Bulb cam question re Porch Light

Cameras
,
1

I know the general term Ambient Light. What does this camera mean by Ambient Light? There are two controls … one for BULB and one for Ambient Light. The only control I have been able to figure out is Ambien switched on. porch light on. Ambien off, light off. All done manually, nothing Smart about it.

Here is what I expect it to do but no clue how to set it up or if the product will even do some of it.

Daylight … no porch light. Don’t need a light in the daytime. Dusk to dawn, porch light can (motion) trigger to on. Will stay on as long as there is motion then automatically turn off until another trigger occurs. So in spite of a thousand other questions, neeSo, if it is dark outside and the porch light triggers (comes on) is that Ambien or Bulb? If it is dark and porch light is off, doesn’t it come on with perceived motion? Should it stay on for x amount of time and then go off? I seem to only be able to turn porch light on and off …. day or night … and what is with manually turning on Ambien light.d to figure out what I’m dealing with …. ambien light or otherwise.

At the risk of repeating, .. right now, Ambien switched on … porch light on. Ambien off, light off.

So, if it is dark outside and the porch light triggers (comes on) is that Ambien or Bulb? If it is dark and porch light is off, doesn’t it come on with perceived motion? Should it stay on for x amount of time and then go off? I seem to only be able to turn porch light on and off …. day or night … and what is with manually turning on Ambien light.So, if it is dark outside and the porch light triggers (comes on) is that Ambien or Bulb? If it is dark and porch light is off, doesn’t it come on with perceived motion? Should it stay on for x amount of time and then go off? I seem to only be able to turn porch light on and off …. day or night … and wSo, if it is dark outside and the porch light triggers (comes on) is that Ambien or Bulb? If it is dark and porch light is off, doesn’t it come on with perceived motion? Should it stay on for x amount of time and then go off? I seem to only be able to turn porch light on and off …. day or night … and what is with manually turning on Ambien light and that is with manually turning on Ambien light.So, if it is dark outside and the porch light triggers (comes on) is that Ambien or Bulb? If it is dark and porch light is off, doesn’t it come on with perceived motion? Should it stay on for x amount of time and then go off? I seem to only be able to turn porch light on and off …. day or night … and what is with manually turning on Ambien light.

Incidentally, this ‘Quick Start Guide’ is way to ‘quick’ for me. Almost worthless. I think it’s going to be a LONG time before this device becomes set up enough to really enjoy it. Thank you in advance for any help/advice/comment.

2

Ambient light just means to bulb is on but dimmer than full brightness. Like many traditional motion sensor lights that have that dual mode, on dim all night but if there is motion, go to full brightness.

So ambient is just an option you have if you want some light, but not full brightness, in between motion detections. It isn’t related to the amount of light outside or when the light turns on etc (those would be dusk, dark, dawn, etc).

Maybe that makes the rest of the settings make more sense?

1 Like
3

Bulb Cam allows you to set two different schedules, one for each type/mode of lighting that you want, and each of those can have a separate brightness level.

  1. The BRIGHTNESS LEVEL setting on the main Bulb Settings screen (from Bulb Cam’s Live Stream screen, tap  Settings ➜ Bulb Settings) is probably what you’ll want to set for your motion-activated light. You’ll want to tap Detecting in the ACTIVATES WHEN section, and then on the next screen select if you want Motion and/or Sound to activate the light at that brightness level. At the bottom of that screen, make a selection on the Lights Off Timer line for how long you want the light to remain on when it’s activated (for instance, after detecting motion). Below that, you should set the Schedule for your dusk-to-dawn activation. You may also need to set your location in the app if you’re selecting things like Sunset and Sunrise.
  2. Ambient Light (also on the main Bulb Settings screen) has its own separate settings screen. If you want to just schedule overnight light regardless of motion or sound detection, you would set that up—including its own schedule and brightness setting—on that screen. If you want the light to be off in the absence of a detected event, then just disable Ambient Light , leave it off, and don’t manually activate the light.

