I was really excited to pick up the new Cam Pan v4, especially with its 4K capabilities, but I was very disappointed to discover that it doesn’t support time lapse. Every other Wyze cam I own has this feature, and it’s one of the main reasons I use them.
I understand that 4K files are larger, but I don’t see that as a good reason to remove time lapse altogether. For example, when I run 24-hour time lapses at 30-second intervals on my Cam Pan v3, the finished files are around 202 MB. On my Cam v4, similar recordings come out to about 220 MB. The difference is minimal, and having that same feature in 4K would be incredible.
I currently have four Wyze cams set up around the city pointed North, South, East, and West, capturing long Alaskan summer days. It’s been amazing to share those time lapses. My plan for the Cam Pan v4 was to use it for wintertime time lapses of the stars and Northern Lights, which would be spectacular in 4K.
Time lapse has been a hallmark feature of Wyze cams, and it feels like a real step backward not to include it here. I sincerely hope this is something Wyze can bring back through a future update.
[Mod Note]:Your topic and associated replies were moved to the Wishlist category for better visibility. Please remember to click the VOTE button to show your support for your own idea.
I don’t use the time lapse feature on my Wyze Cams very frequently, so I didn’t even notice that it’s not present on Cam Pan v4 until I read your mention of it. That really does seem like an oversight.
Since this product is so new, I wonder if we should ask the Moderators to reclassify your post as a new Wishlist topic. I think it seems like a reasonable request, and I’m not seeing existing Wishlist topics that would apply to this particular Cam model. (I’ve recently seen and voted for the addition of the Timelapse feature for a couple of other Cams that I don’t have.[1][2]) The way you describe your use cases seems perfectly sensible to me.
If you want to consider something like that, then you can Flag your own topic and choose Something Else to drop a note to the Moderators and ask them to move it. That might be one way to get more visibility for your question and allow others to show support for the request.
Yes! Fellow Alaskan here, just got my V4 Pan to upgrade from my V3 Pan. No time lapse is a deal breaker. I also need a camera that doesn’t return to the “home point” every 10 seconds after I point the camera in another direction. This function cannot be disabled, it seems. Frustrating.
I just noticed that on mine - There is NO TIMELAPSE OPTION….
What is this company doing… WOW not only does it move itself back to a position I don’t want after I leave the app or 5 seconds of not touching the controls witch is totally stupid but why no Timelapse..
I mounted my Cam Pan V3 on the roof of my house and I can aim it toward the front yard - back yard - side yard - sky - horizon - sunset - sunrise - cloud - storm - lightning.. everything. .
now with the cam pan v4 it won’t let it stay where I pointed it - it won’t do time lapse - the evening and night color mode isn’t a good as the v3.. What in the world are they doing.. now when I call in for support I can’t get a person in the USA and I pay 100.00 a year for service…
This company starting off being awesome - now they are raising they prices and not giving good service or products…
WYZE phone call about the Cam Pan V4 and Timelapse and Snapping back to home point
They are not “NOT” planing on putting the TimeLapse Feature back on the Cam Pan V4 because it has a record option.. I told her that all cameras from WYZE have both record and Timelapse and nothing was said.
They are not “NOT” planing on doing anything with the normal movement of the camera and leaving it where you leave it when you leave the app or do not touch it for 5 seconds.. Meaning - if you are recording or watching something you have to first set a way point - then delete it when your done - because the camera will automatically move back to the home position if you don’t touch the controls after 5 seconds or leave the app.
I have my camera mounted on my roof on a 5 foot pole so that I can move the camera to the back yard - front yard - side yard - garage area - sky - sunset - sunrise - or straight up to get clouds passing over or storms coming in.. It has worked AWESOME for 3 years with the Cam Pan v3. never had to go up and adjust it or reset it or anything. I thought I was buying the same Camera as the v3 just a better camera for better HD or 4K resolution.. Not buying a camera that had less options as the V3 had. I did time lapse of storms - sunrises - sunsets - clouds - things being built in yard or working on the street out front or northern lights in the sky.. Now that option is gone… so paying 3x for the camera and loosing options isn’t worth it to me.
