Battery Operated Wyze Cam

don’t think this is a good test. the small panel is intended to keep a small battery from self discharging in storage not to charge the battery or provide current for any device.

That’s a fair assessment. Sometimes you try what you’ve got, see if it works and share the results with the community.

Anyway, I’m now using a much stronger 100w solar panel and its working fine.

If Wyze includes an internal battery… for extreme temp ranges and long-term durability, supercapacitors would be better performance-wise vs lithium.

Tim- I have a similar setup with a 7ah battery. I had been using it with a 10w solar panel to power a USB sensor in my green house. Are you still using the 7ah battery with the 100w solar panel, and it works fine over night and through rainy days? I was thinking I needed a 35ah battery but maybe my panel is too small to keep the 7ah battery charged. Or my battery is going bad.

I would prefer the option of rechargeable battery AND plug. For cameras mounted high, a step ladder required, is painful when necessary to remove battery for charging. I have an arlo that has both and if weather is too cold or power goes out, the battery is charged and useable.

My wyze cam pan is obviously plugged in at a high mounting point,

Having a vacation home, batteries may not be suitable, so the plug would work better in these situations. As opposed to sitting on the counter/desk, etc. , battery may work best in these types of locations, Batteries where one is easily accessible.

I also like the option for viewing multiple cams and in different locations.

If you can, I’d recommend going with the larger 35ah battery. I was just using what I had. With the larger 100w solar array and setting the camera to events only, it was working fine. However, as you’ve mentioned, availability of sunlight is a factor and the smaller battery needs constant recharging.

p.s. I had to pull the solar panel off camera duty and I’m using it on my electric fence right now. The winter has been long and harsh in Minnesota and my bee hives need the protection of the larger solar panel / electric fence.

Would it be safe to say that if the camera takes 1amp of power constantly that the solar panel would have to supply at least 2 amps. 1amp for the power during the day and 1 to be stored in maybe a 15ah battery? If that would be true a 50w panel is about 2.5 amps, which might cover loss during the conversion on the controller and resistance. Since a 50w panel is nearly the price of a 100w it seems reasonable to get 100w producing 5.5 or so amps. If you get 10 hours of sun, at 5.5 amps - 1 used = 4.5 amp to store in 10 hours, requiring at 45ah battery to maximize. Does your 35ah battery seem pretty drained in the mornings? It would have used maybe 14ah from the battery till the sun came out again. Also I forgot if you ran night mode or not.
Tomorrow I am going to try setting the camera to run during daylight hours only but I suspect it to fail. My 10w solar only produces like .48 amps so the battery should be .52 in the hole when the camera is on. I tried to supply extra storage today with 3 USB battery packs but it didn’t last past 11pm.

Oh, and has anyone used just an old car battery or lawn mower battery. They don’t have amp hour ratings really but have CCA ratings. One lawn mover battery I was thinking about had 330cca, and could sustain 25amp at 12v for 20 minutes. I don’t really know how that would figure out in 5v USB. Maybe 6v for 40 minutes *25 amps= 1000 minutes or 16.7 hours, since I only need 1amp for the camera.

My Blink lasted about a year with the batteries it came with, and since then I replace the batteries with Energizer Lithium twice in the last 6 months, the camera is not alarmed 70% of time.

I second that! I’ve been looking for a 3rd party solution for the camera to continue working in case of power outage.

Using Wyze camera with power bank, it runs for 24 hours. I like to get a bigger power bank to run for 3 days. Some power banks support power through allowing charging and power to the cameras. I will update the link as I learn more.

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You might look into the Harbor Freight Lithium Ion Jump Starter and Power Pack. Occasionally it goes on sale with coupon for about $50.
/edit - I’m running a V2 off a Samsung 10Ah power bank, it lasts just about 24 hours exactly and can be used as “pass through”

How about mount ext battery (swappable) where you mount the motion sensor? Obviously it would plug to the power input not output. Different size (thickness) could provide different capacity options.

Hikers are having problems with car break-ins at trailheads. You leave your car and the bad guys know you will be gone a couple of hours and they break your window and steal whatever you have in your car. It is hard when you are on a trip to take everything of value with you when you hike. Having a battery powered camera that is not obvious in the vehicle might at least take a photo of the perp so they could be caught.

I would like to also see battery with solar recharging panel.

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ETA? Been almost 6 months and still no word.

Many modular systems have been created by the community. The idea is to use a solar charger / battery bank that has a Micro USB output.

We don’t have an ETA yet. We’re working on prototypes but we’re still needing to make some adjustments for performance and we aren’t ready to give a launch estimate yet. We’ll get it out as soon as possible! :slight_smile:

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Too much of reading, but didn’t find a conclusion. Sorry if it was a duplicate question.
Can I run the Wyze cam only on motion detection, that way I can use the largest power bank I got and let it run for several weeks or months as it wouldn’t record all the time.

Per many discussions as long as the camera is on it consumes about the same amount of power.

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