How do I cut down on the number of triggers caused by flying insects which seem attracted to the IR light. I am not using the little spotlight. It was worse when the IR is set to far, but I get some with near as well, along with rain drops causing streaks of light. I have the sensitivity set to 40. This is a new V3, outdoors but sheltered under a roof overhang.
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Welcome to the Wyze User Community Forum @dknapp1117!
When the IR emitters are on, the cam face is pumping out IR light. Its either the IR, the heat from the cams or the red visible light from the emitters that attracts them.
In any case, because the bugs and raindrops are so close, they blast back that IR reflection into the cam and cause false motion activations and false AI tags.
Option 1: turn off IRNV and go to Color Night vision if there is enough ambient light. If not, you might add some ambient light with some distant night light or small string of dim LED lights away from the cam.
Option 2: (what I did) install IR “blaster” floodlights or spotlights away from the cam, leave IRNV on but turn off the IR emitters. IR spotlights and floodlights can be found online in a wide range if styles, prices, and strengths.
Option 2 sounds good. I doubt that color night vision would work. The location is far in the country with no ambient light unless there’s a bright moon. When it gets colder the insects will go away, but they will be back in the summer.
Thank you for the explanation.
dknapp1117
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If you are in a country, even with bright fool moon, there is not enough ambient light to have a decent video quality. I’m getting emitters for my cams at the cottage, not for bugs but to extend field of view.
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I am sure you will do your research first, but make sure to dig deep into the bandwidth, range, and width of field on the emitters you buy.
I bought some pretty high rated emitters with a significant range and great adjustibility, but their field width and spread is not sufficient for what I really wanted. Mine act more like spotlights than floodlights. They reach out there, but they have a highly focused “hotspot” in the center which tends to wash out the center of the cam view. Because the cams electronically adjust the white balance brightness if the image from the massive IR spotlight in the center of the frame, the edges of the cam field of view suffer in darkness. I have compensated by adjusting my IR spotlights to greatly overshoot my field.
Thanks for the advise, I’ll definitely do my research as I’m not planning to add them until summer. To cold and snowy now stand on a ladder and play around with toys 
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I just started my search for lights. I need a wide angle to cover the parking of a two car garage, not a very long distance. I see on Amazon lots of lights that fail quickly. I don’t need a battery light, as the building has power. I was thinking of mounting the light at the peak of the roof overlooking the parking area. The camera is at the left corner of the left side of the area. I don’t want a visible white light and an 850 should be OK. So, a flood light rather than a spot light.
Any brand suggestions?
I wouldn’t know as I haven’t started my research 
There is another thing to consider, rain and snow. This morning there was a blizzard at the cottage. I got 17 person alerts from 5:30AM to 7:00AM. That is when I turned the alerts off, It was snow blowing in front of the camera. All alerts came from one camera, the other two were not affected.
I have only tried the one brand I purchased and they are more like spotlights so I can’t really recommend them as floodlights. I also ruled out some models for reports of early failure. On my next purchase, I am going to filter by 4 star and above reviews and look for units that have a significant heat sink to prolong bulb life as these do produce heat, especially those with many bulbs.
You can repurpose an old Wyze Cam for less than an IR blaster for your scenario. I use old Cam v2s for 850 nm. Set NV to Auto, NVIR to On, Event Recording to Off, Notifications to Off. Cam will simply serve as an IR source, record nothing and not notify.
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I don’t have any of those, but it did give me an idea. I have an ancient bullet camera that might work. I will try to play with that. If I can get it power, the ir might work.
Thank you.
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IR illumination is usually more focused/not as wide, but those do work very well. 
They are also typically much brighter so it’s best to mount far from your v3 to draw insects away from your cam and also prevent contrast blowouts.
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I won’t have a chance to try it out for a week or so due to the holidays. Thanks for the update.
DK
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Snow is triggering mine. Suggestions?
I haven’t experienced snow with mine yet, but fine mist\fog will do it.
- Reduce Sensitivity
- Turn off Night Vision so the IR turns off and try them in Color Night Vision.
Hi…i need to be able to detect a groundhog (as pet). Do i need ir night vision on?
It is on now, and picking up millions of flying insects.
(which also make it pan around like crazy).
Granted, the ground hog is mostly active in the daylight hours, but i wouldn’t mind catching the occasional raccoon (or human!)
Any advice?
Thank you.
Probably IR lights attracting bugs. Can you try turning Night Vision off and lighting up the area within camera view?
I could try that, but does that mean it will not be as good at seeing anything else in the dark?
Also, there are many settings available, which are not very well defined…
Like Night Vision IR Lights, far, near, it off. Talks about wavelengths, and close range or far range … But what does close and far actually mean in feet?
I am way back of the street, so have on street light to provide any light at night.
It’s easy enough to test if bugs are attracted, but not easy to test it’s behavior for animals, as i don’t know when the next raccoon will matter on by!
Thx for the suggestion.
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First, you might want to try Reply All, as your message only got me and not the others on this thread.
In my experience, IR can be seen by insects, whether or not humans can see it. Not sure about animals. Coyotes are pretty shy and seem to be able to see IR at night, although I usually use the visible IR range. Insects do trigger the camera when they fly right up to the lens. Spiders creeping over the camera will do the same. A cheap camera, like what we get with Wyze products, won’t afford the sensitivity that a good game camera will provide.
On your question about distances. Just try some experiments, walk around while you track the distances.
I have a Wyze, a Browning game camera and a Blink camera. The Browning is the best, but it costs upwards of $200 and has no way to communicate the way the Blink and Wyze cameras do. The Blink is probably the best, but it, day or night, is not sensitive enough to pick up any movement until the object, like a car, gets to about 30 feet. But, you will have to deal with many false alarms if you pump up the sensitivity. Clouds, waving leaves/branches/flowers will all trigger false alarms. The Browning can pick up squirrels during the day, but I have to walk out to get the chip to see what it captured. Some of the game cameras come with a cell service that can communicate with other cameras and notify you. Those are getting into the $300 range and need cell service. The Wyze and Blink have never picked up small animals at night, although they do get dogs during the day. For my purposes they only need to get cars coming onto the property. Those pics are not good enough to read license plates, as the IR gets overwhelmed by the headlights.
If you can funnel the animals to get them closer to the camera, the Blink will pick up raccoon-size critters. I have a neighbor that sends me raccoon pics captured by his Blink, but they are within 20-30 feet of the camera.
Regards,
Dave K
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