To get videos longer than 12-seconds with a 5-minute cool down you have 2 options.
or
If you donât like the product, return it for a refundâŚ
d_steinberg - I tried but Wyze will not refund the 3 pan cam since I bought them from Amazon.
Iâve done a bit of hobby level firmware development and itâs fully possible that it is indeed related to wifi settings. If the microcontroller in the camera starts on a task that takes longer than expected, such as waiting for a response from the wifi radio, it can get delayed in dealing with other things. If one of those things is stopping the motor which was previously set going in one direction, it might then end up overshooting on the tracking.
There are many people that purchased from Amazon in same situation.
I took a gamble and lost.Plain and simple.
Shouldnât be a gamble, it is an advertised function. Unfortunately, for most people it does not work as advertised.
I canât believe Iâm posting some help here after how upsetting the detection zone issue in iOS is, but here goesâŚ
Motion Detection: works on percentage of pixels changed within the zone; the smaller the zone the smaller the number of pixels have to change to hit that percentage. Pixel change is just that, change. So you get âchangeâ from sun, clouds, dark of night, headlights, reflections, flaring, etc., and movement which is really only a variation in the color or shading of those pixels. Those are really important ideas when trying to setup and fine tune your cameras be they TPZ or fixed. Camera AI for âpersonâ detection is the same thing with some (a lot) extra âIFTTâ for shapes.
Motion Tracking: works â not too well. This is a Wyze issue, but itâs not exclusive to Wyze. Their tracking tries to âcenterâ the motion in the field of view (FOV). You can see it a bit with the puppy on the stairs as there is a tad of jerk. A slow moving animal (cat on the couch) will produce a nice even video suitable for advertising. 
but try something with two humans â one at each edge of the FOV and you are in for a dizzying amount of back-and-forth âzippity dip dopâ. 
This is something that current technology addresses in programming by reducing sensitivity. So thereâs the trade-off. More sensitive = more jerking, less sensitive = smoother.
Network Disconnects: This is a sticky subject and can be caused by an incredible number of things from neighboring interference to crowded airwaves to hardware to âmagic â FM or regularâ. I fixed this in my setups by adding some smart plugs to the mix. Now that ups the cost and that stinks, but if youâre hundreds of miles away from your cams itâs worth every cent. There are several brands, including one from Wyze, I prefer the Levitons because I was using them before I became acquainted with Wyze. They add $35 to each plug-in, which is ouch! (But they do have good TS) Anyway, when the cam loses the network you canât reboot it remotely. But with these I can remotely turn the plug off and on, which reboots the cams. It works.
Best wishes for the other stuff. Youâre right, their support and communication needs improvement but right now they seem to be very distracted by (or attracted to) getting new and various devices to market, like the locks.
There will come a point at which they will either stop the âeverything new needs all our attentionâ and focus on making what they have excell in every way, or they will fold â or, and what entrepreneur does not have this idea floating about in their wheelhouse â be bought out.
â 7
Just curious how you think the camera should handle 2 object moving on 2 different sides of the camera? If it senses motion, it needs to move in that direction to capture it. From my experience it does a fairly good job of following the motion, not exactly like the video in the ad, but Iâm guessing itâs based on the environment. Mine is in a garage that isnât well lit like the dog on the steps.
I do agree about network disconnects, but I get this from all of my cameras, and I have about 5 different brands. Still trying to figure that one out, but my Wyze cams do seem to be more reliable than the others. That is a good idea about the smart plugs, but $35 is a lot. I use Sonoff, they work great and are much cheaper.
And therein lies the rub. What to do? Two people on either side of the frame, talking with their hands â how does one program a camera to balance conflicting side changes and stay centered? Unless you widen the FOV, or choose one or the other, itâs not possible.
I agree, âfairly goodâ. Noisy as all get out, but fairly good. Thereâs no doubting a mechanical device is following your every move unless youâre deaf. I do think they could do a much better job by not concentrating so hard on trying to keep the center of the motion at the center of the FOV. Allowing motion to move about in the FOV would reduce the jerkiness quite a bit.
They only way to get great or perfect is to put a person behind the camera, i.e., a cameraman. I do think people kind of expect that level of smoothness, choice and function when they first start playing with this stuff but itâs very unrealistic. Just MO there, btw.
