
• The Reveal X 2.0 and Reveal X 3.0 models offer different features and capabilities, providing options for different user preferences. The Tactacam 3.0 cameras have been redesigned with improvements in form factor and antenna design.
• The new antennas are mounted on the top of the camera and have a two-position pivot, allowing for better transport and positioning.
• The external antennas maximize signal strength in areas with poor cell service.
• The new cameras feature high-quality 4K photos and 1080p videos, improved image sensors for fewer false triggers, and an internal storage option that eliminates the need for SD cards.
• The cameras are more efficient with batteries and are priced the same as the previous models.
• Future updates include new accessories and an app update that will simplify the user experience.

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Dan Johnson (00:01.033)
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the hunting gear podcast. I'm your host, Dan Johnson. And today we are joined by Greg Farrell. Greg, how we doing, man?

Gregg Farrell (00:11.15)
I'm good, I'm good, how are you?

Dan Johnson (00:13.065)
Did I say your last name right? Boom, boom, got it. My day's complete now, I said someone's name right. Okay, we are here today to talk about TactiCam, a new camera that's coming out from TactiCam on the reveal side of things. We're gonna talk a little bit about company history, but the first thing I wanna know is where are you located out of?

Gregg Farrell (00:14.958)
You did, yeah? Pharaoh. Just like Will's Pharaoh.

Gregg Farrell (00:40.302)
I'm in Wisconsin. Yep.

Dan Johnson (00:41.769)
Okay. Wisconsin, what's the rain situation in Wisconsin?

Gregg Farrell (00:47.63)
Ironically, it is raining right now. We have had an extremely wet spring and early summer here. It's just like every other day it seems like a couple inches of rain.

Dan Johnson (00:59.881)
Yeah, I can remember last year. I don't know about you guys, but down here in the part of the part of Iowa that I am, I'm in and hunt. We were, we, we couldn't get rain and now we're just like, okay, all right, we got it. We get it. You can stop for a couple of weeks now and we'd be okay with it. And so, I think the moat for the most part, all the crops are in the ground, but I know there's a lot of hunters out there who are like, okay,

Gregg Farrell (01:14.99)
Exactly.

Dan Johnson (01:28.457)
We need to get some food plots in, but we can't because it doesn't stop raining.

Gregg Farrell (01:34.35)
Well, last year here was similar, right? Like there was a couple plots that we replanted multiple times because we just didn't get them to take with no moisture. And this year we timed it right. We got them in a little earlier before most of this rain. So most of ours are doing pretty good. But yeah, some of that stuff that, you know, you typically wait till like fourth of July or after to get in the ground. It's, it's pretty wet right now.

Dan Johnson (01:44.521)
Mm -hmm.

Dan Johnson (01:57.929)
Yep, absolutely, absolutely. Okay, what's big on your plate as far as personal hunts this year? You got anything big planned?

Gregg Farrell (02:08.174)
Yeah, I got a few fun ones this year. So I'm going to be going to, I drew Kansas. Didn't draw last year, but had drawn a few previous years. So I'm super excited to get back there. Really fired up about that. I also have a December Texas hunt, which I'm pretty pumped about. I hunted Texas before, but this is cool. It's kind of like the Northwest. So it's not full like

Dan Johnson (02:14.057)
Mm -hmm.

Gregg Farrell (02:36.974)
West Hill country, but it's not full like ag. It's kind of like that space in between. So it's rolling hills. You get a little bit of each. And that's actually going to be spot and stock white tails. So that'll be pretty cool. And then I'll be in the Midwest a bit too. So obviously Wisconsin, Minnesota, and then I got one on the docket. I'm not sure if it's going to happen yet, but hoping to get to Nebraska this year as well.

Dan Johnson (02:45.001)
Mm -hmm.

wow.

Dan Johnson (03:01.769)
Gotcha. Cool, man. Cool. Yeah, I drew Kansas as well. I'm really looking forward to that, hon. I'm going to South Dakota. I'm really, that's just a fun one for me, man. I love the views.

out there, like, and especially Western Nebraska to where I've been and you start to remove the trees and you're getting into more like the hills, the mule deer country, the cattle country. And like, there's nothing I love better than sitting on a knob and just looking at deer, like watching deer with a spotting scope or through binoculars, man. I love that shit.

Gregg Farrell (03:38.222)
Yeah, that's one of the cool things that I love so much about where we're at in Kansas. We're like about two and a half hours, like southeast of Kansas City. So it's definitely like cattle country, right? So you get these huge sections where you just have fingers of woods, right? I mean, it's not a lot of big timber, but obviously it's flat in there, right? But you can do a lot very similar to what you said, you know, get up on top of the truck and just like watch deer.

do deer things, especially during the rut, because you can see so much. It's one of my favorite things about being out there.

Dan Johnson (04:06.857)
Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Enough of the BS, man. Let's get into the the meat and potatoes of today's episode. This is this is going to be part of reveal week and reveal week is going to be 100 percent dedicated to.

Reveal and tactic am and and so that's why we're here today is we are going to be talking about the new cameras that are coming from tactic am and reveal so The place that I want to start is how long has tactic am been a company?

Gregg Farrell (05:14.638)
Moop.

Dan Johnson (05:38.395)
Alright, you there? Okay, we'll just kind of start. I'm not sure what happened. We'll just start off with how long has Tacticam been a company?

