Night vision with IR looking like snow is blowing around

Has anyone else seen this? I first noticed it last night right after the base station updated with new firmware. My battery powered outdoor cam looked like snow and dust was blowing all over the place when the IR lights were on. But it wasn’t raining.

Likely dust or bugs. Post video and we can see better.

I’ll try to do this tonight. There were no bugs and the air was dead, no wind at all. But looking at the camera with the IR lights on, you would have thought that ashes were blowing all over the place. as soon as you turn the outdoor lights on and the camera switched to color, all that stuff was gone.

It’s actually amazing how much stuff there is floating in the air that for the most part the human eye can’t see. Cameras don’t see most of it either until you turn on IR illuminators.

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Has it been raining or going to rain? I have found that Mist in the air before rain seems to trigger what you are potentially seeing.

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Just an example of fog with the IR Lights. As @K6CCC said, pretty interesting what is seen in IR.

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This looks just like what I was seeing, though I could see the yard etc. in the background.

Depending on the dew point, the IR lights can make the tiny moisture droplets in the air look like snow. These are droplets you can’t really see with your naked eye, but they are there and float around with the air currents looking blowing snow

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yes I have a night vision set up I’ll provide you a picture of what it looks like right this minute at 95% humidity and it’s only like 50 Fahrenheit and it’s not raining per se it’s just really humid and it reflects on the night vision only.

hope this clears up that mystery because I was at one time wondering what the hell it was. Thought it might’ve been ash from a burning house or something nearby or even my house! Lol

Yes, you are seeing the moisture in the air. At 95% humidity, there are almost certainly condensed droplets that your human eye will likely never notice, but with the IR illuminators on, the camera sees just fine.

Mine is the same and it is so frustrating that I can’t change it. Not much point in having the cameras if you can’t see anything.

Welcome to the Wyze User Community Forum @c50young!

Unfortunately, this effect is purely a product of physics and atmospheric weather and isn’t something that the cams can adjust for.

When you put a billion microscopic mirrors (water mist) mere inches from the lens of a cam pumping out IR Light, it’s going to reflect and blind the cam. Ever driven in a blinding snow or fog at night with your headlights on high beam? Same concept. It’s not so much the snow or fog that is the problem but the light reflecting off of it.

But, there is something that you can do to prevent this. Change the angle of the source of the IR Light. In order for the cam to not be blinded by the reflection straight back into the lens, the IR Light needs to be coming from another source.

Leave the cam in IR Auto or IR On, but turn off the LED IR Lights. Install an IR Floodlight or Spotlight, sometimes referred to as an IR Blaster, a slight distance from the cam pointed at the cam Field of View. It will illuminate the area with IR for the cam but the reflection will be back at the blaster and not the cam. This will also help with false positive motion activations due to flying insects, spiders, and spider webs.