I understand that IF I was using it as a security camera and wanted it to snap back to the front door potition after it followed something walking by the door or the yard or whatever that is a good option , but that is it - an option… not the entire camera function..
Patrick
[Mod Note]:Your topic and associated replies were merged to this Wishlist request for better visibility and consistency in grouping similar requests. Please remember to scroll up to the top and click the VOTE button to show your support.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. I have long been upset that they didn’t include timelapse on the Floodlight Pro nor the Battery Cam Pro. It felt like we were being punished for buying a higher end “Pro” device by getting screwed out of Timelapse features. They promised us they would work to add timelapse to these devices, then ghosted us and never did so.
I am sad to see they are not adding timelapse to so many newer cameras lately. I’m sure their data stats indicate that it is a relatively rarely used feature, but even if I only use it a few times per year, it is a very treasured feature for me during those times I use it, such as when I am doing some kind of renovations, etc.
I agree with this. A home waypoint should be an option. It’s an option I prefer, because it is how I use my Pan cameras, but your example of how you like to use yours is good too.
And that is Exactly why it needs to be implemented in all Wyze Cams
Sure, their stats might show it not used everyday, that make complete sense!, I’m guessing that most folks don’t initiate a time lapse every day, but when you want to utilize the feature, its great to have it available. (On a related note, I’d love to see a means to set a reoccurring TimeLapse on a Wyze camera)
I’ll show my ignorance here, and say "They already have the code working on existing Wyze camera’s, why can’t they do a copy/paste of that code, and roll it out to the Battery Cam Pro, the Floodlight Pro, and the Cam Pan v4?
I think Wyze is missing opportunities here by removing features, such as Time Lapse from it’s new cameras. This would be an easy “Win” for Wyze to add TimeLapse to the camera’s that don’t have it.
Has anyone created a list of the Wyze Camera’s that do, and don’t have TimeLapse?
Specifically, I was referring to these points from the article:
Never underestimate habit disruption. When users build workflows or even familiar habits around your product’s specific features, removing those features breaks more than functionality, it breaks trust.
Loss aversion trumps innovation. Taking away features, even to provide something objectively better, triggers psychological resistance that modest performance improvements can’t overcome.
These are the kinds of things I believe Wyze would do well to heed during their roadmap and product planning meetings.
I’m not aware of such, and asking the AI-powered search tool in the Help Center doesn’t give a satisfactory answer. I have a vague recollection of reading a suggestion for some kind of master Cam comparison chart for looking up features, but I don’t know if anyone has ever prepared something like that or even if it would include the newest product releases. This makes me think of how some product sites allow users to select several devices and then click a “compare” button to see side-by-side specification lists, but I don’t think Wyze has any current tool like that, either.
That’s a brilliant idea! I bet a lot more people would use it then!
If I could schedule it in advance I would try to set one to always do a time lapse on Halloween, set one up to always do a time lapse on a certain camera on the 4th of July. There are times I would set a time lapse to happen everyday between certain hours of the day for a week or a month or whatever (Maybe I only want the time lapse to run during daylight hours for example or during work hours or during the hours when I plan to work on it For renovation, rather than have a lot of wasted downtime at night while I’m sleeping and not changing anything, or maybe because I want to richard a certain flower blooming in the daytime).
Recurring Time lapse would be a cool feature!
