I really want to love the Wyze products, but am really struggling to do so.
My needs are simple… I wanted a solution that would monitor the perimeter of my house for unwanted visitors (human and animal) and if one was spotted, I wanted the lights to on and for me to be notified. So, I researched products and services and settled on Wyze because of the products and services they offered and because they are an engineering firm so I thought the products would keep getting better.
What I find myself with is a constant headache because I cannot get the products to act in unison and deliver my requirements outlined above.
I finally got the cameras to act the way I wanted, but the lights are constantly going off with no notification of motion by the cameras. It is extremely frustrating.
Can someone please offer up configuration settings for both the cameras and the floodlights to deliver what I need? I have attached screenshots of my current camera and floodlights. They are all set the same. I have four floodlights, two of which I have added additional cameras to to provide different angles.
Also, does anyone have a solution to allow family members to turn the floodlights off and on without having the app on their phones? Or with the apps on their phones but not having to provide a major training class to allow them to operate them?
This is a great community and I’m sure you will find lots of users willing to help you with your settings and configuration.
Could you clarify a few things first, to help us help you.
Do you want ALL the Wyze floodlights to turn on when any of them detect motion, or just the one that detected motion?
Do you want to use AI filters like person, vehicle, etc, or just any motion?
And for allowing others to turn on and off the light, the only current way I know of is via the app. If you get your family members setup with an account and install the app, you should be able to share the floodlight with them and they can view the live view and hit the little floodlight icon above the live view to turn the light on and off. That should be pretty easy to show them, as long as they don’t need any other functionality out of the app.
Just taking a look at what you have posted for that one cam and Floodlight, a couple of things stand out…
Your floodlight is currently only being activated by Rules and Schedules since the Floodlight Control is set to Off which I will assume also disables the PIR activation of the Floodlight. I will assume, based on your stated use requirements, that there are no schedules. Do you have rules programmed?
You stated you wanted the Floodlight to turn on and you receive a Push Notification for Vehicles. But, you aren’t recording any Vehicle Events in your Smart Detection settings even though the Vehicle Notifications is toggled.
You have the cam set to record Sound Events. Do you also want push notifications and Floodlight activation for Sound Events?
The number of motion events that are sent to the server for AI processing is affected by your Cam Sensitivity. What is that set to?
Note that Floodlight activation based on Rules triggered by AI events is going to be substantially slower than activation based on cam sensed motion or PIR sensed motion. This is because the video has to be uploaded, interrogated on the server, tagged, and then rules triggered back down to the cam and Floodlight when the notification is sent.
There are no schedules but there is a rule that the light will go on if the camera senses motion - doesn’t work. Also, I turned all the floodlights off because they were all on “Auto” but were going off with no motion detected.
That is my backyard camera. If there are vehicles back there, I have bigger challenges than my floodlights not working
I don’t want sound detection on. I may turn that on later once I get everything else working.
Cam sensitivity varies by camera. I tested that over a period of a couple months so that my notifications of wind and rain would stop. Again, I only want to be notified of intruders.
If I could get this to work without rules, I would be thrilled, but I could not get Cam motion or PIR motion detection to work properly.
Any input, recommendations or comments are greatly appreciated. I am committed to making this work!
Not sure this rule will work when you have the “All Motion Events” toggled off in the Event Recording. You are only recording tagged Smart Detection Events to the cloud. You should be able to leave the Event Recording settings as they are and build a rule to activate the floodlight for X min when a Person is detected (another rule for Vehicle, another rule for Pet).
Record Sound Events is on for the cam above.
The only way you can restrict the floodlight to coming on for Person, Vehicle, and pets is by use of the rules. If you use the Cam Motion to activate, all motion will activate it (bugs, shadows, rain, trees, etc.) If you use the PIR only to activate, any heat source will turn the light on.
So based on this advice, can you recommend proper settings for both the camera and the floodlight? I would be happy to set up rules for everything after that.
Honestly, @Rulwiz went thru Heck and back dialing in their Floodlight and has a lot of experience testing how it reacts in different situations. And, as they indicated, because the Floodlight has a Passive IR sensor and the cam has Active IR emitters when in IRNV, it is very easy for the cam emitters to overwhelm the PIR sensor when they are on.
So team, based on all this, what should the settings be on my camera and floodlight to give me the end-result I am looking for? Looking to take your overall advice and test it tomorrow night.
I want to know how I should set my camera and floodlight configurations to best achieve the following response and minimize the minutia and/or all other alerts…
I want to monitor the perimeter of my house for unwanted visitors (person, pet, vehicle) and if one was spotted, I want to be alerted and if it is dark, I want the lights to go on for a period of 10 - 20 minutes.
I can’t help with floodlight settings, but I can share my setup as I feel my needs are similar to the OP’s. I have 100 watt LEDs in my exterior fixtures outside my garage. They are bright enough for my needs and use little watts. My dog needs a potty break before bedtime and in the morning. That is my on and off reminder. My v3 cameras record bunnies, cats and of course people. I feel having the bright lights on all night long is a deterrent against people coming on to my property at night.
I do have Cam Plus, but do not use rules for anything but floodlights. It sounds like you are recommending to not use rules though and play around with the sensitivity sensors, correct?
