Outdoor Cam: Person Detection/Continuos Recording?

I just replaced two of my v2 cams with the outdoor cameras. I have a few questions:

  1. What is the best way to get the optimal person detection results? I have camPlus and noticed that person detection isn’t available. I turned on motion tagging- should that be off? I also noticed that while I do have the detection zone enabled, there are different detection sensitivity settings than were available on the v2- perhaps this is a global hardware/software update setting? What is the best setting to capture people so it doesn’t flag trees/vehicles, etc. For my gate cam, I’d like it to make sure it detects people walking through the gate.
    Please see the images below for my 2 cameras that may help you with setting options

  2. I also had microSD cards in my v2 cams, which allowed for continuous recording. Is the Outdoor Cam not able to do that? I’d like it to be able to record as much as possible without draining the battery.

  3. What is the PIR? Does this change how it captures people? How does it tie into the above?
    Bottom line: I’d like person detection to work properly, and record continuously. Thanks for your help!

Here are the images:


Well you have the wrong cam if you want to record continuously. Turn tagging on, set sensitivity to 100%.
The cam for you gate probably won’t work to well because it is pointed right at the gate. PIR= Passive infrared = it detects heat. The PIR detection is good for maybe 20-25 feet and works best when the movement is across the PIR Zone not straight at it. You can move the came or turn it to the left so the face of the cam is pointed more at that bush on the side of the fence. The PIR Zone is quite wide so keep the gate in the green/blue are and raise it up a tad bit.
On Cam plus you can set the cam for event recording on, set the cooldown time to Zero, set the max video length however long you want it 2 min-5min what ever. The cam will only record as long as the motion continues .You can do scheduled continuous recording with the WCO to the SD card or you can do Scheduled event recording to the SD. Since I am having issues with Cam Plus I put my 4 cameras on Scheduled event recording, currently set for 10 days but you can do 30. Cooldown time is set for zero and max video length is set for 2 min. You will still get event notification of events. How far is the gate from the cam?

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yes, highly agreed with @Antonius the V3 sounds like it would be far better for your setup BUT the downside is that it needs a power source.

the one thing the outdoor cams do that will work with what you want is NOT flag for trees and such as they don’t give off infrared heat…but if close enough the heat from cars could still set it off. but it has to be pretty close to be picked up.

Read here to get some of your questions answered:

https://wyzelabs.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/360011338891-Wyze-Cam-Outdoor

Thanks @Antonius and @Bam
@Antonius , if I set the cooldown to zero, the days to 30, and the max video length to a big number, won’t it drain the battery quickly? The gate is like 10 feet away from the camera. Also, do I want the sensitivity high for both ‘Set Detection Distance’ and ‘Set Image Sensitivity’? Won’t that make it more sensitive to picking up vehicles, animals, etc especially if I rotate it more towards the bush?

It won’t drain the battery quickly unless you have numerous events going on all day. This is a video of my gate on the right which is 26 feet from the cam. My cam is pointed to the left toward the white SUV next door. The red car going down the street is 55 feet away.

@Antonius so is your camera picking up the car motion? Is that why you got the event notification? Is that due to the high sensitivity settings of 100? Would the PIR not pick up the car since there is no heat being emitted?
Thanks for the help!

The event said Motion side yard east. I don’t think the PIR picked up that car, to far and it is not in my PIR zone as seen here.

@Antonius I adjusted my camera as seen below. I set the scheduled recording to be for 30 days, no recording cool down, and maximum video length of 5 mins. There is also a setting separate from the schedule recording called ‘event recording’ which has ‘detects motion’ on by default, and it had ‘recording cooldown’ on at minutes, and maximum video length at 12 seconds. A few questions

  1. Will this setting conflict with the scheduled recording- will it override it? Should I have it turned off? And you are saying ‘no cooldown’ will not waste the battery sooner?
  2. I assume detection zone should be on and it’s ok If I select an area with the boxes? This is what I have.

If you set the cam for “Scheduled Event Recording” don’t worry about the other setting, it will not be effected by the other setting. Your detection zone looks good for the gate. I know Cam Plus has Person Detection for the WCO, it is in the notification settings. I have turned my Cam Plus off for my 4 WCO because the account subscriptions got screwed up with the account for my one V3 and I can not download event videos from my 4 WCO if I have them with CP activated. Wyze support is looking at the issue as they hav been since February this year, last email I got was yesterday. If I turn Cam Plus off I can download videos all day. Here is another, if you just want AI events (Person/Vehicle set you setting for that on the app. If you just want PIR detection turn your detection zone setting off. Amazon Van at 50 feet.

My outdoor cams all trigger for trees. Very frustrating

I have one of the 4 that do that also even though the tree is all blacked out with the detection zone and it is not in the PIR Zone. The cam from the above video also has decided it likes to record regular cars at 50-55 feet usually the ones that come down, turn around in the court and head back to the left, sometimes it gets them moving both ways.

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My cams trigger on tree shadows on my driveway. Like 40 times an afternoon…

are they extraordinarily big leafed trees or something? the only way a tree could set off the PIR on the WCO is if they are absorbing enough sunlight that say the wind blowing the leaves around could cause movement, but Ive never seen a leave hold enough heat to do that.

it’s going to be pretty warm and sunny where I live tomorrow. I’ll get my thermal cam out tomorrow and see if I can illustrate .

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I live in Seattle. The leaves are not hot. Can you upload videos in this forum? I can show you the motion tagging boxes bouncing around on the branches. It looks like a contrast issue. The ground is very white and the branches very dark.

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We may be crossing ideas. lets try to clarify…are you having this issue with the Wyze Cam Outdoor?

or the Wyze cam V3

I ask because the V3 is a cam that can be used outside…but it is NOT the outdoor cam in the terms we commonly use here. the wyzecam outdoor is a battery operated cam and runs with a heat detection PIR sensor which is not very prone to false alerts like the ones you are describing.

I fear I may have mis-interpreted something.

you should be able to upload videos. I can tag the mods in to make sure you have the correct trust levels to upload. @Mods can this user get a bump to upload a video please

When the wind blows even a moderate breeze this WCO records movement events of this tree and sends notifications constantly. So much for the detection so too.

TREE

@Bam - I checked and @ricklwright should be able to upload videos according to their user trust level. Post back if there is a problem.

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I’m talking about the outdoor cam.

No movement other than waving branches