Wyze Battery Cam Pro Product Manager (WyzeLi) | 08/02/2023
“I am the Wyze Battery Cam Pro PM - ask me anything!”
- Reddit AMA Wiki summary can be found here
- Original Source for the AMA can be referenced here
- Hosted by u/Bitter-Painter-3661
| Question | Reply |
|---|---|
| Can I run this with wired power and no battery in the camera ? or does the battery need to be present regardless of wired/wireless ? | Yes you can use it with wired power and no battery in the camera. The provided USB-C adapter cable is not designed to be used outdoors, but our outdoor power adapter compatibility with Wyze Battery Cam Pro is coming soon. The battery doesn’t need to be present when the camera is wired. If the camera is wireless or connected to a solar panel, the battery needs to be in the camera. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Can I run this on wired and if the power goes out will it just continue on battery and resume on wired/start charging up when the power resumes ? | That is correct but again if you’re using the camera outdoors, please use an outdoor-rated power adapter to power the camera. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| If #2 is the case can we get a setting that allows a switch from continuous recording to motion activation in the event of a switch to battery power and back once power resumes ? | We will definitely consider this during our feature development. It might not be available in the first release, but we’ll continue optimizing based on user feedback. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Why was it decided to launch this device without SD card support? This is a major feature used by almost every single user. Also, Wyze likes to push that subscription’s aren’t required for basic functionalities, but this seems like the complete opposite. | Our wired cameras support microSD card playback (continuous/event-only) and timelapse recording to a local microSD card.We built timelapse & scheduled recording features on Wyze Cam Outdoor for our power users to use it with Travel Mode, but Wyze Cam Outdoor never supported microSD card Playback because both recording to and viewing from local storage wakes up the camera from power saving mode and drains the battery faster.With Cam Plus videos stored in the cloud, the camera doesn’t have to wake up while users view events. From the user metrics gathered on Wyze Cam Outdoor, we observed that features like timelapse and Travel Mode, which are microSD card-related, have relatively low usage compared to other core functionalities such as livestreaming and motion detection. These are the features that our users value the most.Therefore, we made a difficult decision to launch without microSD card support so we have time to finish up our outdoor power adapter compatibility as well as polishing our Playback app experience. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Does it support the ONVIF protocol? | No, it does not. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| What is estimated battery life? | With normal use of 10 - 20 Event Videos a day, the battery can last up to 6 months. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Is this a replacement for outdoor cam v2? Be honest. | Yes, Wyze Battery Cam Pro will be a replacement and an upgrade of Wyze Cam Outdoor v2, but we will continue providing support for Wyze Cam Outdoor v2. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| You sell most of the accessories separately, but not the camera without a battery. If the batteries cost $28.98 by themselves, that is roughly 1/3 the cost of the camera. For those who plan to only use these as wired cameras, will you ever consider selling them without the battery for $30 cheaper so they are more affordable for those who don’t need the battery? | We will consider this option, but why not get a Wyze Cam v3 or Wyze Cam Pan v3 instead? -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| if you power it and power goes out, does it switch to battery as a backup seamlessly? if not whats the delay | Yes, the camera will switch to battery power automatically without a delay. But please use an outdoor-rated power adapter to power your camera outside. Our Wyze Outdoor Power Adapter compatibility is coming soon. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Will there be a future update to increase video fps to 20 for daytime? | We can certainly look into this as a higher FPS requires more computing power and better Wi-Fi connection. I honestly can’t tell much difference between 15 FPS & 20 FPS during testing, so I’m curious about what you all think. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| A lot of batteries that just sit idle will lose some charge over time. Some chargers will charge the battery full, then keep recharging it a little every so often to keep it topped off to the max, though this can damage the battery in the long run. What do you have happen with this battery when it is fully charged, but still plugged in or still in the dock for weeks or months at a time while we wait for the other battery to need replacing? | It is a combination of high temperature and high charge level that can have some small negative impact on battery life. Keeping the batteries on the charge at room temperature has minimal impact on life. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| If this camera can’t currently record to the SD card at launch time (I acknowledge this feature is coming in the future), and if a person doesn’t have Cam Plus, and this camera doesn’t work with Cam Plus Lite…will a user with this camera still get any cloud events like some doorbells provide, or will it only give a single thumbnail image, but no way to view any events? | Customers who bought the camera will have a 30-day free trial of Cam Plus (the purple checkbox above the Add to Cart button on our website). Without a Cam Plus license, the camera takes a thumbnail image only for each motion Event. However, you can set up a Rule in the app for the camera to upload a short video (12 seconds long) to the cloud if it detects motion. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Since this WBCPro will eventually be able to record continuously to an SD card (ie: if we keep it plugged into power), will you be making it compatible with the Outdoor Power Adapter? Will the Outdoor Power Adapter be including a special weather-resistant adapter for it, or are we supposed to just buy and use this regular straight USB-C Adapter Cable from the Solar Panel page:Does the above adapter make the Outdoor Power Adapter work with the WBCPro (as long as we keep the camera oriented straight up), or is there going to be a different, more fitted/weatherproof adapter that is being sold for it? | Yes, we will make it compatible with Wyze Outdoor Power Adapter by including a USB-C adapter cable. Or you could have the option to purchase the adapter cable separately if you have bought the power adapter before. We tested the solar panel adapter cable with our outdoor power adapter, but it failed our weather resistance test so there will be a more fitted and weatherproof adapter cable coming soon. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| The V3Pro and the Floodlight Pro both have local AI detection on them.Does that mean that this Battery Cam Pro also has some local AI detection on it? If you decided against that for this camera, why did you decide against making that an ongoing thing for all of the Pro line from now on, including with this camera? It seems like this camera could support a basic Edge AI since it has a 500 MHz CPU and 128 MB RAM! Or does it have some limited pre-cloud AI capabilities on it but just not with a high enough confidence interval to offer it as a completely standalone feature? | Edge AI is going through testing at the moment. Once we thoroughly test it with extra focus on detection accuracy, latency, and battery life impact, we will roll out the firmware to our beta testers for external testing. We’re aiming to have that stage come soon. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| What is the Radar Frequency range of this device and why did you choose that frequency instead of a higher or lower band that could’ve allowed it to go farther or detect faster? | The radar frequency band used is 24GHz. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Will this device conflict with the DFS setting on the Wyze Mesh Router (Pro) or other Routers that use DFS where the router is legally required to check channel availability and switch off of those 5GHz channels when the router detects Radar? Does DFS have each satellite router to check and shut down (change) individually, or does just the root router check? Could this Camera impact the Wyze Router (or other routers) connectivity to keep stopping transmission and switching channels (killing the connection to all our devices) if we are using DFS? In other words, do we need to disable DSF on our routers if we use this Radar-capable device? If so, does it help to point it away from the router? Does the Radar really only reach 30 feet? Have you tested the Radar against the DFS feature on routers (yours or others)? | It does not interfere with any Wi-Fi channels including Wi-Fi DFS channels. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| What was your reaction when you saw various leaks about your product online, including when MicroCenter started accidentally selling them weeks before you even publicly announced it? | It definitely caught us by surprise, but it’s also fun and useful to see people’s reactions and gather some early product sentiment. We would still prefer to have a spoiler free launch at some point, though. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Will we ever be able to choose to have it use just PIR or just Radar or both? Having both is AWESOME in many use cases, but some use-cases could be better for someone to just have Radar or just PIR. It would make a great advanced setting and you could simply give a pop-up warning that changing it from default could increase false detections or lower battery life or whatever and to change it back to default if needed. (PIR really only works well with side to side movement, and doesn’t do well with direct movement, so in theory it could cause missing events or gaps in events in some cases if it requires both…so this might not be good for something like someone toward away for it down a hallway, etc, whereas radar alone would always work great. Or maybe someone with DFS on their router will want to use these cameras, but wants to turn the Radar off so it doesn’t interfere with their Router trying to use DFS channels and messing with the whole network’s stability on less congested radar wavelength channels…which it might not be allowed to do if this camera causes the Radar to keep detecting Radar signals and switch off it as the law would require). | Currently, this is not on the roadmap because we don’t believe the majority of users would understand the differences between Radar and PIR. I’m afraid adding the setting even with proper explanations could cause further confusion. But I’m open to hearing more feedback or issues that could be solved with this approach. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Since this a Pro Version of the Battery Cam lineup, and thus supposed to be an upgrade to it, will this camera have, or will you be adding any or all of the following features to this camera that are included with the non-pro: Time lapse, Scheduled Recordings (both continuous &/or motion events only like the WCO’s have), Travel mode, to be able to use this without WiFi when we go camping, in a motel, etc like we can with the WCOs? If so, can you give a rough ETA on when it might get those features? If not Why not? | Timelapse - Yes, we plan to add this function in the future for our power users. We’re aiming for sometime at the end of this year or early next year. Scheduled recording - No, we don’t plan to implement this anymore. Instead, we’ll support microSD card playback (continuous/event-only) in September or October software updates. Please note that this timeline may be pushed if we need to adjust some more code before release. Travel Mode - No, we don’t plan to add this anymore because the user metrics gathered on Wyze Cam Outdoor showed that features like timelapse and Travel Mode have relatively low usage compared to other security-related functions. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| How will these function differently if we keep them plugged into power, instead of using the battery? 1. I know you said they will eventually be able to record continuously, but will it also improve events? 2. If it is plugged into power, will it still use the PIR/Radar to determine when there is an event, or will it switch to using just pixel change detection? 