Cam Outdoor v2 just flashes IR when it detects motion

This affects a couple of my Wyze Cam Outdoor v2 cameras.

When they detect motion at night they flash twice and otherwise are dark. I have 2 in this location and the other is normal. I guess you can’t reset these. Any ideas?

1 Like

Is it entering regular (greyscale) night vision and then immediately re-enabling “Color Night Vision” for some reason? It kind of looks and sounds like the IR filter is engaging and then immediately moving back out of the way.

I don’t know. How do I check/fix that?

I don’t own any of the Cam Outdoor models, so I don’t know what options or features you have in Settings, but you could possibly try making a recording where you manually set Night Vision Mode Off ➜ On ➜ Off to simulate what I’m asking/speculating about here. If the video and sound from doing this seem to match what you’re describing here as your problem, then that could be an indication that this thing with the IR filter is what’s happening.

As far as fixing it goes, I’m not sure. If you can determine that this is the problem, then I’d probably be looking at the Cam itself to see if something is physically wrong with it or if there’s something in the environment that could affect it (like if there’s a magnetic field near the Cam that could cause the IR filter to move).

Also, I think I need to go back to this from your initial post:

Are you 100% positive that you have the cause and effect correct? I think it’s possible that this weird glitch is happening with the IR filter and Night Vision Mode and then the camera is interpreting that (the light/pixel changes) as a motion detection event, not the other way around.

What troubleshooting have you attempted so far? At the very least, I’d try Settings ➜ Reset and Settings ➜ Restart, assuming both of those are options.

I’m having difficulty parsing what you are saying.

… there are 2 identical cameras watching events with identical settings. One works fine and when there is motion (a dog) it turns on the IR and records fine. The other flashes twice and that’s it. There is no factory reset on this camera. The reset in settings is cloud recording and notifications. Other of my outdoor cams seem to have the same behavior but I haven’t spent time checking them out.

Which part is unclear? Please feel free to quote (like I’m doing here with the Forum’s built-in  Quote feature when you select text in someone’s post) what isn’t making sense and I’ll see if I can rephrase. If I can improve on the way I’m trying to communicate something, then please let me know.

I’m aware that it’s labeled as Reset Services and has a note about resetting cloud services for the Cam (at least for other Cams; like I said, I don’t have Cam Outdoor), but it’s been described by some users—including those without subscriptions—as fixing some problems, so it seems worth a tap. You’d be right to check your settings for notifications and event detection after doing so, too.

It could be that you just have a Cam that’s going (or has gone) bad in some way. I’ve watched the video in your initial post a few times, and I don’t see anything that appears to be actual movement in the recording, which is why I think the Cam isn’t detecting motion during this event. I think something is causing the Cam’s IR-based night vision to trigger and that the flashes and sounds in the recording are the result of the mode change and the movement of the IR filter, and I think the Cam is interpreting these flashes as lighting/pixel changes and therefore marking this as a motion event. What I was suggesting before is that I would manually change the Cam’s Night Vision Mode setting from Off to On and then back Off again while making a recording in order to see if that recording would match or mimic the effects you shared in your initial recording above. That might help to explain what is going on.

Regarding why the Cam might be doing this, determining that might be more tricky, but essentially what I’m saying is that I’d want to have a better understanding of what is happening before tackling the why.

I’ll try the reset. Probably a hardware problem.

As mentioned. 2 cameras… there is motion… that’s why I keep mentioning it.

Thanks

Like I’ve said a few times, I don’t have these, so I was forgetting that these use PIR for the initial motion detection. I think I have a little better understanding now.

So maybe the problem Cam is correctly detecting motion with its PIR, but for some reason it’s not correctly transitioning to IR-based night vision and remaining in that state? Do you think that’s what’s happening (going back to my original question)? That’s what the video seems to demonstrate to me, and trying to artificially replicate that to see if that results in the flashes and sounds is what I’m suggesting to see if that accounts for the effects in the video.

That could explain the what, I think, and if that’s what’s happening, then the why could be something magnetic affecting the IR filter or something glitched in the Cam’s code or something physically failing/failed within the Cam or something else. :man_shrugging:

I have a WCO v2 that I just took off the shelf, and placed it under one of my cat’s “forts” in the living room.

If you let me know what your settings are I can set my settings equal to yours to attempt to duplicate the issue.

Please screen capture your settings or let me know what they are, and I’ll duplicate your settings on my WCOv2.

Are your two WCOv2’s ‘overlapping’ where they are pointed to where one WCOv2 might be causing this issue with the other? (but then one would think both would be experiencing the same issue then)

Assuming your two camera’s have equal settings, have you tried swapping the location of the two to see if the issue follows the camera or the location?

Are there any other camera’s in the vicinity that could be contributing to the issue?

My WCOv2 is on firmware 4.48.4.450, and it’s base is on firmware: 4.16.4.545

Attached. Not much to it unless you want other screens. If I switch mode to “on” it stays on.

Same firmware.

No interference. I put 2nd cam next to it to confirm. Now problem cam is in a dark desk drawer by itself for testing, no diff. I don’t expect you to see anything since I’ve already tried a 2nd camera with no issue.

I have 4 of these and pretty sure at least 2 have this issue but haven’t had a chance to test.

I found a few post that might give you some ideas, the explanation from @kjay in this post might be of interest: Strange camera events

This article discusses the camera being too close to the ‘ground’ (All of my WCO v1s and my single v2 have spent most of their life on the ground, and I don’t recall having this issue) Wyze Cam Outdoor bright IR flashes during night recording? - #38 by cjroos

I think it’s just a defective cam. I’ll have to find a use for it that doesn’t need IR