Following is what I am trying to do. water meter is in a vault. No power or light.
Is there a WYZE camera with an ON/OFF timer or use a sprinkler timer. HOw to get a light on when recording?
Thanks
HOA Water System Leak Detection
COTTAGES AT BELLS FERRY
Video of a 3” diameter horizontal Water Meter Dial
Recording Schedule … 1am to 5am every day
Review video every 7 days
No AC power … No lighting
Water resistant
Mounting
Need a battery light
Pretty much any Wyze cam with a USB battery bank can potentially do that. The Battery Cam Pro can do it with its internal battery. Obviously you’ll need to charge it somewhere from time to time.
Is there wifi access in the area? While in theory these cams can work without wifi it gets messy and complex.
You can choose from using the IR lights for night vision or get one of the models like the OG or V4 with built in spotlight. Then it is just a matter of setting an automation to turn the camera on/off (and possibly the spotlight as well if you want that instead of infrared) at the times you want.
The only thing I can’t tell you for sure is how well it will do with a 3" diameter dial, depending what you’re trying to see and how small it is. The v4 may provide a bit better detail than the OG, but I’d suspect either will work if you toy around with the mounting distance. I’d pick one of those two models (OG or v4) since IR mode may not give you enough detail and you may want the spotlight option. The v4 I believe can do both “low” and “high” on the spotlight, where the OG just has one setting.
I’ve never attempted to set one of these up to do macro recording so can’t tell you for sure, but I have had someone come to my door and hold their ID badge up to the camera and the view was decent.
Welcome to the Forum, @allenrstanley! 
The one thing I’d add to what @dave27 wrote is that this seems like it might be a good use case for having the macro lens adapter (the one that’s included with the Bird Feeder) sold separately, as requested in this Wishlist topic:
I’m not sure if it would or not, because I don’t have a lot of detail about your physical location, but it’s one of the things that came to mind when @dave27 mentioned detail in the camera’s view.
That doesn’t really solve your immediate problem, but it’s another topic for you to potentially visit and vote, because what you’re describing seems germane.
I agree with @Crease and @dave27. Just gave wife a bird Feeder for her bday. Spent last few days setting it up. I happened to have a spare v4 that I used as the camera.
The included monicle drastically changes the focal length. From 10’s of feet to a few inches. The following screen shot gives an idea what you see. The perch is in focus, 2 inches away, everything else is blurry…
Now the interesting part. As I was thinking through how to power the v4, I decided to measure how much power it uses. Surprisingly low. Under 2.5 watts. It does increase if you turn on the spotlight and mic/speaker. That led me to pull out a 50,000 mAh power bank. The v4 ran for almost 4 days from the power bank.!!!
In my case I’m getting a 35 watt solar panel to keep the power bank charged (I hope)
That’s the good news. Now for the gotchas.
The v4 spot light does not work out well. It washes out the target and it is to close to the monicle. .
The instructions in the bird Feeder say to turn off the IR. I tried both auto and manual and was not impressed with what I saw. I think you need and external light.
Anyway. Might be an interesting DIY project. Let the power bank run the camera and an external light.
Cost of entry–$60 - $150 (best guess).
Thanks for the ideas. Here is what I think I need.
Comments appreciated
V4 … no spot light … How big SD card for total of 4x7 = 28hrs
Lens Module … can I buy it alone?
Separate battery powered light … suggestions
Powerbank …SIZE??, to power timer…suggestion… hooked to V4 and light
to video meter dial 1am to 5am for 7days
Thanks Allen
The V4 has built in spot light, you can try it on and off. It also has built in IR lights that you can try.
You cannot buy the lens separately unfortunately, at least not yet. I can try and see if something small is readable when close to the lens of my OG (I don’t have a v4 to try). Or I guess you could buy the birdfeeder if you want the lens and just not use the birdfeeder. But that macro lens may not be needed.