3. Will it start a detection more quickly since it’s not turned off in standby mode? It seems if it is plugged in that logically you could have it instantly start the recording and not miss as much, whereas if it is in standby, it can take a second or two to turn the camera on and possibly miss the first instants of an event like happens with most battery cams on the market. | 1. By improving Events, do you mean if the camera records Events only to a local microSD card? If so, yes it will. 2. We plan to switch to using the pixel change detection and the camera will not enter a sleep/power-saving mode because the camera is not limited by battery power anymore. 3. Yes, if the camera is not in the standby mode, the recording and livestream should start instantly. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Say we plan to keep this camera plugged in 24/7 and the Continuous recording to SD card is finally available. What would you say would be the main differences or benefits between using this WBCPro plugged in vs the V3Pro --besides the fact that they both have a spotlight, 2K, continuous recording to the SD card, etc? | Wyze Battery Cam Pro has a brighter spotlight than Wyze Cam v3 Pro. Local recording during a power outage while using the battery as a back up power source. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| What would you say is the main benefit of using the Battery charging dock over just plugging a USB-C cord into the battery instead? | As the charging time using the charging dock and plugging in a USB-C cord is roughly the same at 9 hours, the main benefit is to charge two at a time. If you have only one extra battery, you don’t have to get a charging dock. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| This WBCPro definitely has a bigger and brighter spotlight than the V3Pro, but which of the two would you say can trigger the spotlight faster &/or trigger it from farther away? What would you say is the minimum and maximum lumens for each with their spotlights? It seems that one benefit of the WBCPro spotlight over the V3Pro spotlight is that since it uses Radar and PIR, that it is more likely to only turn on for things like people, animals, cars, etc. and not for shadows, lights, things blowing in the wind, etc. And it is brighter. What other benefits or differences would you say there may be related to spotlight use between the 2? | I didn’t compare the speed of the spotlight on Wyze Cam v3 Pro vs Wyze Battery Cam Pro, but Wyze Battery Cam Pro will trigger the spotlight as soon as the PIR and radar detect Motion Events. This happens <1 second before the whole system boots up because they function using a separate chip to save power.I assume Wyze Cam v3 Pro’s spotlight triggers on motion from farther away because it uses a pixel comparison algorithm.I am currently looking into the minimum and maximum lumens and will report back.Another difference is that Wyze Cam v3 Pro also records Sound Events. The spotlight would turn on in this case as well. Wyze Battery Cam Pro doesn’t trigger recording by sound. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| The advertised detection range is around 30 feet. I received mine (SUPER QUICKLY!) but it’s not detecting anywhere near this. The camera seems to be in a harsh sleep state and when there is motion it triggers too late. Will there be a manual override to keep the camera awake always even with the battery life hit? | We recommend mounting the camera 7 feet high with a 20 degree downward angle for the best detection results. Based on the object moving speed, by the time the sensors give the signal for the camera to start recording, the object might be at a closer distance. We don’t currently have a setting to keep the camera always awake because it’ll drastically drain the battery. Once the outdoor power adapter compatibility is added, we’ll add this option for users. If you think your camera is not detecting well, we can look into the logs for you. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| 9 hours seems like a significant charging time. Why was Rapid Power Delivery not incorporated? Why is recharging so slow? | The battery uses slow charge to protect the health of the battery though it has the ability to be rapid charged with a rapid charge dock. This is something we’re still considering. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| This new UI has gone away with the live streaming bitrate so we have no idea what the bitrate is for 2K. Why was this removed and why isn’t there more transparency on its bitrate? | I’m sorry to hear that you’re not enjoying the new design. I will let our Design Team know your feedback. We had been trying to simplify the experience for users with a second phase planned. I’ll check with the team about the current path forward and make sure they hear your thoughts. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Is the solar panel capable of charging the battery from zero? Also is this the same solar panel available for previous outdoor wireless cameras? So it will require a USB micro to USB C converter. | Yes, the solar panel can charge the battery from 0%. The solar panel itself is the same. All we’ve added is a USB-C adapter cable in the box to support Wyze Battery Cam Pro. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Any input on wake time to live view? With mesh and great dBm. | It takes about 7 seconds to receive the first frame. This is because the camera can’t pre-authenticate a livestream connection. That is usually done on base stations due to the camera entering a power-saving sleep mode when the stream is not being viewed. This makes the livestream take 1-2 seconds longer to receive the first frame compared to our Wyze Cam Outdoor. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Is there an advantage to the battery charging dock other than being convenient for 2 batteries vs plugging each individually into USB to charge when outside of the camera? | The main advantage is charging 2 at a time because the charging time with the dock versus a USB-C cable is roughly the same at 9 hours. -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
| Pro cameras are aimed towards users who want the best of what the product series offers and associated professional features. Is there more professional features planned for this device? More granular control of the device and how it functions? | What we announced so far is on our upcoming roadmap. It depends on which pro features you are talking about. Do you have some examples in mind for us to consider? -u/Bitter-Painter-3661 |