Thanks. Iâve also used WeMo from Belkin, but theyâre not cheap either. Iâm not familiar with Sonoff. My experiences with Leviton cover decades. Itâs is a large long-established commercial player with excellent support during their hours, off-hours forget about it. The reason I use those is that they specifically support multiple geographically separated sites.
The overshooting is caused by the light seemingly lighting up the blank wall⌠seriously overpowering the movement it started tracking. It lit up like the sun.
Mine too. Iâve tried to set up pan zones, but they seem to forget them and pan willy-nilly or not at all. I have 3. Only one pans correctly. Maybe the features need a more detailed explanation. For example, if Iâm watching Cam-1 on tablet-1,and while leaving tablet-1 on, view CAM-1 on my cell phone proceeding to make changes, will those changes be displayed immediately on Cam-1? Do I need to start/stop software? Unplug/restart Cam-1? Stop viewing Cam-1 on tablet-1 before making changes? IDK.
You (should) need to refresh the view on Tablet-1 by exiting the view then relaunching it.
You should not need to stop or restart the software, unplug or restart Cam-1, nor stop viewing Cam-1 on Tablet-1 before making said changes.
Oh, really? Then why isnât it drawn to the far right where the âsunâ is even brighter? Your explanation lacks credulity.
I own nine V2 cameras and love them .I have a V2 outside undercover where it has worked flawlessly for 15 months. I did purchase a Pan Cam last summer from Amazon, tried it for 3 days, and returned it for a full refund.
It was too fiddly, required an almost constant resetting, and was generally a pain in the ass. Certainly not as easy and set-and-forget like the V2.
While the Pan Cam is a good idea, for me the execution is not up to the same standards of the V2.
If the model is reworked and trustworthy reviews can be found I might give it another try.
Check out the Gosund line. They work very well, cost around $6-8 depending, are very programmable and integrate with Alexa, IFTTT, etc.
I have 5 pans and have experienced most of the problems described in this thread. One cam was replaced under warranty. Most of the connectivity/need to reboot issues seem to have been fixed by moving to a much better Wifi (Eero mesh).
The best settings Iâve found so far for the Pans have been:
I wonder since she is coming out a door and not from the edges of camera view. Maybe the camera is going all the way to the edges assuming that is where the motion should start.
Those are slick! Does Gosund have their own software? I didnât see it on the web site. I really like the 2-in-1 plug, and the compact size of the round ones.
No, it doesnât.
When the camera moves enough so the wall enters the FOV, the bright light of the wall changes a large portion of the pixels. The brightness of the sun outside the FOV has no effect on the detection. Changes only matter when they are within the FOV and are only mitigated or enhanced by the user settings for sensitivity. Flaring may originate outside the FOV, but it can effect pixels in the FOV and will be perceived as âmotionâ by the camera. The same thing happens if the camera pans to a place where it suddenly encounters brightness.
The device has no âintelligenceâ. It is strictly mechanical. Person Detection is the only real AI with these and that is soon to be absent for a time.
Remember, cameras do not detect âmotionâ the way we interpret it: as something âmovingâ. They detect motion mechanically as change to the pixels.
In reality our vision works similarly. We detect change to the exceptionally small rods and cones in our eyes. If that change progresses from one cell to the next to the next we interpret âmotionâ. The engineering behind visual motion detection & tracking is modeled on that.
Contrast this with how âmotion detectorsâ or âoccupancy sensorsâ for lights or security alarms normally work. They generally detect âchangeâ in heat signatures. Thatâs not wholly dissimilar to fire detection devices. Each, UV, IR, etc., has its pros and cons. Putting them together in a hybridized way helps some, but still falls far short of the abilities of organic organisms.
I absolutely agree with you! I had high hopes for wyze when they first hit the market but they have let me down at literally every opportunity. Iâm done with wyze itâs time to throw out my wyze cams, motion sensors, and contact sensors (about $300 worth of hardware) and get a proper home monitoring system like ring. Wyze doesnât seem to care that they have continued to fail their loyal customers and show little interest in fixing any of the issues the customers are having. I wouldnât be surprised is 2 years from now people will say wyze only when referring to bad customer service, garbage company, or there products failing again and again. âMy computer keeps freezing and when I call tech support they donât answerâ âwhat? Is a wyze computer or something?â