Gregg Farrell (05:39.406)
I am.

Gregg Farrell (05:48.878)
So, Tacticam as the company itself has been around for about 10 years. And Tacticam started as a company producing point of view cameras. So, you know, what most people their first introduction to Tacticam, it was the point of view camera that mounted whether it was like on your bow stabilizer, your shotgun barrel, your rifle scope. So that was really where this company got started. And that was the foundation for where we, you know, most of our bandwidth is today, which is with Reveal.

Dan Johnson (05:53.882)
Mm -hmm.

Gregg Farrell (06:18.702)
So Reveal is the cell camera component of the Tacticam business. And basically how that evolution happened was, they had spent five, six years in that point of view camera space. And the more we got to thinking about it, the more we kind of looked into like what the market was doing and what we had figured out with camera technology. It's like, hey, we've developed this incredible micro -sized camera technology. That's typically the hardest thing about a trail camera.

Dan Johnson (06:46.68)
Okay.

Gregg Farrell (06:47.95)
is how do you get high quality images, really good camera quality in such a small package? So it was kind of the natural evolution of like once we had the camera figured out, taking that camera and then moving that same technology into the cell camera space.

Dan Johnson (06:57.527)
Thank you.

Dan Johnson (07:01.591)
Yeah, yeah, great. And so no more action cams, right?

Gregg Farrell (07:08.846)
Yeah, so we took a look at kind of where we had the most ability to innovate. And truly, you know, the most amount of runway in terms of pushing the needle, continuing to innovate, continuing to be kind of a market leader was in the trail camera space. So we made the conscious decision that we were going to put all of our resources and bandwidth into trail cameras and moved away from the action cameras.

Dan Johnson (07:25.302)
Yep.

Dan Johnson (07:32.79)
Right, right, okay, all right. And out of curiosity, what has been the response from the consumer on that decision?

Gregg Farrell (07:43.054)
You know, I think with anything, right, like when you put out a product that people love and enjoy and use, when you go away from it, there's always, you know, the folks that are disappointed that you did. And I understand that, right? Like when I find something I love, you know, I like to stick with it. Like I'm definitely a, if it's not broke, don't fix it type of guy. So, you know, from that perspective, I definitely get it. I think, you know, from the other side of that, the overwhelming majority of people have been.

great with it because they love our trail cameras. They love what we've done in the cell cam space. And I think they kind of understand that that allows us to really push the needle there more. So you can't please everybody, but like I said, overwhelmingly, it's been a really positive response.

Dan Johnson (08:26.927)
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, that's a that's great. And so

I've heard like, okay, when it comes to products, I love talking products, especially on this podcast. I get feedback from a lot of people online, on Instagram, things like that. I am in a spot where I get a lot of feedback from people and I talk to a lot of people about a lot of products. Okay. And it's, I'll be honest, man. And this is coming from a guy who

I have curated a specific kind of gear that has helped me in the woods, whether that's my tree stands, my trail cameras and things like that. And I have not heard a lot of bad things about the first reveal that came out. All right, the first trail camera that you guys have come out with. And so not a lot of negative feedback. Why do you guys think that is?

Gregg Farrell (09:32.878)
I appreciate you saying that and you hearing that because obviously, you know, we're at the chair I sit in, I'm somewhat biased and I think a lot of times the feedback we get because we work for the company is somewhat biased, right? But I will say that, you know, the pillars that this company was founded on, what we still work off of today is the true foundation of this company was, it was a couple of things. The first one was how do we build a reliable trail camera?

Dan Johnson (09:36.319)
you

Dan Johnson (09:41.679)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

you

Gregg Farrell (10:02.19)
Like at the end of the day, we're taking a piece of technology, which, you know, inherently technology as like a good, right? Is not necessarily always thought of as being like super durable, right? Especially in our case, we're taking technology and we're putting it out in the elements 365 days a year. So one of the major goals for the first reveal and continues to be our goal today is like, how do we make that thing reliable? How do we eliminate as many possible issues for customers as we can now?

Dan Johnson (10:14.605)
especially

Dan Johnson (10:27.084)
Right.

Gregg Farrell (10:32.046)
Some of that comes down to the design of the product. Some of that comes down to the engineering behind the product. Another part of that for us, what's always really important is not chasing technology trends. So there's so many little technology trends and that space changes so fast. And for us, some of our competitors are really quick to, it's like, whatever the newest, latest, greatest thing is, like let's shove that into the camera. That can be okay, but where that can also get us in trouble is if that hasn't been proven out.

Dan Johnson (10:43.019)
Mm -hmm.

Dan Johnson (10:51.211)
like whatever the newest latest greatest thing is like let's shove that into the camera that can be okay but where that can also get us

Gregg Farrell (11:00.334)
to be a reliable piece of technology, right? Like that ends up, the end consumer ends up suffering from that. So we want to make sure these things are proven out before they go on the camera. So anyways, reliability is huge. On that note though, because this is technology and because it is out in the woods in the weather 365 days a year, like issues are inevitable. Like there is going to be things that happen and pop up. So for us then, we really made this conscious decision of like, when that happens, how can we deal with it most?

Dan Johnson (11:06.41)
Right.

Dan Johnson (11:21.738)
Mm -hmm.

