What are premium credits and how to use them?
Note: Spartan Camera offers shared data plans which include our premium services.
Cellular trail cameras have significantly changed in the past few years. Before you would get a low-res thumbnail via email or text. The graininess and blurry quality of the images left you wondering what exactly you had caught on your camera and if it were even worth hunting come the right season. Now, you can send HD images and videos to a computer, a tablet, or even your cell phone to receive them when you need them most. Almost every 4G/LTE camera will save to the SD card you install; however, to use features like HD photo and video requests, you’re going to need something known as premium credits.
What are premium credits?
A premium credit is a monthly fee per camera that allows you to use Spartan Camera’s premium service. With credits, you will have the ability to send photos (and videos for video-capable cameras) to the Spartan Camera web portal and to the Spartan Camera Management App. With premium credits, there are no limits on the number of pictures, the number of videos, HD requests, etc., and there are no extra charges for large thumbnails, transmitted HD photos, or transmitted videos that you can receive. Without credits, you won’t be able to use your camera with your app and will have to go to the camera and manually pull the SD card in order to view photos and videos. You will also have to change your settings manually instead of being able to change them remotely via the app.
|
Credit amount |
Cost per credit |
|---|---|
|
1 - 5 |
$4.00 |
|
6 - 11 |
$3.50 |
|
12+ |
$3.00 |
* Note: Premium credits aren’t a physical product, but you do have to purchase them in order to use our premium service. The price breakdown of credits is as follows:
Credits belong to your account, not to a particular camera, and each new camera comes with one free premium credit, providing one month of premium service for free. When you purchase credits, you have a pool of credits that each camera pulls from each month it is in use. If your camera does not send any pictures in a given month (based on the day of the month you began premium service, not a calendar month), it does not use a credit.
If your account runs out of credits, the camera will not send the pictures it takes, but it will check-in for scheduled status reports to see if credits have been added to the account. Once you buy credits, your camera should begin working after the next time it contacts the server unless it has been without credits long enough that the batteries are dead. While the camera is without a credit, it will continue taking photos and storing them on the SD card. However, it will not send any of those photos. Once it has a credit, it will begin sending new photos.
How do I get premium credits?
There are two ways to purchase premium credits: either through the Spartan Camera Management App (Android only) or by going to your account on my.spartancamera.com.
To purchase the credits on your app:
- Go to the ACCOUNT tab
- Select "Premium Credit"
- Then select "Purchase Credits"
To purchase from our website:
- Go to the menu and select CAMERA MANAGEMENT.
- Go to the SUBSCRIPTIONS tab
- Then select "Premium Credits"
While you can buy premium credits at a bit of a higher price with other cell carrier services, Spartan Camera’s shared data plans are specifically made to help cut down on the amount of services you need for your camera. With your data plan and premium service in the same location, you save time, money, and you get the convenience of getting help all in one place, even when you’re miles away from your trail camera site.
Contributors: Kevin Warstadt and Daniel Rodriguez
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