28 hours should fit fine on a 32GB card but play it safe and get a 64 or 128G Samsung Pro Endurance card (few dollars difference). The larger card will have a longer lifetime, and if you don’t get around to reviewing it one week you won’t overwrite the previous one.
I would start with just the V4 or OG and test both the IR lights and the built in spotlight and see how they do. The v4 I believe gives you two different brightness levels which might work better than the single one in the OG, and the v4 also has better resolution. Actually the v4 may also have two different brightness levels for the IR lights, I know the v3 did. If the distance from the cam to the meter is too close and both types of lights wash it out, then you may need to consider an external light, but an extremely low powered LED would probably be plenty.
For battery bank size, honestly not sure, it will depend on whether you use the internal IR or spotlight. According to @ronl4625 a 50,000mAH power bank ran a v4 for 96 hours, but sounds like that was probably without the lights on (maybe they can confirm). So 20,000 might cut it and those ones are fairly cheap, but I’d go for 40 or 50,000 so you can run the lights or an external light off it if you need to. Look for one that has fast USB-C charging so you can recharge it fairly quickly. I believe all the 40 and 50k ones these days do. I’ve used an Anker 40k with USB-C charging and it charges pretty quickly off even an 18W USB-C adapter.
Another option might be the OG Telephoto camera. You could theoretically mount it further away (allowing use of the internal IR lights without glare) and it has a narrower field of view, but I suspect that may not work as well. It also doesn’t have the built in white light (just IR).
I’ll see if I can try holding something up to my OG and maybe OG TEL to see if small stuff is readable at close range.
Old memory. When testing v4, 2.5 watts was with spot light, mic, speaker off.
SD card was continuous and wifi streaming.
An Automation running the camera for only 4 hours a day may increase the runtime with 50,000 mAh power bank from almost 4 days to----unknown. Didn’t test that😢
Couldn’t resist. Your checking out an OG. Following is a image of this thread using a v4 showing on my Samsung s21 ultra sitting on the bird Feeder perch. It is 6:30pdt, dusk, no other light.
Whatever the solution it may take some tuning🤗
Here is a 2.5" pressure gauge on my OG in complete darkness. The spotlight is of no use, too washed out. However the IR lights are promising.
Pic 1 is up close to the camera, 6 to 8" or so. You can tell it would be readable if it wasn’t out of focus, it is just too close. So the macro lens might come into play here.
Pic 2 is further away, maybe 2 feet. It is somewhat readable. However the higher resolution of the v4 may make this one perfectly readable. Judging by the picture @ronl4625 just posted, it is promising.
I guess worst case try the v4 as is, and if needed get a macro lens (well, birdfeeder just for the lens) for it. But it is good to know that the built in IR lights work fine for this purpose, whether close up or a couple feet away.
Both pics cropped to show about the same area (so obviously the second is zoomed in some and thus higher resolution would help it).
I did look at it in normal ambient light, it was similar, out of focus up close and grainy further away, so I suspect a battery powered LED light probably wouldn’t be any better than the built in IR ones.
I didn’t bother testing my OG Telephoto as the area of focus is much further out on that one, it would be even more blurry up close than the regular OG.
Cool. I empathize with @allenrstanley. For years I wanted a digital electric meter as the revolving wheel drove me crazy. A few years ago they upgraded our house to a digital meter.
I was excited until I realized this old body could not get down low enough to read the LED’s.
Oh well😂
Here are the ones in normal indoor light. Can see they are about the same readability, the further one is a bit more clear than with IR. But who knows what a dim LED right near the meter might do, maybe that would be the clearest. But seems like if IR gives a fairly clear picture, either the v4’s higher resolution or possibly adding the macro lens would probably give you a clear, readable picture using the built in IR lights.
Ignore the green lines, I forgot to shut off the motion tracking box. As with before, first is close up, second is further away and zoomed in.
