I set up a brand new cam v4 to monitor a nestbox. It works fine for the most part, however I have a really annoying issue. When it get dark and camera switches to night mode, it turns on the IR lights. Then, every 9 minutes, the IR light goes of for a second, then comes back on. The sudden light change triggers the motion alert. There is no other movement as nestbox is empty (see video, I get a 10-12s one just like that every 9 minutes)
As it happens at very regular intervals it seems to be an issue with the camera. Unfortunately I can’t use smart alert feature to filter that out as there is no “bird” one and it wouldn’t pick up events I’m interested in (about 5-10% of bird detections get tagged as pet but that is not enough for me). I also need to save transfer as this camera is in remote location and on metered network.
Any idea what might cause that and is there a way to resolve it?
In addition to trying Night Vision Mode with Night Vision IR Lights (toggled OFF), I wonder what you could do about the camera’s position or the box construction to reduce or (hopefully) completely eliminate the glare from the IR LEDs. Although the event video you shared doesn’t show the view with the IR lights off for the second you’re reporting, it does look like there’s direct glare/reflection from the IR that the camera’s lens is detecting, and it shouldn’t be seeing that, so I don’t know what’s causing the reflection. That’s something I’d definitely try to eliminate.
I don’t know what’s causing the periodic light change (IR momentarily turning off). If you’ve determined that it happens at a regular interval, then I’d be inclined to submit a log and create a ticket referencing the Log ID in case this is a previously unreported issue that Wyze should explore. In the meantime, I’d explore possible solutions to reduce the direct IR glare into the lens to see if that mitigates the “Complete Motion Detected” events/notifications.
It’s a solid wood nest box with a 30mm hole for an opening. At night there is no sunlight coming in through the hole. How do you expect night vision to work with no light? I did try it though and the result is, as expected, a black screen. Since I want to see what’s happening inside the box at night as well, I need it to be illuminated.
Camera positioning in the box is not really an issue for me, while there is glare from the IR light, the areas that are overexposed are not if interest to me and will be cropped out later. What matters to me is that at the bottom of the box the IR LEDs provide near perfect light levels and video quality is very good. The glare is a trade-off I can live with but I’m not sure it can explain the IR LED blackouts.
I checked the video playback and the blackout is actually closer to 10s, followed by a couple of seconds of white screen after the LEDs turn on, then a “motion” detection (which is in fact a rapid change in brightness). It happens regularly, every 9-10 minutes from the moment the sunlight is no longer available.
Here is a video of a complete blackout cycle. As I mentioned earlier, the camera is in a remote location, on a fairly slow, metered network, so the recording I made on my phone is quite choppy but you can see what happens:
The IR LEDs are on for ~9 minutes
The LEDs go off for ~10 seconds and the image turns black (there is no other light source)
The IR LEDs turn back on, the screen is overexposed for ~2-3s, the image brightness is then adjusted and “complete motion” is detected.
This cycle repeats regularly every 9-10 minutes from dusk to dawn
I guess what I was really trying to understand is if you could possibly make some modification to the box to reduce IR reflectivity to the lens, like if you were aiming the camera through a pane of glass or polycarbonate or other transparent reflective material that could be masked or altered. Now I think what I’m seeing is that the IR LEDs are so close to the sides of the box that it’s actually the interior box sides that are reflecting the light back, like I’ve seen in some doorbell camera installations when they’re angled and/or too close to a perpendicular edge. Does that seem accurate?
I wouldn’t expect it to, and that’s not what I was suggesting at all. I still don’t know what’s causing the IR LEDs to switch off periodically, but I think the new video you uploaded provides some clarification about what’s happening, so that seems helpful. Thank you for sharing that!
With the clicking sounds and what happens to the picture, I think that the camera is switching to “Color Night Vision” (i.e., Night Vision Mode is Off, for all practical purposes for a few seconds), so you hear the camera’s IR filter moving out of and back into place for that adjustment, and the IR LEDs turn off and then back on at that time.
I think I’d still submit a log and open a ticket, because I’ve never seen this specific issue before, and I would expect a log to at least tell the engineers what’s happening with this camera, even if the Wyze Wizards from Support can’t. I’d probably also consider some other options:
I suspect that you have Night Vision Mode set to Auto. Is that correct? If that’s the case and you want to continue to use that setting, then I’d try seeing if there’s a difference between setting Night Vision Conditions to Dark vs. Dusk. I wonder if something else is happening at night to provide just enough illumination to periodically trigger “Color Night Vision” if the visible light gets above the threshold of whatever option is currently selected. I imagine it’s that or something flaky is happening with your camera, which I would expect a log to reveal to Wyze.
