Night Light charging by Solar

Does anyone know what the charging voltage and current requirement is for the WYZE night light and which Solar panel can charge it?

According to the battery specifications, at 300mAH and 3.7V, theoretically 4V at 150mA should be sufficient to charge the battery. This is not my finding in reality. Does anyone know more?

The Wyze solar panel is not meant for the night light, but you should be able to use any panel with a usb port, as usb voltage is standard. Obviously a smaller panel will charge it slower

Thanks for the reply. However the question is if anyone knows what the requirement is since when I use an average Solar charger, the red WYZE night light charging light does not turn on.

The charger I tried is https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BWWTH9JS?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1 which is 6W and puts out 500mA from direct sunshine. Based on the WYZE night light battery spec., as mentioned above, it shouldn’t require more than 150mA.

The night lights charge from a standard Wyze Power Adapter, so it is taking 5V regardless, even from aftermarket adapters since the standard USB A Adapter is 5V.

The Amps from the available adapters Wyze offers are 1A, 1.5A, and 2A.

As you see, all of these well exceed the 0.500A panel you tested. To get the exact minimum requirements, you would need to plug the light into a Buck Converter with adjustable constant current and test to find the minimum current that will support the charging (red light) @ 5V.

However 5V doesn’t necessarily mean current is sufficient.

In this case since we are only interested in Solar panel power, maybe a better question would have been; does anyone know if the WYZE solar panel can charge the WYZE night light. https://www.amazon.com/Wyze-Solar-Panel-Compatible-Continuous/dp/B09NMX96FD?th=1

Right, so was hoping someone already did this and could advise :wink:

Agreed. Which is why I specifically mentioned the current when I listed the three adapters Wyze uses across their ecosystem and indicated that you were most likely undercurrent at .5A if not over voltage at 6V. I need to get my glasses :dark_sunglasses: upgraded. You stated 6W not volts :man_facepalming:

That is why I suggested an adjustable Buck Converter that is capable of supplying an adjustable range of constant current at 5V so that one can test to find the minimum current required to initiate the programmed charging sequence.

I highly doubt it. Output is limited to 2.5W, 5VDC. So the same 0.5A that you already tried. EDIT: I was wrong. See bench test results below. :point_down:

Have the converter on the bench. Will just need wire up an old USB C cable to it and plug it in… (Jeopardy music please).

Ok, you can stop the Jeopardy music now.

I will edit my statement above about the Wyze Solar Panel being able to charge a Wyze Nightlight. With a microUSB to USB C adapter (Wyze Solar Panel has a microUSB pigtail), it should be more than enough to charge a couple nightlights at full output.

At a constant 5V and limited to 0.5A, the nightlight came nowhere near that ceiling. It only drew 0.189A, .95W during active charging.

Not sure why your 5V, 6W solar panel wouldn’t charge it. Did you have the button on the nightlight set to off when you plugged it in? Your panel should be capable of 1.2A peak current, well in excess of the nightlight needs.

@SlabSlayer
Thanks so much for testing this out! I can’t understand either why my panel won’t charge the nightlight.

I could maybe conclude that since I don’t have a proper meter like you, I have incorrect readings from my panel. However I am using the Ampere app on my Android phone to measure current from the panel and the .5A it reports couldn’t be far off, since the app reports a proper amount of current from regular wall chargers. Furthermore, the panel charges my Android phone. Surely a little nightlight couldn’t have a higher requirement… Don’t quite understand it…

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WYZE nightlight charges via regular wall charger regardless of where it’s switch is, but yes, tried it with panel when switch is off.

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If you were only getting 0.5A from the panel, it was definitely not at peak output. It is rated at 6W peak. So at 5V, peak output should be 1.2A. At 0.5A, if it was giving you 5V, that’s only 42% of peak.

Did you test the Voltage output? My guess is that you were lower than 5V. The specs on the panel state “Up to 5V”. I tested at a locked constant 5V.

@SlabSlayer I don’t know that it should matter if the panel is at peak. Point is that 500mA is well above the current draw of 189mA according to you.

Yes… But at what voltage? Sufficient amps is irrelevant if there is minimum\maximum voltage logic in the firmware that won’t allow charging below or above a set threshold.

Figured it out!
It turns out that the solar panel in question came with a USB micro to USB-C adapter which appears to be insufficiently wired. Luckily I had another micro to C adapter and as soon as I tried my adapter, the panel worked to charge the nightlight as expected.

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