I plan to install a v3 Camera and a Floodlight above my roll-up garage door. The Lamp Socket accessory neatly solves the problem of providing power to the Camera, thanks to a somewhat nearby light fixture. But I can’t see how to power the Floodlight.
I have no nearby junction box. And, I’m not eager to pay for one. My garage is finished, having a drywall ceiling that complicates access to the wall on which I will mount the Camera and Floodlight.
Can anyone suggest a way to power a Floodlight similar to the way a Lamp Socket powers a Camera? Or, some other way of avoiding the cost of installing a junction box?
I just installed 4 of those exact junction boxes for floodlights. Cut the female end of an extension cord off and fed it thru a drilled hole in the wall. Plugged into a Wyze Plug in the attic. Three of them have a Wyze Cam just underneath, ran that thru one of the ports in the Junction Box as well into the attic plugged into a smart plug.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I failed to mention that there is no convenient nearby outlet. It’s on the opposite side of the garage and the opposite side of the drywall ceiling. Routing from the outlet it would cost more or less the same as installing a new junction box.
I watched the same Youtube video last night. It’s a very handy tip. But, as I wrote above, I don’t have an AC outlet that I can access. All I have is the light socket that I will use to host the adapter for the camera. If the camera and floodlight used compatible voltages all would be well. But the camera uses 110 VAC and the floodlight uses 5 VDC.
Since you are limited by nearby power and you don’t want to go thru the wall into the attic above the garage to get to it, you can still use that junction box (you need this to mount the floodlight anyway) and run the male end of an extension cord on the outside of the house over to the light fixture. Depending on if that light fixture is shielded from the weather, in that socket you can place a socket plug (one example below). The floodlight and the V3 cam can then be powered from that socket or you can still use the Wyze Socket to power the cam. You can also use a smart plug for the floodlight to be triggered by the cam.
It won’t be pretty, and questionably not weatherproof, but it will be functional.
EDIT: Just thinking about this more, I mentioned the use of a smart plug above to trigger the Floodlight. If you are using the Wyze Socket, you won’t need that. All you would do is reverse the order. Screw the Wyze Socket into the light and power the cam. Screw the plug adapter into the Wyze Socket. Plug the Floodlight into the plug adapter along with your original fixture light bulb. When the cam activates on motion detection, the Wyze Socket will turn on both the light fixture and the floodlight plugged in.
Thanks for the key piece of information. If the socket can power both the camera and the floodlight the problem is easily solved. For some reason—I can’t recall what—I had assumed this was not possible. I do recall being unable to determine the power requirements of the combination camera and floodlight.
P.S. I apologize for replying so late. The sense hub, etc., arrived and I rapidly became preoccupied trying to sandwich time for set up amidst holiday business.
One of my postings above contains an obvious error. The camera operates on 5 vdc and the floodlight operates on 110/120 vac. In my posting I reversed these values.
The floodlight camera and lamp socket arrived this evening and with them came confusion. The lamp socket provides 5 vdc. So it can power the camera unit but the floodlight unit is left without its necessary 110/120 vac power source.
It would be possible, at least in principle, to borrow 110/120 vac from the circuit supplying the existing lamp. But in that case, there’s no real need for the lamp socket. Instead, the floodlight camera as a whole can be powered by tapping into the existing lamp’s supply because the floodlight camera as shipped includes a circuit that converts 110/120 vac to 5 vdc to power the camera unit.
The handy thing is that the lamp circuit is live 24x7 and thus can power the floodlight camera during the day. Operating the circuit 24x7 wastes no energy because I’m using a photoelectric bulb that does not shine during daylight. (It’s alternatively possible to use an ordinary bulb equipped with a photoelectric adapter available from Amazon, etc.)
Thanks for all the help in working this out! The solution was right there the whole time but I wouldn’t have recognized it without the help.
ERROR: I have sometimes misunderstood postings to this topic. I here offer an explanation intended to prevent others from suffering a similar fate.
The term “lamp socket” can refer to either of two things: (1) an existing fixture that provides power and shelter for a 110/120 vac lamp; (2) a Wyze accessory that plugs into a type (1) lamp socket between the socket and the lamp bulb, providing 5 vdc to operate a camera.
I began the posting by referring to a type (2) lamp socket. In the final several postings above, the term “lamp socket” generally, but not always, refers to a type (1) lamp socket. I failed to realize this important distinction and likely generated abundant confusion.
A floodlight camera requires 110/120 vac power and so cannot be powered by a type (2) socket, which provides 5 vdc. It can be powered by splitting power from a type (1) socket, which provides the necessary 110/120 vac, so long as provision is made to turn off the existing bulb during the day without severing power to the floodlight camera, which would cause the camera to cease operation. In my case, a photoelectric bulb achieved this purpose .
I apologize for any confusion caused by my failure to observe the distinction between the two types of lamp socket.
thinking about this more, I mentioned the use of a smart plug above to trigger the Floodlight. If you are using the Wyze Socket, you won’t need that. All you would do is reverse the order. Screw the Wyze Socket into the light and power the cam. Screw the plug adapter into the Wyze Socket. Plug the Floodlight into the plug adapter along with your original fixture light bulb. When the cam activates on motion detection, the Wyze Socket will turn on both the light fixture and the floodlight plugged in.