Set Night Vision Mode to On and just leave it on. You’ll lose your daytime color and everything will be greyscale, but I would expect that to just leave the IR LEDs on all the time. I think it’s worth testing even if you don’t end up using that setting.
Provide alternate IR illumination to the box and toggle your Night Vision IR Lights setting OFF. That would definitely require some modification to your setup, so whether or not something like that would be worth the effort is something you’d have to decide.
I don’t see anything in the public documentation for Cam v4 firmware releases that’s specifically related to IR, but Wyze doesn’t post the most detailed release notes and often says just “Bug fixes”. Still, I’d probably make sure the camera is current with firmware, and I imagine you’ve already done that.
This is an interesting problem. I’m curious to see what a solution might be.
This is not a thermal camera and will not work based on body heat. The IR diodes in the camera are at around 940 nm, Thermal IR is around 30-100 nm and is most certainly not visible on the camera. You can easily test that by setting a camera in dark room, turning off the lights with IR LEDs on the camera off and then waving your hand in front of the camera. To see thermal radiation you need a thermal camera.
Thanks for the reply. Like I said - don’t worry about the IR glare on the sides, it’s invisible to animals and can be cropped out later as all the action happens at the bottom of the box.
Regarding night vision modes - I tried them all, there is no difference, probably because after sunset there is virtually zero light inside the box. Dusk or dark, the results are identical.
I’ve considered two solutions you mentioned - having night vision permanently on is an option but I really don’t want to miss on the colours, particularly since the image is really quite good with the little amount of light coming in through the entrance when sun is up.
An alternative IR light would probably work but I would have to find one that is weak enough so that it doesn’t cause overexposure. The biggest issue though is that if I start modifying the box now it will likely cause birds to abandon it, which I would like to avoid.
Regardless, I have submitted a ticket to the support team and we will see what they have to say.
I don’t blame you. I’ve also been impressed with what the “Color Night Vision” on these cameras is capable of capturing, so I wouldn’t want to lose that, either.
I hope Support gives you a good answer that allows you to achieve your goal for this setup!
Given how small the area is, why not cover all but 1 or 2 of the IR LEDs with electrical tape or whatever. That should still give plenty of light and hopefully reduce the glare enough to stop confusing the camera.
Those 4 white spots are almost certainly what is causing it to turn off night mode, it is probably reading those as true light since they are so strong. So another option is to try and add something to block that reflection. But I’d try trimming down to 1 or 2 LEDs and see if that solves it.
Some animals definitely can sense strong IR light and even if not, the LEDs put out a bit of visible red, so reducing the IR will probably make the box more desirable for them anyway.
I’m not even sure if using an external/separate IR illuminator will help, some have found the exact same thing happens when they do that, it depends on the wavelength and brightness of the illuminator you get, and most of them are going to be extremely bright for such a small space.
If the glare was the cause, it would cycle back and forth between day and night mode. Instead it briefly goes into day mode every 9 minutes.
Regarding the light intensity - there are in fact several reason why strong light is beneficial, most important one being more light = less noise in the video.
Birds generally cannot see beyond 700 nm so it’s unlikely they can be bothered by the IR light. Then can, however, see into the UV spectrum, which in itself is very interesting.
No, the glare and what you’re reporting make perfect sense. If the entire picture was glare (washed out white) it would switch to day almost immediately. But your 4 dots are causing it to slowly reach the threshold and switch. However when it switches, it goes totally dark/black, causing it to immediately switch back to night. People see the same effect with windows and other reflective surfaces, this is very common with many camera brands.
Eliminate or reduce that glare, your problem will go away. The LEDs are designed to illuminate a huge area, I’m willing to bet that reducing to 1 or 2 LEDs will still provide plenty of light in that small enclosure, and less red dots is less interference with the animals. IR illuminators are not perfect, they will leak light above and below the IR range, so there is definitely sub 700nm light being put out, you can see it just by looking at the LEDs, if it reaches into the visible spectrum, it is obviously putting out light below 700, and the closer to the IR range it gets, the brighter that light will be.
