My outdoor cam is pointed towards my attached garage door, but it never detects the motion when the garage door opens or closes. It detects people and vehicles moving on the driveway in front of the garage, but even that is spotty sometimes. My son actually walked up the drive, opened the garage door, backed my vehicle out, and drove away and the camera detected/recorded nothing! Support seems helpless to figure out the problem. Am I alone here?
The outdoor cam uses PIR for initial motion detection, and works best when the movement is horizontal across the detection field.
The garage door wonât likely trigger alone since PIR detects heat signatures (people and animals will set it off).
If the movement is vertical or diagonal, it wonât detect as well as straight across. It also takes a second or two for the camera to wake up once it detects heat with the PIR sensor.
Iâm dealing with the same problem at my lake house. Wyze will tell you the problem is PIR is best when detecting horizontal movement. However, it doesnât do very well in that arena either. If you can, switch to V3s. They work like a champ. I have 3 at my residence and have zero problems with them detecting movement.
I was hoping the solar panels released today would be compatible with V3s but the announcement says theyâre only compatible with OD cams. That wouldâve fixed all of my problems.
I know thatâs not what you want to hear but itâs what Iâve decided to do. Hereâs my thread with some video - I think itâs basically the same problem you describe.
That sounds like it -yes. Thatâs unfortunate because it seems like they took a major step backwards in terms of functionalityâŚwhy have a sensor (infrared or otherwise) that only detects motion in a specific plan of activity? Actually kind of stupid if you ask me! I may just have to try moving my camera to a different angleâŚ
Agree 100%. Iâve moved mine to several locations across the front of the house with one being at almost 90 degrees to the driveway (see below pic for my first location) and none performed any better than the other.
One thing you may want to try is finding a spot for a V3 that will cover your desired target area then set up rules for the other cameras to turn on based on the detection of the V3. Itâs kind of a waste because youâre effectively using one camera (the V3) as a working detection sensor for the other cameras but it would be a workaround. Thatâs what Iâm going to do for my situation.
If you figure out a rule to have the one V3 turn on a WCO I would like to see it and maybe test it out on one of my 4 cams. I have never opened the rule portion of the app. Of course the battery powered WCO might take a beating as much as my V3 records events. 
I do this with IFTTT and my ring pathlights and doorbell. When the pathlights detect motion my wco records video.
I wonât be back at the lake house for a couple weeks but Iâll screenshot it when I set it up. The rules process is very simple. The app will walk you through each step. Click ârulesâ then âdevice triggerâ and follow the prompts to set it up.
Great idea!
Set the sensor at 100 on both and due a test-runâŚalso is the door in the blue zone for the PIR
The door is in the blue PIR zone. I have tried various settings for distance and sensitivity with no effect - except that it detects cars moving on the road but not the garage door right in front of the camera! My last conversation with support attributes this to the fact that the PIR sensor is âbetter at detecting motion across the camera rather than vertical towards or away from it.â If thatâs really true then the PIR sensor is a step backwards in my mind as it only picks up half of any activity that might occur within that zone. Iâm not sure who thought that was a good decision but I doubt they are using these cameras themselves!!
Wyze opted for the PIR sensor because it retains battery longer than being always âawakeâ for pixel detection like the other Wyze cameras. Because it uses the PIR sensor to wake the camera, the garage door itself moving wonât trigger the camera. It needs to pick up on a moving heat signature, which is why horizontal motion works better than vertical.
I have 2 outdoor cameras in use outside my home, but the orientation I needed them in worked with the horizontal constraint. The one covering my driveway I have added an IFTTT trigger so that when my ring pathlights detect motion, the outdoor camera will record videos. Since doing that, it misses no motion events, and I was able to turn sensitivity down to reduce bugs setting it off and it ended up conserving more battery.
While the reasoning makes sense from a power usage perspective, the practical result is not real-world functional. The battery usage could just as easily been preserved by using a similar âwake upâ solution for pixel detection as wellâŚsuch as putting all pixels asleep except for the pixels along the perimeter of the view (if something like that is possible) that watch for motion entering the frame. The solution you have arrived at is creative but involves additional technology and device expense which kind of defeats the advantages that this camera purports to provide. I have connected my cameras to solar panels to provide continuous charging capabilities, so I have alleviated the battery concerns. Hereâs another thoughtâŚwhy not add a second PIR that is oriented in the vertical plane that would overlap the horizontal? I would just like to think that something this blatant should be addressable with a little thought. If it required that the camera be a touch larger, Iâm not sure that would be a deal breakerâŚjust thinking out loud.
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Copy PIR uses heat to show changes,so it will not work due to the door has no heat,you will need to use a V3 which is better for your issues
I already had the ring pathlights, so for me, I just integrated something I already used. Also, they were on sale when I purchased so I got 4 of them for around 80 dollars. Theyâre battery operated (now they have upgraded solar ones) but i just use rechargeable batteries in them and they last a fairly long time.
My camera worked fine as far as detecting without integrating the pathlights, but my battery usage decreased a lot when I integrated them (by a couple of weeks on average since I ended up with less false detections for the wood bees we have around the house).