Gregg Farrell (11:30.254)
Effectively most efficiently and in the you know, the best way possible So we have a hundred and ninety customer service agents that work for tactic and reveal all of those people are tactic and employees They're all in the United States, right? They're all end users of the product So when you call in if you do, you know Unfortunately have an issue or you do need help like you get a real person that understands the product that uses it themselves like Billy They're fix it for you when they're on the phone with you that day

or they're gonna be the one that calls you back if they can't, right? So I think that like that reliability component is not only a pill of our business, but also we make it really, it's really important for us to be able to help or fix issues when they do come up for people.

Dan Johnson (12:00.457)
Right.

Dan Johnson (12:13.383)
Okay. So I know that like the word technology can scare some people sometimes because I am the guy. I'm telling you, this is what I want out of a trail camera. I want my trail camera to take pictures.

Like that's as simple as I want it. I'm not the guy who needs like 4K resolution and stuff. Like all I personally care about is that my camera takes pictures. Now, when you add in the cellular component, I want my camera to take pictures and then send it to me, right? That seems to be the most basic thing as far as what...

a trail like those are the main functions of a trail camera. Those are the main functions of a cellular camera. Do you think in the in the trail camera space these days that trail cameras are over engineered to and are trying to do something maybe that goes way beyond just taking pictures and sending them to to your phone or your email address?

Gregg Farrell (13:25.838)
Yeah, I think it's with anything, right? Like if we look at the world around us, it is very much technology based and it is evolving very quickly. You know, like if you look at the evolution, like let's step out of trail cameras for a second, like even just in our everyday lives, right? Like if you look at, you know, at the very basic level, what's a cell phone supposed to do? It's supposed to allow you to communicate, right? Whether that's send a text message, make a phone call, et cetera.

Dan Johnson (13:48.355)
Right.

Gregg Farrell (13:51.502)
You know, if you look at how cell phones have evolved, even in the last 10 years, you know, we now have these supercomputers in our pockets where 10 years ago, you know, basically that's what people were using them for was making calls, sending text messages, maybe checking emails, et cetera. I think, you know, trail cameras are no exception to that. They are going to continue to evolve. They're going to continue to be able to do more things. They're going to continue to utilize the technology as it improves, as it increases, as it gets better.

Dan Johnson (13:51.542)
Yep.

Gregg Farrell (14:21.101)
But again, for someone like myself or like you, like at the end of the day, that's what I want too. Now I'm not saying that some of these other things aren't valuable, but what we've spent a lot of time doing is trying to build not only a camera, but an app that services that camera so that you as the end user can kind of decide, right? So somebody like yourself, Dan, who wants pictures taken, videos taken, and you want them sent to your phone, like you can utilize our technology in that.

simple of a way. For somebody else who maybe wants to lean into some of these other technology pieces, whether it's the built -in GPS and the cameras, some of the data analytics and filtering and things like that that you can do, you can also do that. But both of you have a really streamlined, really efficient experience, regardless of how you choose to use that technology.

Dan Johnson (14:52.)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (15:14.655)
Yeah, and I think that what you just said is the feedback that I've gotten the most and the buzzword or the buzz term here is ease of use. OK, from taking it out of the packages and setting it up. Are you getting the same feedback from your customers as far as ease of use is concerned?

Gregg Farrell (15:38.862)
Definitely. And like that's a huge goal of ours, right? Like you just hit the nail on the head. And that is something that like, that's the lens we look through. Cause it's really easy to over -engineer, over -develop these apps, right? Like we have so much technology at our hands with like AI and even just the capabilities of data processing and you know, what these cameras can do. It's really easy to get lost in the weeds of all these options, right? But like.

Dan Johnson (15:40.606)
Yeah.

Gregg Farrell (16:05.582)
What we always try to do is the lens we look through when building these apps or doing app updates is really ease of use. So from the time you get that camera package, whether you're going to Bass Pro or Shields or Cabela's and you physically buy the thing or you order it online, like from the time you open that package, how easy is it to get the camera added to your app, right? And then once you go to put it in the field,

you know, go through the setup features and then also just on a daily basis, like get your photos, go through them, filter them, et cetera. That's really the end goal here, right? So like somebody who is 18 years old, right? And like up on all the latest technology trends and understands it, it's fine for them. But also, you know, maybe somebody who's later in life that isn't as fired up about like leaning into these new technology trends, like it's easy for them too. So that's definitely the goal for us.

Dan Johnson (16:58.234)
Yeah. Gotcha. Cool. Now describe that ease of use. Like how, how easy is it? Like talk to us about, okay, I got, I got one. Now what, now what?

Gregg Farrell (16:59.086)
us.

Gregg Farrell (17:12.142)
Yep. Yep. So you get your box, right? Your camera box with the camera in it. You open it up. The first thing you're going to see is there's a quick start guide. So if you're somebody who likes to read through instructions, like you can go through that. It's very step by step. It's very easy to navigate. If you're somebody who likes to skip that step, we've made it easy enough that you can do that. You literally, all you have to do is you download the app. So you now have the reveal app. You set up an account as you go through the download process.

One of the first screens you're gonna see on the app once you get it set up is add a camera. So you can click on that add a camera button, you flip open the camera, there's a QR code on that camera. All you have to do is scan that QR code and it'll walk you through step by step everything else you need to do. But basically at that point the camera's added and after that it's up to you how in the weeds you wanna get with setting up the different settings, et cetera. But it's literally step by step by step and it's almost foolproof.

