Wyze Cam Outdoor - Battery life - Troubleshoot with WYZE

one more question, are there drastic temperature drops in your area? since the battery % is measured by battery voltage, significant/rapid temperature drops can result in a battery % decrease ( not so much the actual battery life, but more the reading of it ).

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Hello, I live in South Floridaā€¦ so the temperature might fluctuate a bit if its raining, but usually between 88 down to mid 70ā€™s over night. And I do not have it connected to anything else. I am going to reset the camera, and bring it indoors and closer to the base for a day or two to test and see if it makes any difference.

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I am a little frustrated with the WCO battery. I have 4 of them 3 in very low traffic areas and 1 in a higher trafficked area. The higher trafficked area looks to get about 3 weeks worth of battery, with ultra fine tuning and making the detection zone much smaller than Iā€™d like and the sensitivity on like 0 or 1.

That stinks kind of but oh well I can live with it. I have one of my cameras in my back yard which gets almost no traffic and the batter is dying completely within 12 days. I have the setting (for testing purposes) set up just like the high traffic one and it is almost never triggering. Yet within 5 days of charging the cam I am already down to 38% remaining batt life. I have followed the instructions found in this post and I have setup all the cameras with the exact same settings for now, because I wanted to find any problems that may exist. I have sent an email and have tried to reach out but have gotten nothing in return from support in 4 days now. What can I do to get a replacement or at least get a contact from someone?

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can you post your ticket # ?

Ticket 821580

Thank you. Sorry that the response took a while, I think it caught in the weekend.

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I thought I would share my personal observation thus far. My first charge of the WCO dropped to roughly 80% within two days as I was playing with the camera a lot and finding the right place to mount it. After a couple of days I finally found the right place to mount it, so I brought it inside and topped off the charge.

That charge did pretty good and took about two months for the battery to drop to 30%. I decided to bring the WCO inside again to charge it. Since it was around 30 degrees F. I let the camera sit inside for 30 minutes in a powered off state in order to warm it up prior to plugging in the charging cable. (I use the wifi base to charge my WCO.)

This 3rd charge seems to be the longest lasting yet. The WCO has been outside in 18-35 degree F temps for 5 days now and still shows 100% charged.

I suspect it may take a few charges before our WCO battery reaches its full potential. Iā€™ve seen this same behavior with other rechargeable batteries. Itā€™s as if the battery needs to be exercised, if you will, to build up its strength and full potential.

Iā€™m very happy with my WCO and wish I could order another one today! Hopefully we can order more such that they arrive before Christmas.

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Since Tuesday, October 16th, I have engaged Wyze support on my WCO battery issues (Ticket# 821927).

I have done everything Patrick from Support has asked and it has not resolved my issues:

  • Red light does not go solid (stays flashing) after charging for 48 hours with camera turned off

  • When camera is turned on after charging for 48 hours, battery level indicator in iOS app goes from 100% to 0% in less than 3 hours.

Iā€™ve rebooted the camera, deleted and re-installed the camera, signed out of app and then signed in again.

Iā€™ve requested a replacement WCO several times, but have not gotten a reply to the support email thread since October 23 (4 days ago).

I have two additional WCOā€™s that work fine. This one is a dud. Please send a replacement ASAP!

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I pinged our team on this. Pls allow some time for our team to check it. Sorry for the issue you are experiencing.

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My experience has been that the first charge on the battery, does not last long at all. After drawing it down to under 5%, then recharging, it last much longer.

This may not be the right thread, but I have three WCO, one base and two add on units. The two add on units can not be ā€œawakenedā€ after closing the live stream. If I close the app and go back to view either cam, the blue light on back will not come on it will not load the video. I have to cycle the power switch for it to connect.

The main unit (first purchase) that came with the base, works fine and does not act like described above. I canā€™t help but think I have a setting wrong. I have deleted and re-installed each camera multiple times to try and resolve.

Help?

Randell

  • List item

Is it okay to leave the outdoor cam plugged in while mounted? It wonā€™t damage it to just leave it plugged in all the time, right?

Iā€™m stuck with one now even though what I needed was a v3. Ugh!

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Probably not the right place to complain - but I feel very misled right now with the introduction of the v3. I was an early purchaser of the WCO - bought 2 of them - both have the battery issues many have spoken about here (including me). The simple fact of the matter is, I canā€™t use it outdoors for itā€™s intended purpose. Meanwhile, while v3 doesnā€™t have a battery, itā€™s a much better option than the WCO for my purposes. In fact, Iā€™m ordering v3ā€™s to replace the v2ā€™s I ended up running cable for to use outdoors. But I feel like those that were early adopters of WCO should be offered a refund or at least a discount on v3ā€™s. The little cowboy hat for my camera was the only thing in the box thatā€™s worked as expected. :frowning:

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FWIW, Iā€™ve had my WCO up and running for almost three months nowā€¦ on one charge. Granted, I only have it on approximately 8 hrs a dayā€¦ but itā€™s still at 49% as of today. Iā€™m thrilled!

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Iā€™ve had 2 on 24/7 since release and havenā€™t had to charge either yet. One is at 29% and the other at 52%. The one at 29% gets more motion triggers. Both trigger at least several times a day though.

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I must say, my camera lasts three months on a single charge. I love it!

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Iā€™m very happy with battery life as well. I think one of mine have got hit with a battery use issue on one of the past firmware versions but is still at 34% even though deployed back on 9/17. Another one deployed on 9/14 with much less activity is at 69%. I have 8 of them as well. My only issue is not being able to change the base WIFI channel. I would buy another base and 4 cams but it would cause considerable channel overlap in deployed area. I currently have 8 WCOs attached to two base stations.

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I would also like to know if I can just leave it plugged in all the time. I tried this initially and it seems like the camera did not keep charging after a while and even though plugged in the battery still died.

If my main goal is battery life, it seems the best detection setting is for detection distance (1) and detection sensitivity (2) Is this right? Both settings all the way to the LEFT of the slider?

correct

This is amazing! Weā€™ve just set ours up this afternoon and the battery is already at 82% and has been on for about 5 hours. UGH! I have Cam Plus and have the cool down set to 5 minutes and auto on type of video (HD, SD, etc). I fear at this rate, the battery will be dead by tonight! Do you have any tips you wouldnā€™t mind sharing so we wonā€™t have to hardwire our camera? Thank you in advance!