I’ve installed four outdoor cameras and they work fine. At least three of them do, as they cover a pretty large area. The most important camera to me is the one covering my front porch, walk and circle drive. When someone is approaching my front door, the camera doesn’t detect motion until they’re within a few feet of the camera. Someone walking quickly up the 10 or 15 feet from the drive doesn’t get filmed at all or I get just a glimpse of their head passing by. I’ve played with the green box detection area, by moving the camera. I’ve played with the little tile detection settings, but nothing changes. It just seems that the time the camera takes to react to motion and start filming is just too long. What am I missing over here???
You’re not missing a thing. Welcome to the forum and WYZE cam outdoor!
Welcome to the forums! The WCO is a battery camera and when it detects motion with the pir sensor, it wakes the camera up before it starts recording. This usually takes a quick moment. You can test by being outside the cool down time, and waving your hand say 10 times infront of the camera starting a motion event. Now when you get the event, how may waves do you see? If my tests, it usually takes about one or two waves to wake up and start the event recording. So long story, semi short, your camera detects the movement, just takes a second to wake up and start the event which by then your subject or movement is alot closer to the camera.
Multiple factors are in play. The maximum distance that the PIR works is about 30 feet. For some reason, the new Detection Zone does not appear to result in the camera waking up any quicker. It then takes several seconds for the cam to start recording video. The clip is then sent to the server to be assessed.
Back in October, 1 - 2 seconds delay from detection to the clip starting was common. Seems recent changes, along with cold weather, 5 - 6 seconds is currently being experienced. That is, the motion on the clip start around 5 seconds from when it was first recognized.
That results in many clips showing nothing moving, or the last second or two before the person or vehicle dissappears.
That’s helpful and is exactly what I’m experiencing. Hopefully, any “porch pirates” in my neighborhood will be slow walkers.
Dave
There is a Firmware update for the WCO that I updated a few hours ago. It does not appear to address the wake up cycle.
I have found that facing the cam so that anything crossing the detection zone at an angle will trigger the cam better than straight at the cam. In this photo the red line I drew shows were the face of the cam is pointing . The cam will tag any person/ vehicle and critters in the turn around court up to about 45 feet. Try turning your cam a little to the left or right and see if that helps wake you cam sooner.
Thanks! I’ll try it!
Dave
I ran an experiment. Because the PIR Area is what wakes the WCO up, you have to place your camera on an angle. It should point away from your target area, with the PIR Area covering the target area. As an example, my camera points east, the PIR Area covers North to South.
The new Detection Zone will detect (continue to detect) motion only after the camera wakes up.
I’ve done that and it does improve things.
Thanks,
Dave