As an example, I have a Bulb Cam on my deck set this way:

  1. Main BRIGHTNESS LEVEL is 20, set to detect Motion with Smart Detections (subscription based) enabled for Person and Pet. Lights Off Timer is 1 min, and Schedule is 15m after Sunset–15m before Sunrise.
  2. Ambient Light is enabled () with a 5% BRIGHTNESS LEVEL and a 15m after Sunset–12:00 AM Schedule.

What this does for me:

  • 15 minutes after sunset, the light turns on at 5% brightness and remains on until midnight. Then it turns off.
  • At any time between 15 minutes after sunset and 15 minutes before the next sunrise, the light will brighten (if it’s already on) or turn on (if it’s after midnight and the ambient light is off) to 20% and remain at that brightness until 1 minute has passed without the camera detecting a person or pet.
1 Like
4

WOW!! Now that is the kind of support we clients pray for!! Thank you immensely. Only concern I have is, what about the 50 or more questions I have. I just don’t find your kind of guidance on this camera anywhere. Only the quick start guide. thank you again.

2 Likes
5

Yes, Sir. MUCH more. Thank you for the excellent help.

6

I’m glad that was helpful. :+1:

The Wyze app UI and the way settings are arranged can be kind of quirky. Once you become accustomed to the way they organize things, it can start to make some sense, but in order to understand how to accomplish a specific goal (e.g., get a Bulb Cam to light up when you want), you sometimes just have to play around with things in the app. I think they do try to make the app somewhat intuitive, but there’s always room for improvement.

The Quick Start Guide for a lot of their products seems to be the bare minimum to get a user going, and I think they expect most users to just learn from experience (trial and error) and the app. Even the Help Center’s Bulb Cam section doesn’t seem to do deep dives into how to use different features, I think because Wyze often enhances products with updates and adds features even after a device has been on the market for a while. With Bulb Cam, for instance, I think sound-activated light may have been added at some point after the product launched, and I think the Breathing Light mode for the Ambient Light setting was also a later addition. Because they tweak things so frequently, trying to have a comprehensive printed manual doesn’t really make a lot of sense, and even the Help Center articles don’t always keep up with the changes.

7

I hear you. That’s a pretty ‘college graduate’ policy though. Sell a high tech product no one knows how it works or how to work it. HHhhhhmmmm. I had it fixed but now it’s not working again. Cannot get the porch light to come on unless I turn on Ambian light and then it is on constantly. Heading back to that post to see if I can figure out how I fixed it earlier. Amaazing, Bulb Cam light SAYS light off. Nowhere is there how to turn it on. Not important enough to put in an instructional guide OR a support forum? HMMMmm, Berkely? UCLA? Stanford? :shaking_face:

8

While there aren’t “manuals” per se, there is lots of info at https://support.wyze.com/hc/en-us

9

How were you turning the light on and off manually before? The one manual control that comes to mind for Bulb Cam is the overlay control for the view pane on the Live Stream screen. It’s in the lower-left corner of the video pane, the same place you’d find the manual spotlight control if you were using something like a Cam v4 or Cam OG. You tap it to toggle it on or off.

Hopefully that’s helpful. I tried to provide detailed instructions to do what I think you want to do. If you have questions about your own settings, then you can share screenshots here so that other Forum members can see them and provide feedback.

10

Well, Sir. Here is the honest truth. Basically, since receiving the product, its a disappointment for me. I’ve reached a point of trying a different product. Can’t mark thread as solved because it’s not. Thank you for your superb efforts to help. What would Wyze do without you. Thank you once again.

1 Like
11

You’re welcome for the assistance. If you change your mind about trying Bulb Cam and want to share some settings screenshots or bounce some more questions off Forum members, then feel free to do that. If you decide to go with something else, I’ll be curious to learn what that is and if it meets your expectations.

12

So went outside to take down the Bulb Cam and decided to give it one more try. Besides, I didn’t want anyone to miss me.

