Insect Cam triggers

I have a V3 cam setup directly out side of my garage that is constantly triggered by wasps. Does anyone have any helpful tips that have kept bugs away from their cams?

The obvious try will first be to use wasp repellant. Just didnt know if anyone had luck using other methods to protect the cam from annoying triggers like flies or wasps.

I can’t help you with wasps, but on the general theme of tips to keep annoying triggers away, I have a couple:

Window bugs – I have a front yard cam that looks outdoors from a garage window. Triggers all day long from small and normal sized flies trying to get out thru the bright window. Finally I bought an 8-pack of Raid Window Fly Traps (sticky films about 2-3/4" wide), and surrounded the camera with them. I even doubled them up on one side towards a window frame. Works great! :slight_smile:

Birds – I also had a problem with birds perching on cams on the side of the house, either for warmth in the spring, to build nests, or to look for spiders. I put a drape of Dalen GUARD’N Net over them, and the incidents dropped considerably. I still get the occasional bird that will hang from the net and look around, but that’s only once or twice a week. So much happier. :slight_smile:

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Easy tip would be to disable all IR lighting from the camera so they’re not attracted. That made ALL the difference with false alarms on my V2s.

Also, if appropriate for your needs, notifying only on person detection helps a lot.

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Bugs love the IR, turning it off would limit night vision, but it would not attract critters.

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Dumb question but is there a direct way to toggle IR on the V3 other than to turn “night vision mode” to off in the advanced setting menu?

“night vision” is IR control. You might be confusing it with V3’s low light night vision aka “Starlight”. It’s always on. It can’t be turned off.

Other ways to toggle Night Vision on and off are 1) From the crescent moon icon above the live feed, or 2) Set it to ‘Auto’ from the crescent moon icon, or in the individual camera’s settings > Advanced Settings, in which case it will automatically take care of the switching for you.

Personally I prefer Night Vision off so the starlight sensor switches to visible light if you have any light available in your area, like a yard light. If you don’t, Night Vision will probably be better, even if you end up switching the IR lights off.

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Night vision is off and has been for the past couple of weeks, I also turned off the status indicator light in case that was causing triggers, but I still seem to have endless triggers. Any remaining tips from anyone to reduce these bug triggers?

You don’t turn off night vision; you turn off the “Night Vision IR Lights”. Different setting.

So then I guess my question becomes, what is the difference in night vision mode off vs. night vision mode in “auto” with night vision IR lights turned off. Is the starlight color vision active no matter what my night settings are toggled to? Thats the only feature I really dont want to have to sacrifice with this.

To answer your question about the starlight sensor, it is always in circuit. But not always in color. Night Vision off = color. Night Vision on = Near Infrared, mapped to B&W.

Night Vision will work to some degree with or without the IR lights. Depends on the amount of other light available.

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I run my cameras with IR Light OFF, camera power indicator off, and Night Vision in auto. That way, my camera does not attract insects, and automatically switches to night vision at night. I have zero issues with insects this way… The V3 practically sees in the dark. I am amazed at what it sees, if there is the tiniest amount of light it looks like daylight, in black and white.

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Mosquito seems to like my mailbox cam.

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