Short battery life

Battery life <24 hours

So I received by replacement WOC because the first one had a better life less than 24 hours.
My replacement has the same short battery life!
Very frustrated with no options.
No excess motion detection

What are your settings? How are you using the camera? How many events received in that day etc? All day scheduled recording?

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Thank you for responding.
My settings are 5-minute cool down, I recorded no more than five events.
The camera is mounted outside our front door underneath a protective over hang.
However, even if I bring the camera inside the house the battery follows the same short life.
I leave it on all 24 hours because I want to record anyone approaching our home.
This is the second WOC I have with the same short battery life.
Ed

If the communication to base station has a low signal strength, the camera battery will drain faster as it has to transmit at a higher power.
If you are viewing live stream from the camera it will have to transmitt continuous, also draining the battery.
There may be other settings to adjust but battery life was too short for my use.

I appreciate your help
Signal strength is 3 bars
I have the camera inside now about ten ft from base and the battery is still draining too fast.
I want the camera to be on 24/7 to see anyone approaching.
I have two other Wyze cameras, not WOC, that work fine
Very disappointed in WOC
Thanks again
Ed

Mee, too. The IR lighting draws a lot of power, even setting on auto.
Tried a time lapse of 5 sec for 5 hours to record a flower blooming and the battery went from 100% to 12% w/o any streaming.
Using an external power source voids the warranty. The motion detection is a bit iffy. Having the base so close to the camera is a real drag. Couldn’t get a signal over 30’ and having to pull cable and get a seperate base for the front/back yard is just not going to work.
I like the camera but did’t find it practical. Didn’t expect to preform so poorly compared to what was promoted. :slightly_frowning_face:

Can you explain these more? Do you live stream the camera to a device? Sounds like you have scheduled recording on 24/7, or are live streaming the device somewhere 24/7.

If the camera power switch is on, the camera is in atleast a power saving mode which is the camera waiting for the PIR to detect an event (if you settings have it enabled). When you live stream or are connected to the camera somehow, the event detection is disabled. Since it sounds like you are connected to the camera at all times, which is why you never get any event notifications, and drain the power very fast.

The website for the WCO states “batteries last from 3-6 months based on normal usage. Normal usage is 10-20 event videos per day. Battery life varies based on settings, temperature, and usage.” If you are live streaming the camera 24/7, that is a much higher battery usage than what is stated.

Science! 20 “12” second events, plus about 3 seconds per event for wakeup and upload lets say, is 300 seconds that the camera will be awake per day. 300 seconds is 5 minutes of “on” time. IF you live stream all day, how many minutes on “on” time is that?

Unfortunately, i think the designed use case of the WCO is not for you based solely of the battery component. If you want to live view you need something with constant power. You will have this issue with all battery powered cameras.

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Okay you were right.
I turned off the iPad that had been streaming the WOC and the battery has been holding and I had three motion detections.
So now I have a final question.
Is there any way to use the camera to monitor outside?
I had the iPad so that we could see any activity in the driveway or walkway.
There was rarely any activity but battery life was less than 24 hours
That means I can only activate the camera when I get a message of motion and then shut it down again. No streaming.
Is there some way to do what I want?
I very much appreciate your help.
Ed

Continuous use and good battery life don’t match. Sounds like you’ll need a powered camera do be able to live stream to your iPad. Plus, with the V2s and pans, you can live stream, and also do motion detection at the same time. So if you turn away from the iPad for a moment, you’ll get a event notification say if the delivery driver walks up to your house. Just need to do some due diligence and see what’s cameras offer what and the capabilities of each so you don’t run into the situation of trying to shoe horn a battery operated camera in to a continuous use scenerio again.

Correction, there was rarely any MOTION, but the activity that drained the battery was live streaming continuously to the iPad.

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Got it.
What is funny is that when I had the same problem with the first camera
I talked to Wyze tech support multiple times and NO ONE even came close to what you
have told me. To the point where they sent me a new camera.
I tried to review all the basic WOC info and still cannot find what you have alerted me to.
In any case I am most appreciative.
Ed aka Jensen

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Thanks for the nice words. I did sent this experience up the chain so that hopefully it can speed up or clear up situations faster in the future. I also think just having this thread in the forums will help folks that find it when they are searching for similar problem fixes.

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I also sent an email to Wyze tech support stating the solution and where I received the help from.
I asked them to direct me to any WOC information that states what you so clearly did.
Namely, that live streaming severely limits battery life and that motion will not be detected during streaming as It is with their other cameras.
Not only did the problem mystify me but enough Wyze tech support folks that they sent me a new WOC!
Thanks again. I do not like the solution but trying to figure it out was making me crazy.
Ed

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There are problems that folks are having that can be cleared up with a little education fairly easyly.
Fast battery drain? Are you live streaming? If so stop, it’s a battery camera.
No motion events? Are you live streaming? If so stop, as event detection is disabled when something is connected to the camera. Still no motion events? Is the wco facing out a window? PIR detection doesn’t work through glass.

The WCO is not a V2 version 2 or a pancam version;2. It fills a different niche. Different power system and event detection system.

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Best summary yet.
Thanks again

Tony, I’ve a question… Can a Wyze motion sensor wake up the WCO and if so can it also put the WCO back into hibernation mode?

Doing science… I’ll edit this in a sec…

Any wyze device that can be used as a trigger in the wyze app can wake the WCO and force a 12 sec clip to upload to the cloud. There are actions to “turn off” the WCO and “Turn off detection” but that is not the same as forcing hibernation mode i think.

That word just kinda popped into my thoughts… so, rather than live screening every second, one could live stream only when the motion sensor detects movement?? Seems like a good work around for conserving some battery life when using the WCO

I was able to trigger an “automation” with a contact sensor both inside and outside of a cooldown period. I don’t know how a live stream could be started without manual input from the user beyond clicking Livestream after an event notification but this looks like a way to beat the cooldown though.

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Reason I asked was to respond to another post where the user was experiencing very short battery life as a result of live streaming a seldom trafficked area … Trying to figure a way to toggle live-streaming on when motion is detected