This has probably been covered by all you smart people…but I wanted to keep an eye on my pupper while charging my low-bat on the Outdoor Cam. Good weather today, so instead of bringing my cam in to charge, I just took my Anker external battery outside to charge. Took it right up to 100%, and I kept track of Elwood while it did. (Just don’t leave the dog, or the battery out in the rain).
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That’s a great idea for anyone who doesn’t want to have to worry about repositioning it afterwards, also I’m not sure but I assume it might stay working while its charging as well, so no downtime if so.
Yes, correct. It does stay working while charging. No downtime!
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Elwood, great name. 
Is there a Jake?
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@angus.black Sadly, Jake is in Joliet for another few months. When he gets out, they’ll go see the Penguin and go from there.
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So does that mean that these cameras COULD be kept plugged in indefinitely, provided that the USB port was sufficiently weatherproofed?
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Yeah, I don’t see why not. I used it (watched the pup off and on) for several hours after it hit 100%, and it didn’t seem to mind being plugged in that whole time. Just stayed at 100%.
Interesting…It might be a handy mod, then, to mod these, remove the batteries (for safety and longevity) , and hardwire them. Then Wyze just has to allow the software to record constantly to the local SD card and we have an actual decent product!
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The main question I would have, is, do you get motion notifications while its charging, or is it only working when live streaming?
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Just did a few tests. Yes, I do get motion and person notifications while it’s charging. I see no difference in it’s operation while it’s connected to my battery.
Both of those “Backyard” events are while charging.
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That’s great! I know that question has been asked a lot around here so it’s nice to know it will still function normally while charging.
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But the problem is that most battery packs do not actually charge themselves while still providing “pass through” power to connected devices (the camera). There is a transfer point at which they stop providing power. For whatever reasons (including overcharge protection) only a few much more expensive packs can do this properly. Worse, in the case of the WCO it seems the transfer point can just end up turning the machine off.
(I may be off a little since some of these past discussions have involved solar charging.)
Well I don’t think anyone was considering keeping the camera permanently connected to a power bank. It would be connected to an ac-dc adapter plugged into a wall outlet somewhere. I would even disconnect/remove the internal batteries.
Well, except for the person who wrote this:
Lots of people would like a battery pack to act as an inline UPS.
I guess, but if you have a UPS on your modem, router, and camera hub, you could probably get one for your camera(s). Also there’s gotta be a battry pack which can be used as a source while charging.
In that case, leave the existing battery in the camera. It can be it’s own UPS.
Well yeah but I mostly meant for V2s and Pans. (I don’t much care about the WCO as it doesn’t seem like a very good product.)
I’d be worried about the batteries degrading over time. But I suppose if all you need them for is the POSSIBLE power outage use case, it should be fine.
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Sure but (if it did work) changing out a $10 USB battery pack every 3-5 years is a lot easier (and in a much smaller form factor) than changing $50 UPS batteries.
Unfortunately it seems the battery packs built to accommodate this cost as much as a UPS anyway. 
Agreed! Now we need to figure out a good way to weatherproof the USB port when a cable is left plugged in
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