We just got digital ones that upload the reading every hour to an online portal. The previous ones uploaded once a day which wasn’t granular enough for small leak detection, but it was still nice to be able to view usage and see anomalies. The last one was low tech, literally had a sensor mounted on a standard analog meter that counted every time the needle went by, then the transmitter unit sent that number once a day.
This new one doesn’t use paddles in the water flow to count usage, apparently uses ultrasonic waves (and unfortunately means it is much better at measuring and charging for low/slow usage, and especially small leaks).
You’ll need to find a way to mount it where it is looking pretty straight on at the lens but that you can adjust the distance to get the right focal length (unless you use the macro lens then you might be able to clamp it like 3" away somehow).
If it has a transmitter, are you not able to get usage from that, or do you not have access to it?
Hard to say for sure. Is the dial 3" or the entire meter? If it is the entire meter, then that dial is probably only 2" at most. Even with the v4’s higher resolution, you may need the macro lens so you can put it up close.
You could get a v4 and try it with IR light and maybe a USB powered low wattage LED light, then add the macro lens/birdfeeder kit if needed. But you can also look at macro cameras, I’m sure there are plenty of them out there (just not from Wyze).
All piping and meter in the vault belongs to County.
Their transmitter. ALL UNTOUCHABLE…
This camera stuff is all new to me.
Per the IR pics, it should work in the totally dark vault.
How about the following:
V4 using IR with SD card
Power bank with timer to control V4 ON 1am - OFF 5am
I’ll use boards or plastic pipe to “clamp” V4 in place…can control distance to dial.
Will get bird feeder module later if it doesnt work
Thanks again Allen
You do not need the timer, the cam has that built in (as long as it has internet connectivity). If you can’t get wifi in that spot, one of these cams may not be the best choice, but I’m guessing you can and that’s why you’re considering a wifi cam? It needs to be a fairly decent signal to prevent the cam from scaling the resolution down and probably making the meter unreadable, especially without the macro lens.
Another thing to note, not sure if you’re intending to review the footage but when viewing SD card recordings, there is no “fast play” or even fast forward, just 30 second and 1 minute skip forward and back, so keep that in mind. You can jump to specific times on the time line, just cant watch the video in like 10x speed or whatever. I’m guessing you’re not intending to watch 28 hours of video every week.
As long as jumping around to different times and just seeing if the meter moved (and trying to narrow down when) is what you want to do, this should work for that. Actually the time lapse feature may allow you to watch a long period quickly, however the time lapse feature can be hit or miss and I believe requires a phone or tablet to maintain a constant connection to the camera, which may drain the battery faster. I probably wouldn’t rely on that feature, but you can toy with it and see.
I’d start with
Wyze V4
64 or 128GB SD card (Samsung Pro Endurance or whatever Sandisk calls their endurance rated cards).
40,000 or 50,000 mah power bank from reputable brand like Anker.
It looks like the Anker 40,000 that I got a couple years ago for $30 now runs $70. There are a couple popular no-name brands on amazon with good reviews (of course who knows if the reviews are fake or not, can run it through fakespot). Could give one of those a try, they’re about half the price. But you may find they aren’t the capacity they claim to be.
When you get the cam set up you’ll create an automation in the Wyze app to turn the cam on at x time and off at x time and choose the days of the week (or every day).
Actually another note on the power bank. Some require a certain amount of draw to stay powered on. I would think with the IR LEDs on, it should draw 3 or 4 watts. That is somewhat borderline. Many of the larger/more advanced battery packs have a “trickle charge mode” that will stay on for 2 hours (or some pre-determined amount of time) no matter what draw they see. So may be worth checking the specs or the Q&A to see what load is needed to keep it from powering off.
@ronl4625 which power bank are you using and do you find it necessary to run it in trickle mode with only 2.5W draw?
I have an old Aukey 10,000Mah one that I did use when testing and setting up my OG and Panv3 cams and it never shut off on me, so may be fine.
