Ok…I discovered a strange glitch with my Front Porch V4 cam. It’s powered by a Lamp Socket V2 and set to turn on the porch light from sunset to sunrise. I have a detection zone set to prevent my flag from causing any motion alerts and I have motion tagging (green box) turned ON.
Check out the video clip. Sunrise at my location was 7:26 am Central. The V4 cam started flashing the porch light on and off starting at around 6:25 am and the flashing continues for roughly 1 minute before it seems to give up and the light stays off (should stay on until sunrise). I have motion activation for the lamp socket toggled OFF.
I think the light turned off an hour earlier than it should have based on your time zone, so maybe Lamp Socket v2 doesn’t know where it is and what time it’s supposed to be. The video appears to show the Cam v4 toggling between standard and Color Night Vision, leading me to think that you have Night Vision Mode set to Auto. The Cam is sensing ambient light at its auto-switching threshold, so it’s taking a while to “decide” which mode it wants to stick to while ambient light slowly increases prior to actual sunrise. Then it stays on color mode (e.g., night vision off).
The bulb you’re controlling with Lamp Socket v2 isn’t actually switching on and off in the video clip you shared, though it probably would do that if you had motion-activated light enabled for the socket and set to trigger on All Motion.
I thought about the time zone thing, but I haven’t made any changes and the Sunset to Sunrise settings work fine except when this issue arises.
I believe the location / time zone info is correct. The camera is definitely toggling back and forth between standard and color night vision. I guess I assumed the light was turning on and off to cause that.
Maybe the location settings are getting corrupted somehow and then being restored on lamp socket reset?
I think you’re probably right about location and time zone being correct for you, your mobile device(s), and your Wyze account. For whatever reason, I think some Wyze devices struggle with time-based functions—and I’ve commented on this elsewhere because it’s a frustration for me—even when I have my home’s physical address set in the app at Account ➜ Home. When I have tried to use something like Vacation Mode on my “v1” Wyze Plugs and Bulb Colors, those devices have always turned on and off outside the times they’re supposed to (middle of the day and middle of the night), but my 2023 Version (“v2”) Bulb Colors and Plug Outdoors work as expected.
Yeah, I think that’s what your video shows, not the actual bulb turning on and off.
This is what I’m thinking for options:
If you haven’t already done this, then I’d consider submitting a log from the app and then following that up by opening a ticket that includes the Log ID you generate.
You could also try something like a factory reset of Lamp Socket v2, but I don’t know if that would “fix” what that device “thinks” its time is or not.
If Wyze would fully develop Automations capabilities for Lamp Socket v2 (like we’ve requested in the Wishlist) so that you could use real Automations to control when the inserted bulb turns on and off, then you could try setting your schedule there to see if that makes a difference. I don’t know if it would or not, but that’s impossible to test at this time.
I wish I had a better answer for you. I still think the socket’s time is off somehow. I just don’t know how or where, or even if you can fix this or if it’s going to require a remedy from Wyze on the back end or in firmware. That’s where submitting a log and opening a ticket might poke the engineers.
It’s kind of a pain in the dong. They used to have a full-page ticket submission form, but they removed that from the Help Center sometime in summer 2024, I think, when they were making changes to funnel customers more into automated solutions like the chatbot. What I usually do is tell the bot create ticket. Sometimes I have to do this more than once. At some point the bot should present you with a minimalistic form where you can enter your name, e-mail address, and issue description. For “Description”, I usually give a single-sentence summary and include the Log ID. You should see a confirmation of e-mail ticket creation within a few minutes, and this is likely followed by another e-mail message from the Wyze-E bot. I usually wait until Wyze-E responds and then reply to that message with more detail about my issue, including any troubleshooting I’ve already attempted. A human agent should reply after that.
Getting the Log ID is a good start!
Good thought. That’s something else I didn’t consider, but I think that’s worth trying.
I know it’s just a workaround and the lamp socket V2 is still not properly identifying my location, but I’m pleased to have it doing what I want it to do.
I may still pursue creating a ticket using your excellent instructions.
You’re welcome. I’m glad you figured out a work-around to get this functioning sort of the way you want, and thanks for taking the time to post an update.
I haven’t personally tried using this mode with any sort of schedules (the Ambient Light setting), but I still think that’s probably in need of a fix, and with the 1-hour offset I wonder if there’s a flaw in the way Wyze addresses (or fails to address) Daylight Saving Time changes with that device.
Since Lamp Socket v2 has its own Wi-Fi connection, I still hope that they’ll build out Automations support and also let us name sockets someday, because that would give these even greater flexibility, including scheduling lighting on/off in third-party integrations if they do it the way I think they should.
