Anybody else disappointed with WCO2?

I bought a couple of the new outdoor cams to compliment my first gen units and so far I’m underwhelmed. While the nighttime vision is greatly improved, the rest of the camera seems to be a step back from the V1.

It works great detecting motion during the day, but at night it won’t even pick up a passing car at 100% sensitivity only a few feet away (like 6 feet). Furthermore, it takes a full 3 seconds after activation to spin up to a usable resolution. Which for most passing motion events is too late to catch much.

I’ve experimented with different sensitivities, camera angles, even manually enabling night mode, but nothing helps. Did I get 2 bum units or do they just simply work as well as the first gen?

Anyone have similar experiences? Any advice or solutions?

Units were placed in the exact same location as the WCOv1.

I do not have their battery cameras , simply because battery cameras come with their limitations. Theirs only so much that they can add one to the camera…

It would be best to switch over to the wired v3 , for more better quality and detection as well as the various benefits compared to wireless IMO

The product was not properly vetted. I know it, you know it, and they know it.

I bought Wyze Cam Outdoor V2 and installed on July 13, 2022. After a day I realized that the Playback option doesn’t exist, very much disappointed. It completely defeated the purpose. No where on Wyze website they mentioned this drawback about outdoor cam which is in my opinion misleading the buyers.
To my surprise, on July 18, 2022, I found that the battery went down to 1%, after 5 days of using???
Wyze Cam outdoor V2 (unless improved) it’s totally useless to buy. I suggest people not even think about outdoor camera until you hear that the battery life improved and the Playback option is added.

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WCO v1 also lacked a playback feature. I can understand the battery conservation thinking behind the cam lacking playback. However, playback unavailable from the powered base (when we choose to add microSD cards to both cam AND base) is thoroughly ridiculous. Hard to believe they even released a “next-gen” version of WCO without remediating this glaring disability. Essentially incentivizing CamPlus subscriptions.

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Luckily I have not opted for battery versions .

You are limited when it comes to that matter , so not sure why unless you absolutely need them then go for it but always try and go for wired . Sooooo much better , details , quality , audio , features and accessibility

No offense to wyze , but you couldn’t pay me to use the wyze cam outdoor. No matter how much they offer , they just suck. Too limited .

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Good morning. I am new to Wyze. Just purchased 3 V2 outdoor cameras with solar panels and sd cards for the cameras and the base. After installing the first camera, I come to find out that you cannot access any saved video from either the cameras or the base station. I would have to climb a ladder and remove the sd card in order to see video. Customer service explanation: saving battery. If the video is being saved to the base, then it should be available. And since I have a continuous charge from a solar panel, battery usage shouldn’t matter anyway. I hope Wyze is working on an update to address this.

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Yes.

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I’ll check it again. I haven’t found any so far.

It’s not available. I was simply agreeing with that comment in your post.

Playback unavailable with a storage-enabled powered base in the mix just seems dumb.

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Oh okay thank you

I completely agree with you, when there is solar panel the question of saving battery life doesn’t arise.
If Wyze really wants to keep up there reputation they have to very soon upgrade the battery, as well as should provide the Playback option asap. Send the more powerful battery to all the customers that purchased outdoor cam already or replace the cam itself.

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You can’t view the events backed up to the base station, I agree this is annoying.

You can view the events in the events tab at the bottom of the app. Also, you can view the cams recorded Timelapse’s or scheduled recording in the album.

The only time you need to take the sd card out would be the base station to view the backed up events.

Keep in mind there’s currently a bug (may be fixed now) that you cannot download Timelapse’s from the album

Not to pile on, but… I run 14 cameras, 4 of which are WCO cameras which I was considering swapping out for the WCO V2. I’ll hold on that for now.

The WCO is finicky at best. Way more of a hobby than I expected. Why run a WCO? Because There’s no power where I need to place the camera, But the base station needs power, and the WCO only seems to work reliably when it’s close to the base station. With a little work I might be able to get power to 2 of my WCO locations. If I can do that, I’ll switch those to the reliable V3s. As for running Cam Plus on a WCO, by the time it wakes up and detects motion, whatever triggered the event is usually on it’s way out of the camera’s view. It’s rare that my WCOs would ever need to capture more than 12 seconds.

I understand why Wyze designed the WCO the way it did, If I knew that before I bought them, I might have bought them,

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Correction: “might not have bought them”

Btw, you can edit your original post with the little pencil icon.

I am going to add an additional disappointment with WCO v2 here…

Might only be specific to this bum unit, but my original cam had a purplish discoloration in the top center of it per the attached pic.

Here it is again outlined for those of you in Rio Linda… :grin:

I’ve noticed this on my v3’s when the sun is hitting it . It’ll turn purple

Strange thing is that the warranty replacement wco v2 they sent me doesn’t exhibit this at all. Also, there is no way for this interior cam to receive direct sunlight… :wink:

Possibly either a bad batch or a lubrication leak issue like happened on the cam pans a few years ago.

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