New Wyze user. I just received my first Motion Detection alert. When I looked at the video, it seems that the camera detected the motion a lot later than I would have expected and certainly a lot later than other cameras I have used. Allow me to explain.
I have the camera set up in a 2nd story window where it can see the street in front of my house. Based on the location, it can see vehicles as they approach my house from the left or right, cross in front of it and well after they pass the house.
The event that I just received shows a vehicle suddenly appearing in the middle of the road and driving away after it has already passed my house . The camera did not capture the vehicle as it approached the house from the left. I see an empty street then Pop! the vehicle appears out of nowhere, in motion, and driving away. Based on the location of the camera and the layout of my street, the first 5 seconds of the video should have shown the vehicle approaching my house.
Is that the normal “response time” for a motion event with the Wyze camera? If so, then the camera is not going to fit my needs. (FYI: “Detection Zone” is turned Off, which I assume means that the camera is checking for motion within its full range of view.)
Before I answer the specific questions asked, I want to post an update regarding subsequent events. The camera recorded a total of 8 events over a 6 hour period. Some of them recorded the full field of view, others recorded about 2/3.
What is particularly strange is the first event, the one that shows the vehicle after it is has already passed my house. The thumbnail on the app’s events list shows the vehicle as it approaches my house, basically at spot which would produce a video showing about 2/3 of the full field. However, once I tap the video to play it, the vehicle is passed my house and out of view for the last 9 seconds of the 12 second video. I never see it pass my house in the video, yet it was obviously captured since it shows in the thumbnail at a spot that would be about 2-3 seconds earlier.
In addition, the only events that were recorded were vehicles driving on my street. There’s a video of me backing into my driveway, but multiple trips out to the van to unload were never captured. There’s a video of SWMBO pulling into the driveway, but none of her trips to and from the car to unload.
SWMBO and I spent at least 2 hours walking in and out of the field of view but none of that action triggered a single event. It was only when a vehicle came up the street that an event was triggered and we could be seen in the video.
OK, as for the questions asked:
** [gfarrell3]:** The sensitivity was set at 50% while everything mentioned above was happening. I’ve increased the sensitivity to 100%, so we’ll what happens tomorrow.
** [tomp]:** I am shooting through glass, 2 panes. If the sensitivity setting doesn’t improve the event triggering, I’ll move the camera out onto the sill and see what happens.
The camera showed 4 events since the sun came up this morning, all of which appear to have covered the full range of view. Perhaps the higher sensitivity setting solved that issue.
However, the camera missed a number of events. 2 examples:
1 - The camera captured SWMBO walking out to her car, but it does not show her driving away. This may because of the ridiculous 12 second capture time. I assume that even though the motion stops once she is sitting in her car, putting on her seatbelt, starting the car, etc. that that is too short of a “pause” for the driving away to be considered a new event.
2 - The camera did not capture me walking out to my van (3 times) to load stuff, but it did capture me pulling out of the driveway. I walked basically the same path as SWMBO did, so why it captured her walking but not me is certainly concerning.
What’s the point of a motion sensing camera when you never know when it will or won’t sense motion?
Could this be because of the 5 minute “cooldown” between motion triggers?
As to the ridiculous 12 second capture time, stick an SD card in the camera, and you get a whole lot more - as long as there is motion, it will continue to record it.
Nice to see you also have a SWMBO, scary eh? I think what you are describing has to do with the cool down time between detections, otherwise it would make you crazier. For example, on one cam I have a view outside and when the flag blows in the wind the motion is detected. A few minutes later (it’s on a Pan Cam) it will activate when it pans again to the flag if over 10 seconds since the last view.
I get your point about the motion detection, the only solution is to have an SD Card to check. There is usually one incident within a reasonable time frame that tells you to check things.
Is there a possibility you are shooting through window glass? That can also mess up the trigger mechanism from my experience. I have a Pan Cam outside that catches some things that the V2 does not capture from behind the living room window…
The SD card solved the “ridiculous 12 sec” issue. Thanks for that tip. Some old posts state that the SD recordings are only 1 minute each, but it seems that they last as long as the motion is present plus some on both ends. So far so good. I am still getting some delay on the 12 second event recordings, but as long as the SD recordings capture everything I can live with that.
As an aside, I find the app a bit clunky as far as playing them back. Seems to me that it would more user friendly if the 12 sec clip screen had a button that said “View Full Event” or something like that. As it stands, I have to view the 12 second clip via the Events tab, then if I want to see the entire video, I have to switch to Live View, tap View Playback, find the timestamp, etc. Back and forth between the Events tab, Live view and Playback view seems like an awful lot of unneeded steps.
Thanks for all the help so far. I’m satisfied enough to keep the camera and I just set up the second of the pair I bought.