The whut??? Uhhh Overlay Control??? I have never seen a Cam v4 or Cam OG.

The porch light. From what I can tell, and I may be mistaken, it never shines unless Ambient light is turned on or so it seems. In Bulb Settings, Ambien light is on now but the porch light is not on …. but … it’s still light outside. I put my hand over the entire camera lens thinking the cam would assume dark but cam light did NOT come on. That’s pretty interesting. If the camera is waiting for night, how would I turn it on before dark? It’s before dark now, and I can’t get the bulb to turn on. ALSO, someone metioned that Ambian does have to be on for light to work but one schedules (Ambian) to only control daytime lighting with a schedule …. or was that another nightmare I had. I think I mentioned this … I think … one should be able to have the light on whenever they want it on and be off when I don’t want it on. There’s more. If at night and the light is NOT set to stay on, it should come on from a trigger event … like someone stepping near the camera in the dark. If the cam senses motion it will stay on and after it doesn’t sense any it goes off. Does not stay on ALL night unless I tell it to (somehow). All this control applies to recording also. Nay I ask too much??? That’s enough for now. I have a headache. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

That is a bit strange: Back before I became the expert I am now, and was REALLY fooling around, I swear that light was coming on and going off with some kind of sensible logic but at the time, I didn’t make a lot of sense of it. Figured I could find it later when I looked for it. WHEN it was going on and off is important to know and I am not sure. Let us perhaps concentrate on this and only this light issue …. IF you or anyone else is still willing to help me. :folded_hands:

EDIT: It’s now dark here in the great State of TX and the freekin front porch light is on. If I am right, if I do nothing, it will stay on all night (boo). Wonder if it will go off at sunrise? Any bets??? Have a great night all.

13

When you’re viewing a Cam’s Live Stream screen in the app—after you’ve tapped a camera’s tile from the Favorites or Devices tab to get to its individual plugin page—you should see the live video feed from the camera, and there may or may not be an overlay of controls that let you do things with the camera, like change the video stream resolution, switch to landscape view, enable 2-way audio, etc. If you don’t see these controls, then you can tap on the live view pane to make them appear. For Cams with lights, Wyze tends to put the control in the lower-left corner. In Bulb Cam’s case, the icon for this control looks like a tiny picture of a Bulb Cam, and you can tap that to toggle the light on or off.

That’s what I think of when I consider manual control of Bulb Cam’s light.

You’re mistaken. I think there’s just a misunderstanding, so I’ll restate what I wrote in my first post above. With Bulb Cam, there are two ways to turn on the light in Bulb Settings:

  1. Event-activated light (activated by detected motion and/or sound)
  2. Ambient light

If you don’t want all-night light, then just leave Ambient Light toggled off and ensure that you have motion-activated light enabled and set up the way you want, including its Schedule and Lights Off Timer, as described above.

It’s activated according to whatever schedule you establish in the settings. It does not activate the light based on the camera’s detection of any available light in its environment (sunlight, street lights, etc.). It’s not like an older style of dusk-to-dawn light with a photocell that turns on power to a light socket when an area gets dark. You control through the app when you want the light to turn on or off, and the main way is with the schedules in Bulb Settings.[1] If you give the app permission to use your location, then you can set schedules based on sunrise and sunset in your area. Otherwise, you set light activation just like you’d schedule an alarm or recurring calendar appointment within one or both locations in the app, depending on how you want to use the light (as described above).

I won’t take the bet. I have no idea, because you haven’t shared any of your settings.

If you re-read the instructions I provided in my first post above and still don’t understand or have questions, then please share details (screenshots if you can) of your settings. Without an understanding of how you have your Bulb Cam currently configured, I won’t even try to predict how it’s going to behave for you.

  1. There’s also manual control and Automations, but I think it’s important for you to understand the basics first. ↩︎

1 Like
14

THANK YOU AGAIN!! I have dental appointments tomorrow and I need to study what you just posted. I will praise and update you later tomorrow. You are soooooo appreciated.