How bad is it to frequently cut power to the wyze cam?

Cameras
,
1

Hi,

I have a wyze pan cam v3 I would like to set up to see the inside of the house when I’m at work. I dont want it on when I’m at home and while it has a privacy mode I would feel more comfortable to just cut the power to it. I can either put it in privacy mode (off) first and cut the power or just cut the power. How bad would it be for the camera to do that at least once a day ?

1 Like
2

It depends on a lot of different factors, but I know of people who have been cutting power to their wyze cams every single day for years and haven’t had a problem. They do it because it clears any potential memory leak issues and refreshes the Memory/RAM.

So, overall it’s probably fine, but know that in general electronics don’t particularly like this, and it is probable that it could reduce the overall lifespan of the device.

On the other hand, cutting the power to the device is actually probably less stressful on the device than having the motor continually pan-scan and move around constantly like other people do and as it was designed to be able to do. So comparing to that, what you want to do is almost definitely better for the camera than how other people use it.

I would say the non-exhaustive best options for the health of the camera are in this order:

  • Rarely to never use the camera at all (camera never gets any wear)
  • Camera stays in the same position but doesn’t ever move around (motor isn’t wearing the camera down)
  • Turn camera off every day (lets it rest for a while, but also has cold power surges on and off every day)
  • Have camera constantly pan-scanning and tracking motion (wearing out the motor)

For the most part, I think you’ll be fine. Plenty of people have been doing similar things every day for years on other cameras without problem. This one hasn’t been around for years, but overall, the electronics are fairly similar to other cameras and the past pan cams.

2 Likes
3

I rarely unplug my v3 cameras and as far as hardware goes they are all working great for 2 years. What about putting a rag over the cameras for privacy. That would also make it more obvious that nobody can be viewing your cameras (as you could mistakenly think your cameras are unplugged). If you are worried about the microphone here is a video showing how to unhook the mic on a Pan v3.

1 Like
4

Thanks for your response. I think I’ll do that. Basically the camera should only be on few times a week. I will turn it off first before cutting the powed

2 Likes
5

I want to set up automation to cut the power so that I dont forget cause I will :D. Will also wire a small led light as an indicator.

2 Likes
6

I have a V3 Pan on a timer that cycles the power every night. That was the only way to keep it from going offline when it was new. They may have fixed the issue since then but I just left it on the timer.

1 Like
7

Back in the day, Wyze did not even have a software option to power OFF the cam. I argued that it was needed cuz the cam may be in the middle of some task, such as reading/writing to the microSD card, when someone “kicks the plug”.

The “power OFF procedure” should be executed gracefully.

3 Likes