In order to achieve the optimal battery life, the camera needs to be very energy efficient, meaning it needs to sleep when not doing intended work.
Live streaming, recording motion video, time-lapse, scheduled recording all requires camera to be awake. Awake = more battery consumption.
Charge it to full with supplied cable and base station. If you want to use your own charger, make sure both the adapter and cable is able to supply power greater than 5V/2A.
Live streaming - feel free to live stream it, that is part of the purpose of the camera. Just be aware that the power consumption, so you don’t leave it streaming while not needed. ( app, alexa, google ). Make sure you end streaming when you are done. In group view, we added a play button for WCO, for this reason.
Motion detection - if you are having issue with motion detection, pls follow this seperate thread
a. Battery life is directly correlated to the number of events recorded. from App - Event tab, to see roughly how many events being recorded. If you are getting 50, or 100 event per day, the battery life will be much shorter. Adjust your settings, or positions to remove false alerts.
b. In detection setting, there is a “image sensivitiy”. This is a software algorithm to filter out false alerts. ( set to HIGHTEST will not filter out anything ). If you are getting tons of false triggers, but are filtered out by this algorithm, you may not see them in event tab. You can dial this up to the MAX, and see if you are getting too much false alerts. Then adjust the position and settings to remove as much false alerts as you can. Then reapply this algorithm to remove more false alerts.
Time-lapse and scheduled recording will use much more battery since it requires the camera to be awake a lot.
If your battery is dropping too fast, a quick test is to bring the camera to a control environment ( non or a few alerts a day ) and see how the battery life change day to day.
FAQ -
Does “back up to base station” consume more battery - NO. this video will go to base station first ( then go to cloude ) regardless if this feature is enabled or not. So it DOES NOT consume EXTRA battery.
Does “Person detection” help with battery life - NO. it has no effect on battery life. Because persond detection is processed on the cloud.
@WyzeDongsheng This is unrelated to the battery life but related to your last comment on person detection and whether the base station can be used for processing instead of the cloud. Haven’t seen a formal wyze response to this or if it is even a possibility.
Technically, it can. Practically, pretty hard. You have to consider how many cameras can one base support, and simultaneously do PD. You’ll also have to be extremely optimized to run, and hard to compare the accurate with cloud.
The edge on the camera only had to review videos from one camera, the base station would have to possibly handle 4 videos at once while also handling those cameras, I could see that being an issue.
My battery went from 100% to 37% in one night on auto. Very disappointed. I preordered 3 more WCO and I am feeling scammed. I really want the product I expected
The app is open,is that considered live streaming if it is then yes otherwise no . No video or time laps. Only 3 events. Last night I recharged the camera and put it on auto again,this morning I have 98% significantly better! I am hopeful that I can use the camera as intended. Thank you for responding. I really want the camera to work
1 out of 3 cams, 1 made it 24 hours, other 2 made it around 4-5 days, The recording cap on the outdoor cam vs the v1/v2/pan is just complete, I dont know how to say, [redacted]. We back you, And this is what you give us? Dont force me into Motion Plus or whatever. I am customer 5699 I was with you guys before you were who you are now. I work at Sprint and shared your cam with anyone and everyone who would listen to me. Around 5/k peo-ple. Not only does my outdoor cam not contious record or record events only. It only records for 12 secs, even with a 64gb memory card in the base of it. I am lost for words as a Dev and Human. I am sure your using your free aws account for the cloud, After all you sold them your gem, So I know though you dont wanna admit it. You got the storage as a parting gift, Thats fine, But dont capitolze off my broke ass. Reputation/Brand toook a huge hit on this one. Whats next snake oil?
Long winded call me cashmere! Add insult to injury you charge me 50ea I purchased the 3 max, Only to find out the add ons are 40.00. REALLY? Why do I need 3 hubs? I am so so done with this topic…
sounds like you didn’t read the product description or watch the release video at all. don’t think you have anybody to blame but yourself on this…
3 weeks with 2 WCO’s, one that gets a bit more squirrel action then the other is at 85% and the other is at 90%. I understand that continuous recording isn’t a thing with these because of battery life, but is there a way to go past the 12 second clips or get rid of the cool down for motion? Will Csm Plus do that for WCO?
Im doing just OK on battery life… What I dont quite understand is how a blink outdoor cam can use 2 AA batteries, capture some 10 events a day and still have charge after 2.5 years through 3 harsh winters… Im sure there is some tuning to do over time, as I want to replace all 8 of my blinks with WCO… I havent yet, as I am still a little concerned over battery life. etc
What I dont quite understand is how a blink outdoor cam can use 2 AA batteries, capture some 10 events a day and still have charge after 2.5 years through 3 harsh winters…
I think the Blink system uses disposable AA Lithium batteries, vs. the rechargeable ones in this WCO. I don’t have a Blink camera so I can’t confirm if it can also do livestreaming.
So Yeah, it does use dispoable batteries, but why would that matter as far as how much charge we can get? It does do live streaming as well, not indefinitely but you can go live and see whats going on with them.
THey are also half the size almost.
Look I know this sounds like I am banging on the WCO, and maybe a bit I am, but only because I so badly want it to succeed. I love most of the wyze products (open/close/sensor not included haha) and I have a TON of them (12 + pan/v2 , scale, open close, bulbs etc) . I want to buy MORE.
I just put one of the WCO outdoor on my flowers out back for a timelapse… I think thats a great feature. im excited to do some of that. For the main goal of motion detection etc, I think it has a little ways to go yet. I like to see them engage the community though, i think that goes a long way.