Wildlife monitoring technology has vasting improved since the early days of using trail timers. Those relics used a string stretched across the deer trail on a digital clock. When the string tripped, the clock would stop. It was then the hunter’s job to cipher when the timer was triggered against the current time. An educated guess at best. The trail timers couldn’t tell you whether a buck, doe, cow or even a bull elephant had broken the triggering device so there was a lot of guesswork involved.
Then came trail cameras. Early trail cameras came equipped with SD cards that hunters had to physically retrieve to view what was captured on the camera. This took a lot of extra time and effort. The emergence of smart phones has made SD card cameras nearly obsolete as newer trail cameras can be synced with your cell phone so images captured by the trail camera can be instantly viewed on one’s phone. With many hunters traveling longer distances to hunt, cell phone cameras do the legwork of keeping an eye on a favored hunting spot.
Yellowstone AI
Occasionally, a product is introduced, and it falls in between the cracks, unnoticed. If this is the case with the Yellowstone AI Y2, then it is the best trail camera you have never heard of.
Yellowstone AI is a family-owned business that launched in 2020 by founder Ben Vander Velden, a lifelong outdoorsman based in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. After college, Vander Velden found himself in the tech field where he gained not just experience, but industry contacts. He had always loved tech and the outdoors and wanted to find a way to put the two together, Yellowstone AI was the result.
Best Kept Secret in the Midwest
Most of Yellowstone AI customers are whitetail hunters and their base has a stronghold in the Midwest.
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“Much of our growth has been through word of mouth,” Vander Velden said. “Then we got a little traction when we became a national sponsor with Whitetails Unlimited and a few deer expos throughout the Midwest.”
Y2 Trail Camera- Lions, Tigers and Bears?
The Y2 camera is very robust with heavy duty latches and thick rubber seals to keep out dust and moisture which can render a trail camera useless over time. The Y2 comes with a lifetime warranty which covers even bear damage and their customer service is based in the US.
Any firmware updates can take place while the camera is being used in the field.
“As long as there is a connection to a cell tower, which they all do, updates are performed automatically,” Vander Velden said. “This makes your camera get better instead of worse due to obsolescence.”
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Yellowstone AI data plans use major carriers including ATT, Verizon and T-Mobile cell towers and is comparable with most camera data plans on the market.
The App
Because the app is entirely owned and operated in house by Yellowstone AI, it can be adjusted in real time.
“Our app is homegrown,” Vander Velden aid. “We built it, we own it, we support it and we can make changes very quickly. The methodology we used when building our app was to keep things as simple as possible with the features you still want on your app, good pictures, good video and the ability to share the photos with your hunting buddies or family. The average hunter doesn’t need 600 buttons on their camera app for features they will never use.”
Accolades at the Highest Level
At the 2026 Archery Trade Association (ATA) the Y2 Wide Lens Cellular Trail Camera was named the Best New Technology in the New Product Launch Showcase. Not bad for a cell camera no one has ever heard of, especially with the amount of new technology being introduced these days.
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“New product innovation is the key to driving sales and propelling the archery industry forward,” Jeff Poole, ATA president and CEO, said. “I’m proud to recognize this year’s New Product of the Year award winners from the hundreds of new products released at this year’s ATA Show.”
Vander Velden said that further improvements can be expected on the app. They are launching a map that allows the user to see their cameras on this map or find a lost camera, and more developments will be released at a later date.
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