It walks you through it so you don't have to really do anything other than follow the prompts on your.

Dan Johnson (18:16.31)
Gotcha. Now, can you, now everything can be adjusted through the app, correct? As far as running the camera. Okay.

Gregg Farrell (18:25.678)
Correct, yep, so you have two options in terms of how you wanna run the camera. One, you can filter through the options on the camera itself, so the setup features, right, you can navigate through utilizing the buttons and the different toggles on the camera, or you can simply just switch that camera on, and then you choose that camera, that specific one on your app, and you can do everything through your phone, like even as far as like you hang that camera on the tree.

our cameras have live aiming. So you can look on your app and see what that camera is aimed at. So you can ensure that you have it pointed in the right direction, all the way down to like setting up the different, if you want to do a three burst shot, if you want to do single photos, if you want to do just photo, photo and video, trigger sensitivities, like all that stuff can be set up through the app. You never even have to touch the camera other than turning it on if you don't want to.

Dan Johnson (19:15.539)
Okay, awesome. So, bingo. Like, is the QR code now becoming an industry standard?

Gregg Farrell (19:23.886)
Yeah, that seems to be the easiest way to do it because what that allows us to do is each camera obviously is separate in your app, right? So this allows us to essentially give each camera a name, its own fingerprint, and that's the easiest way for the app to identify individual cameras and get it set up in the actual interface itself.

Dan Johnson (19:47.507)
Gotcha. All right. I did. I can tell you, I got two trail cameras, I want to say about seven years ago, maybe two cell cams. I would say cell cam technology had been out by then, but for like three years, four years, and I had four of them and I had to manually enter in like 20 digit.

codes and numbers to get the thing started up. You had to put a SIM card in it that you couldn't buy. They didn't come with it. You had to get it from a cell store and you had to get a plan at a cell store and all this stuff. And it was to the point where I was probably two hours into setting up these cameras and I was like, I'm selling them. I do not care enough.

about these cell cams and I ran them on regular mode, no cell camera, right? And so it was, and then when I did get them set up, eventually everything sucked. And maybe that was because of the technology, the early technology of it, but now, dude, I'm not messing with a cell cam unless I can do the QR code setup method. It's...

It's got to be, it has to be that way now because the technology is there.

Gregg Farrell (21:10.094)
Exactly. And like you said, right, it's like that's where the technology component, in my opinion, is so impressive, where it's like, this is, you know, what used to take, because I've had a very similar experience to you, like early on in cell cam days, even, you know, before cell cam days, like some of those original just trail cameras, right? Like as the technology evolved, it was pretty labor intensive to get them kind of set up and going. But yeah, I mean, now it's

if it takes you five minutes, I'd be surprised. It's that quick, it's that easy, and it's that kind of self -explanatory. So it's not a burden in terms of getting these things set up and deployed.

Dan Johnson (21:50.347)
Gotcha. All right. Let's talk specifics now. The new camera that is coming out is the reveal what the reveal reveal X and the reveal pro three point. right.

Gregg Farrell (22:02.99)
Yep, so two models, X 3 .0 and Pro 3 .0.

Dan Johnson (22:06.283)
Okay, what is the difference between the Reveal X 2 .0 and the Reveal X 3 .0?

Gregg Farrell (22:16.078)
Yeah, so I joke kind of internally with my team that giving this thing the name 3 .0 is like a disservice to the camera because we really went in and like redesigned these things from the ground up. So, you know, at the very basic level, like you can start from the outside and then we can kind of work our way in. Like you're going to notice a different form factor in terms of like what the camera actually looks like. The biggest difference there on the external side of this camera is the antenna.

Dan Johnson (22:24.747)
Mm -hmm.

Gregg Farrell (22:43.726)
So anybody that has run our 2 .0 cameras or even their predecessors, there's always a fixed antenna. It came detached from the camera. So when you got the camera, you had to install it. And when you install it, it stayed in a fixed position. The issue with a fixed position antenna is kind of two things. One, during transport, you essentially just created this lever hanging off the top of the camera. So it's a potential weak spot, right? Like if you throw five of those things in your backpack, cause you're going to deploy them.

you know, it could potentially snap off. You could have issues. So you either have to hope that doesn't happen or you have to take the antenna off during transport, put it on in the field. The other issue with a fixed position antenna is as we all know, like critters love to mess with these things in the woods. So whether it's a bear messing with it, a squirrel jumping on your antenna, a raccoon crawling on it, et cetera, you know, we've had customers where, you know, they call and it's like, Hey, squirrel jumped on my antenna, snapped it off. Now we're happy to send you a new antenna.

no big deal, but it's not the best user experience. So the new antennas actually, instead of mounting into the side of the camera and being fixed, they mount into the top of the camera and they have a two -position pivot on them. So essentially either access, you can pivot that antenna. So that allows you to do two things. One, you can rotate it down and actually snap it into the side of the camera during transport. Or two, regardless of where you have it hung on a tree, what...

Dan Johnson (23:46.658)
Mm -hmm.

Gregg Farrell (24:08.782)
angle that tree's at, you know, what's around it, you can kind of manipulate that antenna to actually point in the direction you need it to. So I think that's the biggest difference that people notice. And that's on both the X and the Pro in terms of like what these things look like, you know, from the outside.

