OG Camera No Color at Night

Purchased an OG camera to replace my aging V2 front door camera. No color at night as advertised but the black & white image is slightly brighter and sharper then my old V2. Very disappointed after the hype made about this night color feature.

Also, in order to enable all OG features one has to subscribe to Cam Plus. This is something I did not have to do with my V2’s and will not for my OG. Even the OG events view are nowhere as user friendly as with my V2’s.

Wyze was a great an innovative company in the beginning, I’m afraid they are moving away from their roots and moving in with the rest of corporate tech.

Did you check that the camera settings do not force the IR mode?
You can usually set the IR mode to OFF if you never want the IR to kick in.

Have you ever used a v3 camera? Check out the brightness comparison between a v2 and v3 on the middle of this link. A v3 will also work on Cam Plus Lite. I don’t have an OG but am very happy with my v3 cameras.

It has color night vision if the IR Night Vision Mode is set to Off in the Advanced Settings Menu.

All features that are cam specific to the OG are available without a subscription. Cam Plus features, however, require Cam Plus. It is the same for all Wyze Cams. There is a distinction between Cam Features and Cam Plus Subscription features.

My OG has Night Vision IR lights set to on and Night Vision Mode set to Auto. We live in a rural area and there is virtually no ambient light at night. I’ll set the IR lights to off to see what happens.

Thanks for the replies,

Yes I understand - now you must pay for features that were mostly included in the original V2’s I purchased when Wyze was a start up. All my V2’s still work, even the 2 outside. I was planning to upgrade my three V2’s to OG’s plus purchase an outdoor V3. The extra fees for feature enablement have given me pause. Nevertheless, still a great product.

If you have no ambient light you will need the IR lights on or you end up with an ugly poor quality view. I don’t have an OG but I have a coupe of V3 cams that have no ambient light and have the IR lights set to near because the outdoor viewing area is small. I don’t know if the OG has Near and Far setting for the IR lights but Far is for a larger outdoor area.
I read that the OG has a spot light does that work ?

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OG Cams do not have dual spectrum IR LED Lights or a setting to change them. It has four 850nm IR LEDs that are all or nothing.

Haven’t tried the built in spotlight yet. With the end of winter the little bugs and spiders will generate a lot of “motion” events each which will (I assume) trip on the spotlight.

I moved the IR Lights to Off tonight and it made absolutely no difference - still no color. I can live with this but it was a feature I was lookin forward to. Thanks anyway.

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Turning the IR Lights off will not take the cam out of IR Night Vision Mode. All that does is keep it in IR Night Vision Mode without the LED IR Lights on in case you want to use an external IR Blaster Floodlight. I do this so that the cams don’t attract bugs and keep motion activating.

The only way to get color night vision is to turn the Night Vision Mode Off.

The only way to get a good image in color night vision is if there is enough ambient light for the starlight sensor to amplify that light to illuminate the image. If you don’t have enough ambient light to do that, you may have to add some lighting to assist it. The cam can only do so much with the light provided to it. If there isn’t enough ambient light to support it, the only option is IR Night Vision Mode in Auto with the IR Lights on.

Thanks and you are correct. It’s pitch black here until one of the auto flood lights is tripped. So I will keep IR Night Vision Mode in Auto and IR Lights On. Not what I had expected when I purchased my OG devices but the B&W image is pretty clear. I can live with this.

Maybe Wyze should put out a disclaimer that the Color Night Vision won’t work where there is total darkness and/or no ambient light.

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