What is this stuff?

Only happens in Night Vision. Not rain.


Bugs.

1 Like

Some kind of particulates.

That my friend, is Covid…trying to get you through your tech. #consptheo

6 Likes

Could be bugs, could be pollen or other tiny airborne particulate like dust. Do you by chance have any wood/carpenter bees in the area? Could be the dust from their burrows.

It is almost definitely bugs. They are attracted to the Infrared light.

That is the big problem with “night vision” on most cameras (not just Wyze), IR helps the camera see at night, but it makes “motion detection” worthless because it draws tons of bugs to set off constant pixel changes.

You can test this out by doing it in the daytime or turning on a regular light at night somewhere not next to the camera, then disable the camera IR lights in the settings, but still turn on the night vision filter…you’ll still see in night vision, but not have swarms of bugs all around your camera anymore.

There are a couple of options for this:

  1. Turn of the IR and use something else to see at night
    • a porch light far enough away from the camera
    • a separate IR blaster far enough away from the camera
  2. Use a V3 camera and just turn off night vision all night since it can often see okay in color in pretty dim lighting environments
  3. Use some form of AI detection such as Cam Plus in order to ignore motion events and only tell you when it detects a person, or other detection options. Then it doesn’t matter if bugs trigger it all night, it will just send notifications when it senses a person. Some people do their own fairly free AI detection with RTSP and something like Home Assistant or Tiny Cam Plus, but for most people it’s easier just to pay for Cam Plus.
  4. Turn off notifications at night and just have the camera recording as a reference to look back at playback events if you later notice something weird and want to see if something strange happened in the night…that way it is available if needed later, but it won’t tell you anything at night in real time.
  5. Just deal with it…almost every camera that uses “night vision” has the same problem…but people will usually choose one of these 5 options after they discover the bug issue.
5 Likes

Most likely fog or very light mist.

6 Likes

I agree, I see it more on cloudy nights with mine. All that morning dew that makes the grass wet in the morning is from moisture in the air. All those moisture particles get illuminated bigtime by the IR light. On nights that there’s any fog at all it can look like it’s snowing on my cameras.

I see that on one of my cams mounted near my Heat Pump when is goes into defrost cycle and also in a cam at my in-laws house mounted near the dryer vent.
My guess is some kind of moisture/steam like event.

1 Like

Maybe. But I’m still pretty sure they are swarms of little gnats.

2 Likes

Could be water droplets (think fog) being whipped by the wind.

Particles, dust, bugs… The IR lights that stuff up.
PS it’s still there in the day light and were breathing it all in.

1 Like

I say test it out.

  • Use a light source besides the camera IR (disable that), but leave the night vision filter on. Maybe use another cam to blast IR nearby, or some other IR source or even regular light.
  • Then do a second test. Try turning the IR lights back on and see if it returns, then walk outside and look at the cam and see all the little bugs for yourself.

Then go review the camera playback and see if the same phenomenon is occurring. I am placing my bet on bugs.

There is no significant wind on the leaves and the movement is very fast and inconsistent for it to be fog or mist IMO. It looks a lot like the tiny bugs that swarm my cams if I leave my IR on.

1 Like

Why make it complicated? Go out there with a bright flashlight. Or better yet, a head-mounted lamp.

1 Like

It’s mist and usually happens just before sunrise here in the mid-Atlantic area from spring through fall (it’s frost in winter). When the ambient air temperature falls at night to equal the dew point temperature and beyond (100% relative humidity), the water vapor (water in gaseous state) in air condenses into mist (water in liquid state). Mist is extremely small water droplets suspended in air and moves en masse with the slightest breeze appearing like a synchronized swarm of tiny insects on cam. Your cam’s IR lights are illuminating mist in the air. Some use mist, dew and fog interchangeably. The difference is usually degree of visiblility and depends on context (meteorology, aviation, locale, etc.). Next time, if you’re awake when you see it on your cam, go outside with a very bright flashlight. You should be able to see it with the naked eye.

3 Likes

Yes I think you’re right. I turned the IR lights off and I don’t see them tonight and since they are moving in unison it leads me to believe it’s water vapor as opposed to insects. This occurred during the winter months as well.

3 Likes

One more degree drop and I’ll be turning my IR off here too.

Tomorrow I’m going to repurpose an old v2 cam and mount it 2 feet above and 2 feet to the side to act as an IR emitter and permanently turn off the v3 IR. That will solve the mist, rain, snow, spiders and flying insect problems. :+1:

2 Likes

I think @Seapup has convinced me to change my mind and agree with the mist/fog hypothesis afterall.

Nicely said.

1 Like

It seems that there are in fact many V2 hardware revisions, with differing firmwares and differing IR intensities.

And it seems that all my V2s have weak IR. This is one of the reasons I got more V3s, after my initial two. I wouldn’t use my V2s for its IR.

Almost looks like snow… kind of mesmerizing and soothing.

1 Like