Dan Johnson (24:24.651)
Right, okay. I have a question. All right, for those of you guys watching on YouTube, this is my cell phone right here, okay? There's no antenna on my cell phone. It's built in somewhere in here, okay? And so my question is, why is there a need for an external antenna on a cell cam?

Gregg Farrell (24:47.63)
Yeah, it's a great question. So two part answer to that. One, the cool thing about the new cameras is I've actually been running most of mine with the antenna down in the field. And even without the antenna up, like I've had no issue getting, you know, full service everywhere I am. Second part of this to kind of truly answer your question. The reason that these, we put antennas on these cameras is what we want is typically where these cameras are hung.

Dan Johnson (24:57.099)
Yep.

Dan Johnson (25:05.131)
Yeah.

Gregg Farrell (25:17.326)
They're not the areas with the best cell service, right? So we need to grab every single amount of service possible in the area where these cameras are. So what we basically, you know, kind of the rule of thumb for us is like, even if you only have one bar on your phone, so your phone might struggle to get a text message out, your phone might struggle to get a call out, that cell camera is still gonna work and it's gonna have a strong enough signal.

to send photos, send videos, be able to stay connected to the grid so you can manipulate it from the app. So it's really about maximizing the signal in low signal areas.

Dan Johnson (25:55.679)
Understood, understood. Yeah, man, I have some, I have some, some river bottom ground that has no cell service. And so I, I struggle to get any type of cell camera down in there. Even, I mean, you think about it, Iowa, Eastern Iowa, Southeastern Iowa. It's not, it's not like Western Kansas or Western Nebraska or South Dakota where there's just

one house every 10 miles or something like that, right? It's not like that. But I still struggle to get internet or cell phone service connection down in these areas. And so that's one thing that like for me is I've accepted the fact that cell cameras don't work on certain parts of my farm. And so my goal is to really look like as far as the properties that I hunt,

Is there a way to maximize your antenna strength or your cell camera strength to get it or even boost it in a way to get the most out of it even in these low -lying areas that may be blocked by terrain or thick cover or just out of the way?

Gregg Farrell (27:17.902)
So that's one of the biggest improvements with the new cameras and it's kind of, it's multifaceted. So one, the new cameras in general, you know, we've found the antennas to actually be a bit more powerful in terms of their ability to capture cell signal. So that's a minor improvement. The major improvement is in areas like you're talking about, specifically, you're normally gonna have

one cell provider that has better signal than the other. So for example, like, I don't know who your cell phone carrier is, but let's just say for conversation sake, it's Verizon, right? Like maybe down in that bottom, you don't have great Verizon service, but maybe that does actually have, you know, slightly better AT &T service. So the other thing we've done with these new cameras is they now have an internal multi -carrier SIM card, meaning that you no longer have to...

actually physically insert a SIM card into this camera, you no longer have to decide, do I want AT &T, do I want Verizon, do I even know what is better there, right? So the way these new cameras work is when you flip the camera on, it'll automatically just start scanning. And whatever signal it picks up on as being the strongest, whether it's Verizon or AT &T, that's what the camera's gonna connect to. So you as the end user,

it doesn't matter to you. All you see is like, cool, I have three bars or I have four bars or you know, whatever. You don't have to worry about what cell phone plan you're choosing. You don't have to worry about what it connects to. All you know is you're going to get the strongest possible signal that that camera connects to every single time. So like that farm you're talking about, like maybe down in those, those river bottom areas, like all of those cameras end up connecting to AT &T.

Dan Johnson (28:44.153)
Yeah.

Gregg Farrell (29:03.63)
And on some of your higher ground, maybe your cameras end up connecting to Verizon, because that's a better signal. Again, it doesn't matter to you because you're just paying your monthly plan. We deal with all that on the back end. But it basically ensures that if there's cell signal there to be connected to, your camera will find whatever provider has the strongest signal.

Dan Johnson (29:09.337)
Yeah.

Dan Johnson (29:13.689)
Mm -hmm.

Dan Johnson (29:21.721)
Yeah, yeah, dude, that's huge. I look at that and I go, why do I have to choose a carrier? Right now, it seems like technology has evolved that portion of it out of the conversation. And all you need is the cell camera and the platform.

Gregg Farrell (29:41.102)
Yeah, exactly.

Dan Johnson (29:42.361)
Yep, okay. All right. So as far as any other benefits, like what else about these new cameras, the 3 .0s are cool.

Gregg Farrell (29:55.406)
Yeah. So we'll kind of start high level, right? Like the things that I think matter to most to people. I mean, and there's, we could spend three hours talking about all the changes we did these things down to the operating systems, et cetera. But without getting into the weeds too much, it's like, what matters most to people? Well, one, it goes back to what you talked about originally. You said, I want a camera that sends me photos and videos, right? That's easy. But what really matters there is how

high quality are those photos and videos. Can you tell, you know, the, let's say it's early June, right? Like you want to be able to see the potential that that buck has, right? Like a very clear photo of him in velvet during early growth stages. Or let's say it's a nighttime picture, you know, even in October and that deer's 80 feet away. Like if you can't tell what deer it is or what it looks like, that picture is kind of useless to you. So with these new cameras,

Dan Johnson (30:37.721)
Mm -hmm.

