A few days ago, at about 3am the image from my OG camera turned purple.
I’ve got the latest firmware, I cold booted the camera but no change.
Night vision is on Auto.
If I turn it to ON, it all goes to black and white and purple goes away.
Is this camera dying?
Since you said that you have Night Vision Mode set to Automatic, my first inclination is that the IR filter is stuck. Some things you could try:
Is it doing it only when dark or all the time?
your ir cut filter is stuck. get a powerful magnet and slide it around on the sides of the camera until it fixes the picture.
on the v1, v2, and v3, the top of the camera was the place to put the magnet. not sure about the OG
This isn’t necessarily the case any more, in low light conditions some of the cams show a purple hue, the v3 with recent firmware specifically seems to suffer but I’ve seen it on my OGs a tad too.
If it is purple even when light out then yes probably stuck IR filter, if it is only when it is pretty dark and hasn’t switched to night mode, then it is more likely the issue mentioned above.
Thanks for the tips!
The camera is high up and a little hard to get to but I will definitely try the magnet trick!
Thanks again!
All the time.
OK that’s the IR filter being stuck then.
Before climbing up to it, try unplugging the power for a bit (or turning off the breaker), and if that doesn’t do it, cycle night mode on and off a few times. That may be enough to unstick it.
Oh, yeah. I didn’t think of that one. Good thought. 
I saw this thread a few days ago and said to self, I’ve seen that happen. The advice given was good, no need to get involved.
Up until tonight it has happened twice to my OG-T that was installed about 6 months ago. And there is no doubt it is purple. I was able to clear it by cycling Night Vision Mode a few times. I did not know at the time about the magnet solution. Cold boot or cam restart didn’t work.
Then it just happened to me again at about 7pm PDT. I was able to cure it by cycling Night Vision Mode.
In all three cases it was dark. The previous 2 events I do not know when it got stuck.
In the event that just happed I had just turned off the lights were it is located, walked to my office, checked my cam group before calling it a day. There it was - - - bright purple.
2 events in 6 months typically doesn’t raise my concern. 3 events in 6 months is getting close to my “worry meter”.I have many months of warranty left. If it gets to be once a month I’ll replace it.
I’m documenting this in case others can chime in.
BTW, I have a OG that has never seen this issue.
My guess is you’ll end up needing to get it replaced, something in there is causing friction or the electromagnet has lost some power. It is probably just a little piezo that can’t deal with much resistance.
I haven’t torn one of these apart (though @Seapup probably has) to know whether the electromagnet is constantly on during night mode and a spring moves the filter back after, or if they use opposing voltages to pull and push the filter. But either way, seems like something is preventing it from retracting reliably.
The fact that you’re seeing the purple says that it probably went into night mode, then back out and the filter didn’t move out of the way. If you weren’t seeing purple all day, then I’m guessing your cam may cycle in and out of night mode more than you know (the area has just enough ambient light to be on the threshold). Maybe that has worn on it.
Or my other guess is that the filter moving into place is what tells the cam to switch to night mode, so maybe it isn’t pulling fully into place and tripping that contact, and gets stuck there, like 90% of the way in place or whatever, so you’re seeing the purple but the cam doesn’t switch to black and white.
It was looking promising that they might add “turn on night mode” to the automations so we could do it based on time or motion instead of whatever threshold is built into the firmware, but seems to have died off. I would like to do that to cut down on the bugs near one of my Panv3s. It has enough ambient light to detect motion, just not show a face well, so having motion turn on night mode (or the IR lights even) would be a nice feature and reduce it constantly tracking bugs around. Though it has captured some pretty startling “Mothra” shots.
You were spot on.
Purple Mode
After toggling Night Mode a few times
Finally turned off Night Mode. There is a night light in the garage. You were right. I caught it cycling every few seconds before I turned Night Mode off.
Time permitting I might open it up and see what is sticking. Will replace with a v4😁
Yeah if it was cycling constantly it has probably caused some etching somewhere or maybe just used up whatever lubrication is in there. A dab of white lithium or silicoe grease may do the trick if you open it up. Obviously need to get it so the night light isn’t causing the cam to cycle constantly.
Or if the night light provides sufficient illumination for the Starlight Sensor, then just set Night Vision Mode to Off. That would prevent the cycling, and that’s how I use my Cam Pan v3s.
Since I posted this earlier today I realized this event was with my OG, not OG-T. That means I have seen the purple event on both my OG and OG-T. The OG-T is about 6 months old, the OG about 3 months old
Yea, I’ve turned off Night Mode until I decide if I’m going to void the warranty. BTW, a simple night light gives off enough photons for the starlight sensor to work well.
That’s been my experience with Cam Pan v3. The only place I’m using a Wyze Cam with night vision currently is a Cam OG in the garage set to Automatic because it gets dark out there (and I haven’t provided additional illumination), and so far (
) I haven’t seen any IR filter sticking.
I have two OGs that go into night mode daily, so far no sticking. My OGT never goes into night mode as it is outside with streetlights lighting the area.
Possibly outdoor ones are more likely to stick (humidity and temperature etc) but if they’re cycling a lot, that would definitely be something that could wear things out. I do have an outdoor Panv3 that goes into night mode every day and it has never stuck. All the OGs are about 1.5 years old, so probably 500 cycles at least on the two that do go into night mode.
If you do decide to open it up, I’d probably think standard white lithium grease (easy does it) would probably be fine. But if you want to buy a tube, look for “super lube” which is a very pure silicone grease. I use it in a lot of electronics and it doesn’t gum up and dry out over time like the white ones do.
There was actually a PTFE (teflon) impregnated silicone lube I used to use but it got crazy expensive and hard to find, and honestly for the stuff I use it for, the difference isn’t significant enough to matter. Though in this case, if there are in fact scores or scratches/wear, the PTFE might fill those (as would a grease with moly in it, though that’s typically very thick automotive type grease). I’m guessing silicone or a light white lithium would probably fill them in fine too or at least reduce the friction enough where they won’t matter. That’s assuming it isn’t a worn out spring or magnet causing the issue (in which case, lubing it up could still help).
Lets say lube a few more times…
