Night vision degrading

My older Wyze cams all seem to be suffering from issues related to night vision. While one has completely lost night vision capabilities others’ night vision is barely visible and getting worse over time. I just got a new Wyze Cam V3 and it’s night vision quality difference over the older cams is like…well…night and day.
Cameras that I am having issues with: Wyze Cam V2 and Wyze Cam Pan (three of these with one showing dark image even with night vision on), All of these are anywhere from 1-3 years old but outside of warranty. All with latest firmware according to the Wyze ap on IOS 15 (v 2.33.0 (17)

Is this normal degradation in quality of night vision? Anyone experienced this? Planned obsolescence?

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Hi @TheVJ

I have with v2s that are a few years old. I’ll try to find what I’ve posted previously and link it here. Also, @slabslayer 's on top of (or at least in the process of mounting) this, I think! :slight_smile:

Welcome to the forum.

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Post a night vision view so we can take a look at it.

The main issue people run into is a bright reflection in frame, like a tabletop, wall, or other object that looks pure white on screen. This will downshift the exposure markedly, and may take your night vision to black.

The solution is to remove the reflective object from view, or aim the camera away from it.

But they will never look like a V3. :wink:

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Yeah I have seen that where something too close to the lens (in my case it was the shelf surface the cam was sitting on) completely whitewashes the whole image. It’s not that though. these have been in these location for months unmoved and one just goes completely dark with night vision on and the others have been getting progressively darker. I’ll capture some images tonight and post.

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Same issue here but mine is on the v3 cam. It used to be if there was ambient light from a neighbor, the image almost looked like day time. Even w/ no light it was clear. Here are some screenshots…thinking it must be software related. Night images are very grainy now.



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Welcome to the User Community Forum @TheVJ!

Thanks for the tag @peepeep.

@bobbo1179’s posted pic comparisons from March to now perfectly illustrates the degradation in the V3 IR NV capability since the FW was updated. It is also in keeping with other reports of the same here in the forum which rules out an isolated incident. In addition to the darkening of the image, there have also been consistent reports of daylight images with increased image blur and digital tracking artifacts and color and IR night images with excessively grainy and low quality images.

In addition to this, and possibly collateral damage from the sensor firmware changes, is that the delta between the light level required to auto engage the IR NV and disengage it has been adjusted such that cams are never coming out of IR NV after being auto switched into that mode. Again, this was caused by a firmware update as they did not have this problem previously.

I cannot attribute the same to any older cams as I don’t have any of them except for a seldom viewed WCPv1. It also has recently been very :mask: sick and has not been switching out of IR NV.

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Looks like i can only upload one image per post so here’s the worst of them with NV on

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Post a screenshot of the advanced settings for that cam too.

here’s the sme room with NV off

So, by the settings, that looks to be the V2?

It looks like the NV emitters have given up the ghost.

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yup. That’s the V2. It’s almost like clockwork how the IR emitters are slowly dying out for the pan cams and the V2 as they get beyond the warranty periods.

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@bobbo1179, I have posted the issue with the V3 image quality to this month’s Fix-it Friday thread.

If you are still experiencing this issue, feel free to follow the link, like the post with a heart coin, and add your experience in a reply post (if you are so inclined).

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Made the mistake of “upgrading” to 4.36.9.139 last night without checking this forum :frowning: Same issue night image quality which was exceptional is now unusable - daytime images also appear less sharp with less dynamic range e.g. bright areas are blown out. Support said the only previous manual firmware available is April which I fear has the same issue not to mention that the cameras are installed 20+ feet in the air. I had avoided updates for exactly this reason - my bad. Any help on how to make these formerly great night cameras usable again very much appreciated.

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What good NV image FW version did you have prior to update?

There are currently 2 prior versions of the firmware that are available to be downloaded and manually flashed to the cam. I suggest you download them now before they are taken offline and then you can decide if you want to flash back after the next FW update which is currently in Beta testing (.2424).

4.36.9.139 (May 18, 2022) 4.36.9.131 (April 25, 2022)

Thank You - Excellent Suggestion - Done

Sorry, didn’t answer your FW question. Not sure, believe it that I may had both as I have several cams and had made a ‘conscious’ decision not to upgrade as everything was working fine. Saw the delta between, current and latest FW versions - didn’t do the research on date of releases, what was changed or feedback on experiences. Totally my fault to trust the “latest and greatest”. 40 years experience with software should have known to do the research.

No worries. Was just trying to pin down the last good image quality FW version. Going to roll a couple V3 back to each of the available FW and do a side by side comparison when I get the time.

I am also switching all of mine up to 256GB SD Cards so I can run full HD to see if it helps.

I just factory reset one of my v3s so it is on 4.36.8.15 currently. There is improvement in the quality of the image but still some artifacts. I have the landscape lights shining thru the window so there ahould be ample ambient light for the cam to pick up. Here is a comparison of before/after the factory reset. Think I’ll reset the others and leave them on the original version for the better quality.


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Yeah, the two older FW available for download, don’t fix the issue.