Window Cams - Is there a way to eliminate the glare from car headlights or the neighbors front porch lights? The glare is so bad it blocks out the camera picture. I have tried all sensitivity settings to no avail. Would window anti glare film help?
Would you feel comfortable sharing an example image that illustrates what you’re seeing? I see that you’ve tagged your topic for Window Cam, which has a front-facing status LED (so I’d want to be sure to turn that off at Settings ➜ Advanced Settings ➜ Camera Status Light ) but no IR lights that would cause glare or reflections at night. I mention that because IR for typical “night mode” is often a cause of glare when other Wyze Cam models are used, so I think it’s important to rule that out whenever these sorts of questions arise. Visuals in general can also help generate ideas, I think.
Do you have a firm and flat mount with the Mounting Sticker that’s included with Window Cam? That’s supposed to impede troublesome light reflection.
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All kidding aside, unfortunately that’s going to be a limitation of looking through glass especially at a totally flat/parallel angle. Most modern glass has a coating to reflect sun, and that creates a glare when any light hits it. An anti-glare film may help, hard to say, I guess it depends how severe it is (and how much impact it has on your image).
Not sure which cam you have but if you can get it at an angle to the glass, it should help. Or maybe there is a different window you can use?
Here is a sample of the glare from the neighbors houses. When a car passes its glare is worse than what you see here
Thanks for the image! ![]()
That looks tricky for a couple of reasons:
- You appear to be shooting through a screen, which isn’t great for the image.
- I think Window Cam’s full-time Color Night Vision has been tuned to gather even more light (or the image processing is different or both) compared to previous Cams, so those direct light sources that the Cam is seeing probably appear even more prominent and pronounced than they would if you were using something like a regular old Cam OG.
I honestly don’t know if an anti-glare film would help with that or not. You could try it, but there’s so much variability there that I wouldn’t even try to predict what your results might be. You could also consider using a different Cam for that location and, as @dave27 suggested, you can see if a different window gives you a more acceptable picture. Since Window Cam includes only 2 Mounting Stickers and Wyze has not yet made replacement stickers available as accessories (AFAIK), you could maybe try what another user suggested in the announcement topic and use removeable electrostatic film with your remaining Mounting Sticker to see how the Cam performs in different windows.
I’ll be interested to see what others suggest.
Definitely less glare without the screen which makes sense.
“Color night vision” amplifies ambient light, so bright lights will be bright no matter what, and you can’t adjust that (the camera will adjust exposure automatically somewhat). But having glass in the path will add glare on top of that, and potentially even stop the cam from being able to adjust the exposure properly. There are definitely disadvantages to cameras pointing through glass, but your image without the screen looks fairly usable.
If this is an outdoor rated cam and the window opens, you can mount the cam outside the window and run the flat cable in through the window. That’s how all mine are and I have not problem closing and even locking the windows.
Simply a problem of physics. You have a light source that is massively brighter than the rest of the image. In order for the camera to show anything except black for the rest of the image, the bright lights are going to be blown out. Here are two images taken from a Wyze V3 and a substantially better (and a lot more expensive) Lorex 4K camera of my front yard. The two cameras are mounted right next to each other under the eves and not looking through anything except air. The bright light is a spotlight that is illuminating the flags that are partially visible in the top center of the image - so the spotlight is darn near point right at the cameras. There is also a streetlight across the street. You can see the two cameras deal with the image a little differently, but they both have the spotlight blown out.
In part (1) of your triptych, I imagine you’re correct about the screen being a less significant issue with daylight, but I think at night when you have more focal light sources the screen is acting like a sort of diffuser and making the flare/glare even worse than it would be without the screen in front of the camera lens. I agree with @dave27 that part (2) is a more acceptable image.
Window Cam is not.
I think the core of this issue is having realistic expectations of what particular Wyze Cams can do, deciding what’s acceptable for a given use case, and matching the right Cam and location.
Yeah I wasn’t sure if this was actually the window cam or if they just chose that tag due to the subject matter.
That’s how this topic is tagged, and I wasn’t corrected when I specifically commented on it before, so I’m proceeding as if that’s the actual Cam in question. ![]()
Yeah, then it is just a matter of what that particular cam is capable of, there will be sacrifices looking through glass, especially with the screen (diffuser as you say) in the way.
Anti glare film can be found relatively cheap, might be worth a shot, however since most of those films rely on polarizing light, it might cause other issues with the cam, both day and night (since image sensors are also polarized). May need to try positioning the film one way, then at 90 degrees, though I suspect both will interfere to a certain extent.
That’s a good thought about trying different orientations if a polarizing film is used. I mentioned variability with those films earlier, and that’s definitely one of them to consider.
Interesting results. I got a new camera and the glare is NOT as bad. You can see that in the attached graphic. I still plan on the anti glare film if I can find some.
It’s difficult to tell with such a small image, but I wonder if the older Cam had something on the lens that was causing it to diffuse light more than the newer Cam. Detail in the “New Camera” image appears to be a bit sharper than that in the “Old Camera” image, like the older one is more blurry, which could also be associated with more light diffusion, I think.
I couldn’t have said it any better than what you did. I am not done testing but it may take awhile. Thanks for your input.
I’m just speculating, but I appreciate that you’ve taken the time to share some comparison images. ![]()
Good luck with your testing!
The images are different, one has a large dark object on the right which is going to cause the cam to calibrate to a higher sensitivity.
That is not the same view so it is hard to say the new camera is better. Need to compare apples to apples. Your dark portion on the right is probably opening up the sensor causing the brighter lights.
The cameras were side by side. There will be a slight deviation of angles but nothing that is severe. Look at the center glare that is the true test and there is a difference,