Gregg Farrell (30:53.838)
all of the photos are 4K, all of the videos are 1080. And for reference of people that have run our old stuff, basically, like if you use the 2 .0 camera or an original camera and you ever requested an HD photo, so the way our cameras are set up, you get sent a standard definition photo, you can request HD if you like. The new camera's standard definition photos in 4K or videos in 1080p.

they're actually better than the previous cameras, high definition photos. So it's a huge improvement in both photo and video quality. And that's one of the first things I noticed, like when we started testing these things and I started getting images from these cameras, it was like night and day. And our previous image quality was not bad, but these look like they were taken with a DSLR camera. Like it's really impressive how crisp and clean they are.

Dan Johnson (31:50.297)
Okay. now I've run trail cameras in the past that great nighttime photos, great, I don't know, great daytime photos, but there's this gray light time, right? It's right before the camera switches over to full nighttime or right before the camera switches over to full, I don't know, like daytime, right? And the, the pictures are shit.

What's that time frame look like on your guys' cameras?

Gregg Farrell (32:23.661)
That's always the toughest, right? Like even if you talk to a professional photographer and you're like, hey, what are the two times a day that you don't want to be taking pictures? Like those are the two times a day they're going to tell you because you're dealing with the most challenging conditions. So, you know, with our cameras, like we spent a ton of time focusing on that in terms of the flash technology, you know, the actual shutter speeds and how much light that camera is actually collecting.

And we've optimized as much as possible. And again, even if you compare previous gen cameras to this gen camera, like in that gray light time, just like you do during the daytime or the nighttime, you see that noticeable improvement. You also see that noticeable improvement during gray light time. And it really comes down to just those settings. It's like, how are you optimizing kind of the operating system of the camera to make sure that your shutter speed's correct?

Dan Johnson (33:06.201)
you

Gregg Farrell (33:14.638)
that the image itself, the way it's either getting compressed or not is optimized so that you can still see the details in those challenging times that you were just talking about. So again, I'm not gonna tell you that our gray light photos are as good as our midday photos, right, or our midnight photos, but they're significantly better than they were in the past.

Dan Johnson (33:35.257)
Okay. I mean, that's all really people are asking for. If you, if you were to ask me, right? I'm not saying I speak for everybody, but just to, to, to be shown improvement is like improvement that I can see with my own eyes. That's, that's really all people are asking for, right? Hey man, like here's, here's a struggle I have. It's with this time of day and someone like you comes along and says, Hey,

man, we've worked on it and you're going to notice an improvement. I mean, that's an acceptable answer for me, man.

Gregg Farrell (34:08.59)
And that's one of the things I'm honestly the most excited about with these cameras, like getting them out into the world is people are still going to have all of their photos from 2 .0 cameras. And frankly, a lot of people are still going to be running 2 .0 cameras and 3 .0 cameras, right? Like in the same app interface, it all still works in the same app. So you're going to have these real life examples of like, hey, this is a photo from the older cameras. This is a photo from the new cameras or video. And it's like, holy crap, like there's a big difference there.

Right. And that's what's exciting to me is like, we can list out all the features for, you know, days on end, right? It's like all these things that it can do, but like, I want tangible visual, like difference, right? I want tangible examples. I want actual evidence of improvement. And at the very basic level, like that's where you're going to see the most improvement is in that photo and video image quality.

Dan Johnson (34:39.257)
Right.

Dan Johnson (34:51.673)
Mm -hmm.

Dan Johnson (35:03.161)
Right, right, awesome, awesome. Any other bells and whistles that are cool on these cameras?

Gregg Farrell (35:07.854)
Yeah, yeah, a couple of things and we can just keep these pretty high level here. But the other thing that I think people will be noticed the most and be the most excited about is on the SD card front. Now, I don't know about you, but like SD cards have always kind of been the bane of my existence with regards to trail cameras for a number of reasons. One, there's a very certain type of SD card you should be running in your cameras because

just like in a traditional camera, like the SD card, it kind of determines how efficiently or how well the camera runs. So if you run a cheap, low quality SD card in your camera, your camera's not gonna work that well. So there's always this question of, did I buy the right type of SD card? Then there's this question of, did I format it correctly? Do I need to format it? Do I not need to format it, et cetera? Then there's when the SD card's actually in the camera, there's always this thing of like, is my SD card full? Do I need to go change that or not, right?

And then at the most basic level, which I'll raise my hand and admit I've done before, it's like you get out to the woods to hang a trail camera and you forget your SD card or you don't have one and then the camera's kind of useless. So one of the other big things we did with these new cameras is you no longer need to run an SD card in these cameras if you choose not to. So there is now internal storage in the camera. It's eight gigabytes and people might say, well, eight gigabytes, that's not very much, right? The great thing about this is it will override itself.

it will never run out of storage for the life of the camera. Now people are like, well, doesn't that mean that I lose my photos and videos? Absolutely not. Because as soon as the camera takes that photo or video, it gets sent to your app and it's stored there indefinitely. So you will never lose photo or video and the actual physical storage right in the camera will just continue to override itself. So you never have to worry about changing an SD card, remembering SD cards, et cetera. Now,

Some people, right, like especially if you're in the space of creating content around hunting, they want that physical photo or that physical video so they can download that onto their computer. Now our cameras on like some of our competitors, they still do have an SD slot. So if you want to run an SD card, you still have the option and that'll override the internal storage. However, for somebody like me who doesn't do any of that, I'm never gonna touch an SD card again the rest of my life and it's gonna simplify my experience.

