Do anyone have any experience with how much power the Battery Pro Camera is using and how long the battery will last before it needs to be recharged. How well does it perform using its solar panel on low light winter days.
The reason I am asking, I created a remote Camera setup to monitor my home build in the country, I am using a Mobile hotspot, with a 135 Watthour battery attached to a 100-Watt solar panel to recharge the battery. I am currently using a CAM v4. As long as I have at least 8 to 10 hours with full sun and only run the camera during the day the setup will work every day and allows me to access the camera over the cellular network (hotspot) without issue. The problem comes in when there are heavy overcast skies, it appears the CAM v4 is drawing more power than the solar panel can deliver to keep the battery charged and run the camera. I know it is not the hotspot, since if I turn off the camera remotely the battery will maintain is charge level even though the hot spot is running day and night. I can get about 2 to 3 days of heavy overcast/rainy weather before the battery gets too low to keep the CAM v4 and the hotspot running.
I am curious if the Battery Pro Camera with its solar panel is able to keep the camera’s batteries charged and run camera over extended days of low light conditions such as raining. I believe I read the camera can run all night on batteries, and this assumes it can be recharged during the day and are fully charged when the sun goes down. I Originally did not go with the Battery Pro Camera since I needed a battery to provide power for the Hotspot and it would need a solar panel as well.
Any thoughts or advice, up to this point I have been very pleased with the performance of the CAM v4 it did a nice job of providing timelapse recording of the construction when we had nice sunny days.
Hopefully someone will pipe in that owns/uses one of the battery cams, but I can tell you that battery life will vary heavily based on your settings. Continuous recording will drain it quickly. Smart detections when there is a lot of motion will too.
The solar panel will power the cam and charge the battery but only to a certain extent. Multiple solar panels or a larger one will do it better. Putting a battery bank between the panel and camera can give you significantly greater battery life (depending on the size you get) but note it MUST support pass through charging. Not all battery banks do, if they are discharging, they won’t charge, and if they’re charging, they won’t power the output devices.
From what I’ve read here, the small wyze solar panel can’t fully recharge the battery cam in one day, I suppose if you had really bright sun all day and the cam isn’t used much, maybe. But there are plenty of larger panels out there with USB connectors, or you can even get adapters to plug several smaller panels together.
Sounds like for your setup, you’d be wise to look at getting a larger solar panel, and decent sized battery bank with pass through charging. This will power any of their cams, but the Battery Cam has power saving features (plus the extra internal battery for additional capacity) so that is probably a good choice, it will last longer than the others.
You may have to charge the battery bank manually from time to time if there are lots of days without sun or the solar panel is small.
I’m not positive but I think the timelapse recording will probably eat up more battery than just waiting to detect motion. Not sure if the battery cam even supports time lapse, so if that is important to you double check the specs to make sure, it may not be an option. The v4 draws less than 5 watts at 5 volts, probably in the 3-4 range on average.
Been a while since I measured it so my memory may be faulty, but I recall the V4 draws about 2 watts without the IR illuminators on. Remember that most of the Wyze cameras draw almost as much power when turned off in the app. You might look into a timer switch that kills power to the camera. If I remember, I will measure one of my V4s this evening.
No idea on the battery cameras as I don’t own any and you could not give me one.
I’m not a fan of battery cams either, but the BCP seems pretty decent compared to the older models and the doorbells, for people that have to have a battery powered cam. But at only a couple watts, with enough solar and an external battery, a v4, OG, etc may be a better solution, as long as you don’t overdo it with continuous recording or using extra features, etc.
The BCP I have connected to a 5 watt solar panel purchased from Amazon is always at 100% for the battery. Panel is exposed to good sunlight for at least 8-10 hrs a day. It is monitoring inside a shed with no electrical power. A door and 2 windows provide daylight access. Literally no on-going actvity being recorded continuously nor by event. My case is probably not a good example, just showing what a solar panel connection is capable of for the BCP.
@dave27 gave a good summation you can use as a guide for a BCP setup.
Measuring the power on one of my V4 cameras:
IR off / spotlight off: 1.05 - 1.50 watts
IR on / spotlight off: 1.35 - 1.85 watts
IR off / spotlight on: 1.95 - 2.45 watts
IT on / spotlight on: 1.85 - 2.40 watts
Is that at night? Mine fluctuates a lot during the day and I’ve seen as high as 3W with continuous SD recording during the day with motion, but I think I was also watching the live stream when it was that high.
The camera was sitting on my desk looking at some of the junk on my desk. There was essentially no motion, and I was streaming it. The WiFi access point was six or seven feet away and a direct line of sight. I was surprised that it was fluctuating that much. The measurements were made by a unknown brand USB tester.
You can keep your present setup without spending money on a battery camera, but you will have to get different battery in your equation. Your existing 135 Watt Hour battery only has 11-12 Amp Hour capacity, not enough to run the V4 for even a day with no sun. Invest in a higher capacity battery preferably a deep cycle one with at least 70 Amp Hour capacity and Bob’s your uncle.
Need some electronics help here. I have three Wasserstein solar panels with connectors for the Wyze Outdoor Camera. I wanted to repurpose one to charge the power bank in my wildlife camera. The plug won’t fully engage in the power bank, so I unsoldered the cable and soldered in a regular microUSB cable. Put the solar panel in bright sunshine yesterday for about 6 hours, and had zero volts at the connector. The 18650 cell has about 3.4 volts. Thinking I may have a bad solar panel, I put another untouched one in the sun for about 4 hours today. There is still no voltage at the connector that plugs into the WOC. I disassembled it and found about 3.4 volts at the 18650 cell, so it is charging.
I checked for power right at the board and had nothing. Again, this solar panel had never been apart.
I circled where I am checking for power at the board to eliminate a possible bad cable.
Can you describe how your measuring at your circled test points. Type of meter, reading.
Reason I’m asking is I have found interesting data about solar charging. There are websites that use govt data and your zip code to give you amount of sunlight you can expect. The disclaimer is always “direct sunlight”.
We live in the bay area and when I last checked for December the potential was reduced from 8 hours a day (June) to less than 4 hours (December).
When I last tested, if the panel was not aimed almost perfectly, the panel dropped from charging at approx 10 watts to basically zero (it was trickle charging), less than a watt on my Drok USB tester.
You might try reversing your test. Bring the panel inside cell side down, see if the battery test drops from 3.4 volts.
What I personally find interesting is the Wasserstein has a battery. This may or may not imply that the input to the battery may be regulated. If so the Wasserstein description does not promote this feature. I have not seen a regulated array in this price range.
I’ve been looking for a regulated solar array that supports fast charging. Next month when my “discretionary income” recharges (pun intended) I may get a Wasserstein array.
Honestly I wouldn’t trust anything like that for very low/precise readings. They’re good for a ballpark. Even the Klein tester that can be gotten for around $20 is probably +/- 10%-20% or so (which is decent, but certainly not precision). Usually the precision gets much worse near the low and high end of their ranges.
Not knowing their design, that battery may simply be there to help regulate the voltage and absorb any excess. I’m guessing the solar panel won’t actually put out any voltage unless it is in the sun. Try measuring that same point when in direct sunlight. It probably has a voltage activated switch where it cuts off the output below that voltage and turns it on once back above.
