I have a community of feral cats in my yard and recently have found it necessary to start monitoring them, especially at night. Is the Wyzecam, (any version of it), good for outdoor use? Will it withstand heat, cold, rain? Obviously if the weather is very bad I would bring it inside, but could it withstand light rain or wind or is it not built for outdoor use?
If it’s not made for outdoors, is there a way it could work outside if I had some form of protection over it - such as a canopy or even an umbrella (just shooting out ideas!).
For those of you who have one and have tested them, what do you recommend?
I am part of a huge network of feral cat caretakers on facebook and if this is something we could use outside, we will bombard this company with sales because of the affordability and a way to monitor our colonies from the comforts of home.
There are a bunch of people who have them under eves, and other assorted covers (including me). Rain protection would be the big one. People here have reported using the cameras in very cold environment and one of mine is in my attic where it measured 132 yesterday.
I have 3 Wyze cams under eaves for a few weeks now. My biggest problem is positioning the Wyze cams so that a portion of the eave is not in field of view which will reflect the IR lights at night. I had one camera upside down and protruding from the cover of the eave and forgot about it until after it had rained. I dumped the water out of the camera and it still works fine.
hi folks, please see below support url for reference.
https://www.wyzecam.com/is-wyzecam-waterproof-mounted-outdoors/
Looks nice! My only concern would be heat build up, especially if it gets direct sunlight.
Hard to see from the pictures but I drilled 3 ventilation holes in the bottom of the dome to allow heat to escape and assist in air circulation to reduce the formation of condensation. Good observation!
Brilliant cover. I do have a question. Do you get any problems with reflections when running the WyzeCam in night vision mode? What about very cold temperatures such as minus 40 celsius? (which is actually -40F).
I did notice something in the photos. It looks like you have a motion sensing light. I may be guessing that you have it set to “day mode” so that the “reflections” problem is mitigated. Am I correct?
Thanks for the feedback. There is a light reflection issue in night mode. Because of this, I usually leave it off and rely on the external driveway light on the garage to provide illumination. The garage light is mounted below the cam aiming downwards eliminating any residual light spillage from reflecting off the dome which would interfere with the camera image. So far, we only had temps above freezing (35 - 65 degrees F). The holes I drilled in the bottom of the dome allows any warm air generated by the camera to dissipate which really helped to avoid any condensation issues. As the camera is 99% enclosed, I leave off the sound. Direct sunlight will cause some image glare, but the orientation of the garage is such that I only have brief periods of direct sunlight hitting the dome and camera. I will post updates as other issues arise from this setup. Thanks.
New discovery: The White color of the cam case did reflect a bit off the inside of the dome on bright days. I found that painting the case cover with a flat black matte finish eliminated most of the reflection. I love this cam!!
5/18/18 Some shots from camera dome installation.
https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wyze/original/2X/2/29f09134296d806f8b99711dbca890708309f9f2.mp4 https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wyze/original/2X/9/91b46aa1fac91f422ff6c118d4b45996ded8a12d.mp4 https://global.discourse-cdn.com/wyze/original/2X/9/93fd3d387f83d6954c8ad68a027ec5859cf56208.mp4
My Wyze cam has been outside 24/7 since summer. It is mounted under a garage small eave inside a small plastic jar with an opening cut for the lens to see unobstructed. It has weathered high summer temps, thunderstorms, temps in the 20s, and snow. It is probably 50’ from the wifi router. It is holding up well.
LockJawal - Really inspiring setup. Just got three WyzeCams for the holiday and now I have an inspiring example of an outdoor deployment. Im planning an attic deployment (to watch for squirrels), two additional installations: watching the driveway and the other watching package drop-offs. I had been working on an in-home approach, however now I’m considering adopting your inspirational deployment. Appreciate the post.
My 3 outdoor cams (pictured) are doing just fine. The oldest one has been there prolly 1.5 years. None show any issue from weather, or, from the sun’s killer rays. They are using the well-known little black house-like mount.
The 2 over-the-garage cams allow me to read “car plates”, but only if the car gets into the sidewalk within the driveway.
PROTIP: for cams that are not easy to reach, be sure to install class 10 high endurance microSD cards, cuz lower quality cards will likely eventually fail.
DISCLAIMER: just cuz my cams are workin’ for me doesn’t mean they will work in yur scenario.
I have two v2 cams that have only ever been used outside. I did purchase these covers from amazon for them: https://www.amazon.com/Bracket-Protective-Adjustable-Anti-Sun-Protection/dp/B078RZNV16/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1546468102&sr=8-4&keywords=wyze+camera+cover
I live in Iowa. It’s been a mild winter but it has for sure been down in the teens. And they have been up during the summer as well. So far, no issues. They aren’t mounted directly under the eves, but they are within 5 feet of being under the eve. So they for sure see some moisture when it rains. But not a direct hit from the rain. I am not saying they won’t die someday, but for $20, if I have to replace once a year, still cheaper than the alternatives. AND I hear there is an official outdoor version getting built. So when that happens, I will just replace with one of those. 