Dan Johnson (37:27.196)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's I can't wait. I can't wait for that. That's awesome because like you said, SD cards are frugal or not frugal, fragile in a way. I have also gone the cheap route on SD cards and it's like the the picture went off.

Gregg Farrell (37:29.134)
So that's huge.

Dan Johnson (37:54.427)
but the picture's not there on the SD card. And so you gotta have the class 10s and you gotta have the high processing SD cards and things like that. And most of the time, that doesn't come with, like a lot of other companies will have an SD card come with their camera, and usually it's just the cheapest SD card on the market that they can find and put their own brand on it. And maybe that's true, maybe it's not, but those have also been an issue.

with what I have, my trail camera problems in the past.

Gregg Farrell (38:31.342)
Yeah, so now it's like, hey, you know, if you have a cell camera, the whole idea is there that you don't have to go and like touch that thing, right? Cause we put these things in either whether it's out of state and there, you know, we're not close to them or we put them in sanctuaries, right? Like the purpose of a cell camera is to eliminate the amount of time you need to go buy it. So taking that SD card component out of it, you know, really helps that. The other thing that helps that now too, and this is

Dan Johnson (38:50.427)
Right.

Gregg Farrell (38:57.806)
maybe seems like a minor feature on paper, but I think is actually pretty important in the big scheme of things. And you've probably experienced this because you were talking about some of your older trail camera or your older cell cameras. When there was a firmware update on those old cameras, you had to download that firmware onto an SD card, right? And then you had to physically go to the camera, insert the SD card to update the new firmware on the camera.

On your cell phone, you don't have to do that, right? You just get a notification, whether it's from Google or from Apple, and it's like, hey, new firmware, blah, blah, update tonight while you're charging. You choose select, you don't have to worry about it, right? The cameras are now the same way. So over the year firmware updates, anytime we update technology or we update the firmware to make the camera work better, run more efficiently, et cetera, you'll get a notification and you just accept it. And that camera, when it's not taking pictures or when it has downtime,

we'll just automatically update that firmware. So now that's another step that we've eliminated that you will never actually have to physically manipulate that camera unless you choose to actually go, you know, move it to a different spot or whatever. So little things like that will be huge. And then there's a bunch of other little stuff too, like we've improved the image sensor on these. And what that means for the end user is like, one, you're going to get less false triggers. So less blank photos and two, the sensor itself,

is gonna do a better job of getting photos in frame. So you're gonna have more pictures where that deer is in the center of your picture, whether it's 10 feet away from the camera or 80 feet away from the camera. So that's a big deal. And then I think that the two other things that we get asked a lot is like, cool, so you guys built this new camera with all these new features, all these new options, one.

How much more battery is it gonna suck to do all that stuff? And then two, how much more is it gonna cost me? And I get that, right? Those are legit questions. And I think the answers to those are almost as exciting as these new cameras. One, on the battery side, we've been able to optimize the kind of internal operating system of this camera. So these new cameras are actually more efficient with batteries. The battery life is better than the predecessors. And two, on the cost side,

Gregg Farrell (41:12.302)
We've made all these new improvements, added all these new features, and the price hasn't changed. So when you used to pay for a X 2 .0 camera, you now pay for an X 3 .0 camera. Well, you paid for the Pro model before, you pay for the Pro model now. So it's $119 for the X 3 .0, it's $149 for the Pro 3 .0. So no price change at all, even with all of these new features and updates and things like that. So...

Dan Johnson (41:37.136)
Wow.

Gregg Farrell (41:39.374)
especially now in this economy this time, that's a big deal to people and we're pretty proud to be able to have done.

Dan Johnson (41:45.584)
Yeah, I want to go back to firmware updates. I have called customer service before for other trail camera brands, right? And at the time, I spent a whole day going out, setting up trail cameras. I let it soak for a handful of months. I go back, check it, and there's an issue with the camera.

in the SD card in the pictures. And I'm like, hey, I'm not figuring this out. And their response to me was, did you update the firmware? And I'm like, what do you mean? Okay, I need, here's a list of things you need to do. First, you have to take the camera out of the woods. You got to connect it to a computer and you have to run this firmware update or do something. It's all manual, right? It wasn't automatic. And I was like, I gotta do what now? And that to me is unacceptable.

Like you shouldn't have to do that. Like again, this goes back to my core wants and needs out of a trail camera. I needed to take pictures. If the company, the companies have to know where their product is being used. Their product is being used in the woods, right? Or out in nature somewhere. They're not being used in my office or in my, you know, in my house.

where I can easily do a firmware update, that to me is unacceptable. And so what you guys have done here is you've allowed trail cameras to do what trail cameras are supposed to do without the interaction, a need of human interaction, I guess is what I'm saying, aside from the initial setup. And so those expectations are pretty, pretty awesome.

Gregg Farrell (43:37.774)
Yeah. And I mean, I'm the same as you, right? And like, just cause I work for this company, like at the end of the day, like our time is valuable and we don't have a lot of it. You know, most of us are super busy, whether it's family business, you know, actual hunting, prepping for hunting, you know, whatever you got, if I set aside a day where I'm going to go out in the woods and hang those cameras, like to your point, I'm going to do that. And I might not go back to those for three months.

Dan Johnson (43:45.42)
100%.