This is a great question And I have wondered the same thing. Initially I was thinking the difference was the type of operating system they are using. Originally the time lapse feature was included from one of their suppliers named Hualai. They were then able to continue to copy that firmware feature on to Future cameras that were based on the same architecture, Linux. They stopped including it on some of the newer cameras. Initially, I assumed that this was because they switched the architecture from Linux to free rtos. And my assumption was that the code did not easily copy to the new operating system and kernal as easily as they were able to do with all of the cameras that were in Linux and came through Hualai. But then, I think the OG runs on free RTOS instead of Linux, and it still has time lapse. So the problem isn’t with the OS or the kernel foundation like I originally thought. Having said that, I believe that a couple of the cameras that don’t support time lapse are what docker Wyze bridge classified as “Gwell” cameras that don’t use the tutk sdk but are instead using something like lotvid. I don’t think that should really make a difference though, since the whole process should be happening locally on the SD card and it shouldn’t matter what the authentication SDK is. I don’t know, but that’s currently my leading hypothesis.
I haven’t verified who the supplier for the pan V4 is, or whether it’s a Gwell camera or another kind or what kernal or OS or SDK. But It seems like one of those things may in some way have made it more difficult for them to add time lapse to some of the camera models. They had previously told us on some of the others that they were seriously working on adding it for those models and were at one time actively working on trying to get it implemented. Obviously there were some roadblocks that they struggled to overcome. I don’t know what they were or why, but I do know they did want to add it and we’re working on it but it wasn’t a simple integration and it was taking a lot longer than they thought. I think they finally decided that it had taken too much time and resources and so they eventually had to scrap it. My suspicion is that they will probably add Time lapse to some cameras where it’s easy to copy and paste it, and not included on the ones that it’s not easy to do so with.
I am also VERY disappointed to learn that the Wyze Cam Pam v4 has no more time lapse function. that was the MAIN use case for me, to have it record beautiful Northern Light displays over hours onto SD Card…
I was going to add it as a wishlist item, and it’s already there, slow simmering amongst the hundreds (if not thousands?) of dashed hopes & dreams
As I read through that Wishlist item, one issue that might make this not feasible, is it would require the user to manually download the Time Lapse file from the Album periodically to prevent the MicroSD card from 1. Overwriting existing Time Lapse files or 2. No longer recording any Time Lapses once the MicroSD card is full.
I don’t recall any options for notifications to remind the user to download (manually) the resulting Time Lapse file once it has completed.
We are planning to add timelapse feature back on pan v4 in the upcoming releases (I can’t promise a release version yet as we’re still developing it). We encountered some technical challenges on timelapse at the time of Pan v4 launch and we’re disappointed that we didn’t complete it in time. But we’re committed to add it back in the future releases. Please hang tight!
Thank you for sharing this! The lack of this feature with the new release seems to be one of the major disappointments I’ve read from several Forum users, so I appreciate having this comment as a source we can direct them to for some optimism.
Thanks for the update! That’s great news! You made such a really great camera!
On a related note, I know you weren’t the PM for the flood light or the battery cam Pro, what do you know if those devices are ever going to get time lapse as well? We previously had employees say they were being worked on for those devices that were originally anticipated to be ready by the end of last year, but got delayed for some reason. Do you know if those will also be brought back?
For battery cam pro and floodlight pro, I’ll be honest that we don’t have plans to support timelapse on both cameras in the foreseeable future due to prioritization. Sorry about that!
I sure hope this is true. I used my Pan v3 almost exclusively for watching the weather and doing time lapses of thunderstorms and clouds. I would have returned the v4 to Amazon if I had discovered its limitations before I threw away the box and went through the trouble of redoing the power cable (due to the change from Micro USB to USB-C).
I have two Cam Pan v4 cameras that replaced a couple of Cam Pan v3 cameras that stopped recognizing SD cards. These v4 cameras have had a rough start but the latest firmware seems to have corrected many of the issues except, there is no means of recording a timelapse segment like on the v3 Cam Pans. Has anyone else noticed this? C’mon WYZE! Bring back the timelapse.
[Mod Note]:Your topic was merged to this Wishlist request for better visibility and consistency in grouping similar requests. Please remember to scroll up to the top and click the VOTE button to show your support.
