Wyze Cam remote PIR Motion Sensors

Does anyone know the exact specifications for the PIR Motion Sensor. (I’m hoping Wyze with read this and jump in and publish the specs).

I mounted the motion sensor on my front door and it worked great however, it detects people and vehicles passing on the street, 40 feet away from my front door and I got alerts everytime someone passed by.

The instructions say to mount the motion sensor about 6 foot high, which seems to imply that the sensor’s detection zone is looking from the horizon downward. That seems to be confirmed by the fact that the instructions also state to be sure the “Wyze Logo” is in the upper right corner of the mounted sensor. That indicates there is a right-side-up orientation. This would not matter if the sensor detects motion equally in all directions

I am not able to mount the motion sensors where Wyze recommends (6 foot high) and they do not recommend using the Motion Sensor outdoors, but I have 3 Wyze Cams, and one sensor mounted outside and have had not problems. The in-camera video motion detction works great, but I want to use the remote motion sensors because I get too many false alerts from insects. At night, they seem to be attracted to the camera’s IR lights, and during the daytime, wasps are attracted to the black camera lens?

I would like to eliminate sensing the street traffic by facing the motion sensor to look at my front door not towards the street, but I do not have anyplace to mount it. My perfect solution would be to modify one of those cheap LED solar walkway lights to hold the motion sensor facing towards my front door while protected from the weather. The solar light with the sensor would be installed about 15-16 feet from my front door which is about the perfect distance to activate the camera and record a good view of someone approaching my door. The lights are only about 10-15 inches high, so If the downward view of the motion dection zone is too low, I may look at mounting the motion sensor upside-down or even sideways.

If I knew the exact horizontal and verticle detection zone widths, angles and distance I could figure out the best way to locate and orientate the motion sensor. Otherwise it will just be a lot of trial and error testing.

2 Likes

Specs are published in the app under the “Shop” tab at the bottom, select “Wyze Sense”, and then “Details” at the top-center.

2 Likes

Thanks for your quick reply DreadPirateRush.

The specs for the Wyze Sense Motion Detector only state “120 degrees and 26 feet range”. If I assume that it has a view of 120 degrees in all directions, why does the motion sensor need to be mounted so that the Wyze logo is in the upper left corner? Also, mounting it 6 feet from the floor would mean it could not see 30 degrees up, down or side to side. That would mean that someone could crawl under the sensor, along the baseboard and would not be detected??

If the Range of the PIR Motion Sensor is only 26 feet, why did it detect people and vehicles passing by on the street that was at least 40 feet away from the sensor mounted on my front door?

BTW. I got a notice today about the new Person Sensor feature and immediately tried it. That appears to solve my front door problem with alerting me to bugs that fly by camera. However, I still would like to figure out the exact range and field of view of the Motion Sensor.

Thanks for all your assistance,

…Rlunder

1 Like

A lot of people say it can sense cars quite well. Maybe because they are hotter and larger and thus can be sensed further away. The spec probably only applies to people.

The only thing I can recommend is to mount the sensor in such a way so that it has no line-of-sight to the street. Higher up on the wall if there is an overhang that can block the street. Or 90 degrees from the front door so it isn’t facing the street. I saw one person mount it basically upside-down on the patio ceiling (back straight up, with logo towards the street) so the down angle was facing the door.

The idea is to get the street out of its sight.

1 Like

Yes, the sensor does angle the IR downward, and that’s why they recommend mounting it at six feet high. If you have pets, you could mount the sensor lower and upside down to avoid them from being detected.

Sorry, I’ve given you all the information I could find.

2 Likes

I don’t think any of us users have a precise definition of the sense area, so use the general descriptions to find what works best for you.

Again, Thank you for that info. The downward angled view of the IR motion sensor is exactly what I assumed but wanted someone from Wyze to confirm.

Yesterday I upgraded my Wyze Cams with the new “Person” detection feature and that seems to resolve my problem of getting alerts caused by flying insects…so I may not need to use the PIR motion sensors.

…Rlunder

Thank you for your input. Wyze did provide enough info to confirm what I needed.

The motion sensors view is 120 degrees with a detection range of 26 feet.

The sensors view is angled downward, and is why they recommend mounting it 6 foot high.

If you have small animals, they said you can mount it lower on the wall but upside -down to look upwards.

…Rlunder

Just to quell any misconceptions, neither @DreadPirateRush nor myself are Wyze employees. We are normal users like yourself.

Sorry…I stand corrected. I thought that someone identified as “Forum Moderator” either worked for Wyze, or at least had access to the technical data I needed. That’s why I stated in my intial inquiry “I hope someone from Wyze would jump in with the technical info”.

…Rlunder

There are few from Wyze here. Mavens and moderators have the same access to technical data as you do. Sorry our response was a disappointment.

No, I as not disapointed at all!! Second opinions only confirmed what I had assumed about how the motion sensor worked.

…Rlunder

Well, Newshound, you may be normal, but calling @DreadPirateRush “normal” is a bit of a stretch … :laughing:

image

2 Likes

No, they are so much better than us! :grin:

I’ll take that as a compliment. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I hope that’s not the impression I’m giving, because I want the community to know I’m a user just like them that also happens to have an awesome volunteer position with Wyze. :slight_smile:

3 Likes

I sent 2 requests asking Wyze to state the vertical and horizontal angle of views but never received a response. So I did some testing. The vertical field of view (as in a camera tilt view) is different from the horizontal field of view (a camera pan view). In my testing, it appears that, when mounted with the Wyze logo in the upper corner (right side up), the sensor’s vertical angle of view (camera tilt) is this: it looks horizontally straight forward from its top, and views about 80 degrees +/- downward. In its vertical angle of view (camera tilt), the sensor does not look forward (up and down) 120 degrees. It appears to me that the horizontal angle of view (camera pan view) is 120 degrees as specified.

This is why Wyze recommended a mounting technique to avoid excessive motion alerts from a pet walking in the sensor’s field of view indoors. In this case, they recommended mounting the sensor upside down on a wall about 3 feet from the floor. That gives the sensor a blind spot from the floor upwards 3 feet.

3 Likes

Okay, those last few replies cracked me up! :smile::laughing:

1 Like