Gregg Farrell (44:05.102)
And if I go back three months later and have an issue because I didn't update firmware and the thing, like, I'm not going to be happy. Like I don't have time to babysit these things, right? I need them to work. Or if they're not working, I need to know that they're not. And I need a really simple and efficient way to fix them. And that's more important to me than chasing like some bell and whistle of the newest technology thing that this camera can't do or can't do, right? Can do or can't do, excuse me. And I think that's something we've stayed pretty true to since the...

Dan Johnson (44:05.292)
Mm -hmm.

Dan Johnson (44:19.788)
Right.

Gregg Farrell (44:33.646)
you know, the first days of.

Dan Johnson (44:36.166)
Right, awesome, awesome. Now I'm on the website right now. I'm looking at the Reveal 3 .0 and I see a little label here. It says limited drops daily, okay? And I interpret that as like limited availability, right? Like, do you guys have enough right now to satisfy your customer needs or are you guys kind of...

in a back order or sold out or how, what's that looking like for people who want to come get one of these?

Gregg Farrell (45:10.51)
Yeah, so one of the things that we did with this launch, because we were anticipating really high demand, which there has been, it's been incredible, is it's really important for us to support our retail partners. So brick and mortar, physical store locations, or their e -commerce platforms.

So we took a bit of hit on our own direct -to -consumer inventory in order to make sure that people had a physical location that they could go to and they could buy a camera if they wanted to. So in doing that, what we're doing for the next couple of weeks is we're dropping 100 cameras, 100 of each model per day on our website in the morning. So 100 X 3 .0s, 100 Pro 3 .0s. Once those are gone, they're gone for the day. We'll do the same thing the next day.

Even if you miss out on getting them from us one day, you can always come back the next day and likely get them. That being said, if you go to any of the major retailers, or even some of the smaller retailers, whether it's a True Value, a Bass Pro, a Cabela's, a Shields, whether you go to the store, whether you go online, even Amazon, you can find these things. So even if you can't buy them directly from us, we've made sure that there's options close to home if you choose to do so.

Dan Johnson (45:58.917)
Right.

Dan Johnson (46:07.589)
Mm -hmm.

Gregg Farrell (46:25.518)
or on the internet online if you choose to do so where you can get these things, it might just not be directly from our website.

Dan Johnson (46:33.605)
Yeah, okay, okay. That's great. I mean, these are all great things. You know, we're running out of time here, and I think we covered a lot about the new cameras in the company. How do we end this? What do you wanna say to the people who are listening to this right now, and to get them excited about the product, to get them more information? Where do we wanna send them closing thoughts?

Gregg Farrell (47:00.334)
Yeah, a couple things there. So one, for the new product, like check out our YouTube channel. There's a bunch of stuff on there about overviews, how -tos, tutorials, et cetera, and more of that coming. So if you really want to do a deep dive in these new cameras, like their functionality, their capabilities, like there's a lot of information there. We'll be releasing that through our email list as well. So if you're not signed up for that and you want to, that's a great way to get information.

A lot of this stuff will show up on social, so if you're not following us on social, you can do that, but it all lives on our YouTube channel, so that's a great place to go look and learn. In addition to all of the exciting stuff with these new cameras that we covered today, it's kind of just the tip of the iceberg. So, you know, and I'll, I won't release all the details, but I'll allude to some stuff that's coming up here. You know, later this summer.

what you're gonna see is some new accessory options to go with these new cameras. And I will tell you, you're gonna have some power management options that will allow you to essentially never replace batteries again, if you don't want to. Again, can't get into the details of that, but know that that stuff is coming as well as some other hard goods accessories in terms of mounting systems and things like that. So more to come on the accessories front. The other thing that's really exciting that will be coming later this summer as well as an app update.

And what I can tell you about that is that is really gonna change, and I kind of hate when people say this, like change the game in the hunting industry, right? Cause like that gets thrown around so much, but this new app update and what it's able to do, really when we designed this new app, the goal was, and I don't know how many you used Dan, but like when I go out in the field, I'm typically checking like three or four different apps, right?

Dan Johnson (48:33.221)
Yeah.

Gregg Farrell (48:46.766)
my mapping app, my weather app, my trail camera app, maybe like a deer predictivity app, you know, I have all these places I go to look at things. We're trying to simplify that into one platform. So you're gonna see an app rollout that brings a lot of that stuff into one space. So it hopefully makes it more efficient and more user friendly. So there's some really exciting stuff to come yet this summer before season as it relates to these new cameras, right? But in other categories like accessories and app updates as well.

Dan Johnson (49:00.517)
Mm -hmm.

Dan Johnson (49:14.981)
Cool, cool. Well, man, obviously here's the website, tacticam .com slash cameras. That's gonna be the best bet for all of the information starting out right now. Greg, man.

Really looking forward to getting these cameras in the woods, getting some pictures off of them, setting up, playing around with it. I'll be completely honest, man, I have a box of cameras that I got from you. They're still in the box. My life is crazy right now. And so I can't wait for baseball to be over and I can start plugging these cameras in and getting them in the woods and starting to get some intel for the upcoming season. Looking forward to that. And I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to hop on and school us on the world of reveal.

Gregg Farrell (50:00.75)
Thanks for having me. I always have fun to chat, especially about hunting gear and new exciting stuff in that space. So appreciate you taking the time to have me today.

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