Max recording length

The max length recording is 2 minutes for the cam solar pan.

Seems very short.

The battery cam pro allows 5 minutes.

Do you have a subscription? I just bought 2 of the solar cam pans and I’m only recording to a high endurance sd card and I’m lucky if I get 5 seconds of recording time on some events. Not sure if the cool down thing is messing it up or what. But not too happy about it. Wish I could set the recording time to what I want and lose the dumb cool down. Can’t do it without a sub. App won’t let me.

The cool down doesn’t affect the recording time, just the number of notifications and “tagged” events you can have. It will still record events during the cool down, just won’t notify on them. It should record for as long as it detects motion.

I do have a subscription and have mine set on the max 2 minutes and no cool down.

I have some recordings 10 to 15 seconds in length.

I wish Wyze would let me determine minimum length of video if motion is detected. My Wyze cams feel hardly used. I would rather get to much video than not getting anything at all or cut off too soon.

Interesting about the cool down feature. Still learning about it I guess. Never had cameras with it before. I’ve been experimenting with the motion detection range, home waypoint, and detection zones and it definitely improved the recording to sd card functionality with my front door cam. In fact I did a test this morning and like you guys said, it actually recorded more than 30 seconds of the event until I walked out of range. So things are looking up. Thanks. :folded_hands:

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Still trying to dial in my driveway cam. I’d like it to start recording if a person or car enters my driveway. It’s tricky cuz I don’t want it to record cars driving by. But I think I’ll get it if I keep trying different ranges, detection zones, home waypoint, etc. Really trying to avoid getting a subscription so I’m hoping I can find the right settings that will get the job done for me. Ill keep tweaking til I get there.

Blocking the road out with detection zone will prevent it from alerting on cars in the road. You may need to block a bit of your driveway just to make sure the road is totally blocked out but that shouldn’t affect it detecting cars/people coming into your driveway.

Yeah I’ve been experimenting with blocking out sections. Thanks

Regarding the cool down period. Both of my cameras will not record during the cool down period. I’ve tested it many times. Just did now. e.g. If I take my garbage bins out of my garage and into my driveway the camera starts recording me. It records until I get to the street and then goes back to the waypoint since I’m out of range for motion detection. It then stops recording. If I then walk back from the street onto my driveway towards my garage where the camera is mounted, the red light does not come on, it is not recording. I can flap my arms and make motion, it will not record. I guess that’s the cool down phase. Then once it reaches about 45 seconds or so it will start recording.

Another example. I walked to the mail box to put in a letter. Camera recorded me walking down the driveway and at the mail box. Then stopped. I didn’t record me walking back up the driveway and into my garage. Again, for about 45 seconds it will not record again after it’s recorded an event.

Same thing w my front door cam. During the cool down phase, it will not record. Even my old cheap AdorCam cameras would record rapid fire one event after another with no cool down period. So it’s not that I’m not getting notifications during cool down period. It’s not recording. Not good.

I’m not an expert on the battery cams since I don’t have any, but I believe there were some in the past that have a cooldown even with a subscription as part of the power saving features. I can’t recall if that was traced to a bug or not (I believe it was one of the original outdoor cams from years ago). I think they were forcing 1 or 2 minutes, and I suspect it is to attempt to not drain the battery if there is some constant motion or something.

So I decided to bite the bullet and subscribed to Cam Plus. This is what how I wanted the cameras to work. I have control over the recording time now, and I can turn the cools down OFF! Lol. Glad I tried the subscription. I was thinking of tearing down the cameras and trying another brand. But now I have what I need. I’m not losing any footage now and there are a few more options too w cam plus. Should I have to subscribe to get what I wanted. No. All I wanted to do was record motion detected events seamlessly to my SD cards. I can do that now with the subscription. $20 per year for each camera is $40 a year. I still don’t love the idea of having to pay a sub fee, but in the big picture it’s not a huge deal. In 4 or 5 years when it’s time for something new I’ll make sure to get stand alone cams that will do what I want without a subscription. The Wyze solar cam pan cams do work pretty good though w the subscription. Can’t deny that. And they were $80 a piece. Not a bad deal.

Odd, like I said I’m not an expert on the battery cameras, but on my wired ones the only limitation is the 5 minute cool down between events (but it will still record all motion to SD card during that time, only stopping after the motion stops). Most of mine are on continuous recording so no worries about missing something regardless.

Recording limits on the battery cams are usually to try and extend battery life, I guess with a subscription they allow you to decide you want to sacrifice battery for more recording time, though not really sure why that wouldn’t be available without a sub. Maybe it is just an “unintended consequence” of subscribing, in order to give you what is advertised with the sub, they have to let you override the power saving.

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