Battery Operated Wyze Cam

I just hope that, if the batteries need to be changed they are easily accesible getting 3 months + would do the dal for me

Doing some basic readings I measured 304ma with the IR off and 422ma with the IR on. This camera is an energy hog. So will need to tinker some more to figure out how to optimize it for battery usage. Doing recordings on and off made no difference on the current draw and switching between SD and HD also made no difference. I don’t want to take mine apart just yet but if it’s stepping the voltage down to 4v or less than the use of a lithium battery could be optimized by bypassing the voltage regulator on the PCB if it is in fact stepping down. Also a typical USB powerbank which boosts LiPo battery voltage up to 5v wastes several milliamps in the process, so you could potentially save 80ma by using 3.6-4.2v directly. Overall we could shave off about 100ma of draw. I’ve used small proximity sensors in the past that could be used to turn the entire camera on and off in the presence of motion so anytime there isn’t anyone within 20 feet of the sensor the entire camera remains off and once a person or animal is near it will turn the camera on, Not sure what the boot up time of the camera is. This essentially drops current draw down to around 3ma and as soon as a person is near by the draw jumps to 200ma. This could potentially make a 10,000ma battery bank last for weeks to months. Orrrrr the developers could release a battery version optimized for power usage :slight_smile:

It’s coming. See this thread:

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This camera doesn’t have a passive infrared sensor. It detects motion through pixel change. Pixel change pretty much uses the camera always on to look for significant changes in pixels over short times. It uses a lot of power because it never really turns off.

The cameras that last long on battery use passive infrared.

Side note: These cameras are xiaomi Xiaofang. Being able to power them with a powerbank is advertised by xiaomi. The xiaofang cameras can also stream direct to your phone without a network according to this. Interesting feature.

Some clarification… While Wyze Cams are based on the same original hardware design, they are not the same as the Xiaomi internally. They have been customized for Wyze.

Wyze also provides information on powering the cameras with a power bank:

https://support.wyzecam.com/hc/en-us/articles/360012367711-What-are-the-power-requirements-and-power-consumption-of-Wyze-Cam-

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A post was merged into an existing topic: Power Over Ethernet (POE) capable

The battery lasted 3 days (i.e., 3 nights without solar)! However, the solar charger was just too small to keep it going on event only or continuous. I’ll be experimenting with a larger solar panel in the next couple of days.

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So, I purchased a Coleman 100W Solar Panel With 8.5 AMP Charge Controller at Costco for my Wyze Cam v2 camera. So far, seems to be working well. I have the solar panel located in indirect sunlight and in frigid Minnesota temperatures; so, these are pretty harsh / poor conditions. But, seems to be working so far. I did notice that the solar panel was needing to continuously charge the battery when I had the “continuous” option selected for the SD card so I switched to “event only” to reduce the power consumption. I’ll post another update when I’m convinced this is a viable solution for me.

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My son and I did some math yesterday. In our area, on the shortest day of the year, with the loads listed above, we would use about 9 amps at 5V per day per camera.
That would require a fairly large solar panel and a fairly large battery, too.

During winter, assuming the equivalent of 3.5 hours of “good sun” per day, and allowing for a battery large enough to not be fully drained overnight (to increase lifespan of the battery)
We’re looking at 45 watts per camera and a battery bigger than a usb power pack.

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i have a bunch of blink cameras. they are super convenient and yes they do last maybe a year or two on battery. again depends on how much activity you have though. but if wyze has a battery camera option i would replace all my blinks immediately!

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Would prefer internal battery over an external power bank. Imagine some burglars trying to unplug wyze cams from outlet and external power bank but it’d still work because it has an internal battery. That would be amazing.

i agree, internal battery. and if it can be a standard rechargeable AA or AAA that would be even better. not a proprietary internal battery. again i’m refering back to blink and how they do it.

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User replaceable cell/battery would be appreciated. Not sure if size and/or mass is an important design feature. If not, button top (built in BMS) lithium 18650 size would be nice. Single cell or multiple in series if voltage requirements > 18650 nominal. Capacity and wide choice of “brands” are the big +s.

Agree. Using a 12 watt solar panel on the sailboat to power Lipo18650/aaa-D cell NiMH “smart” charge. Think slow even under ideal conditions. Watts/volts=amps.

Vote goes for off the shelf low self discharge NiMH or lithium rechargeable cells to make up the battery pack. Allows users to replace cells when needing, recharging on user’s choice of charger. Cuts cost of the Wyze Cam by not needing to design, manufacture built in charger.

I tried the same and got almost the exact same results. About 22 hrs.

How much would it cost?

It’s a Lithium Ion AA battery, not a standard AA battery. Plus if you constantly activated the Blink to see the video or it had a lot of motion activations, the battery wouldn’t last 2 years.

don’t think this is a good test. the small panel is intended to keep a small battery from self discharging in storage not to charge the battery or provide current for any device.

That’s a fair assessment. Sometimes you try what you’ve got, see if it works and share the results with the community.

Anyway, I’m now using a much stronger 100w solar panel and its working fine.

If Wyze includes an internal battery… for extreme temp ranges and long-term durability, supercapacitors would be better performance-wise vs lithium.