Anyone use an outdoor cam to spot hits on an archery target? I used to drag an extension cord out to plug in a regular cam to spot my hits, but its a 100 feet from the nearest outlet, so it was a bit of work. However, when shooting from 50 yards its hard to see the arrows even with binoculars so the cam was very handy. I just had the phone app open and looked at the live stream to see the hits. Depending on our network sometime there was a slight delay in the arrows appearing, but they always appeared. With the outdoor cam I don’t need a power cord but I’m wondering will it works a good as the wired one? Meaning will livestream works as well so I can see my hit. Keep in mind I shoot during the day when our network is quite (no kids playing online video games), but in general out wifi/networks has great up and down speeds. Thanks all.
It depends on the outdoor cam’s distance to the base station (or your phone if you’re in travel mode). But the outdoor cam could have a bit longer delay when viewing the live view as far as how quick you’ll see an image after viewing the live view.
Thanks for getting back to me. As far a distance is concerned. Think of an upside down triangle where the point is down. That point is my house where the base station will be. I have an outside outlet but I’m guessing the base stations is not waterproof and will need to be inside (please verify). However, I’m a fair weather man so I could plug the base station in as I walk by the outside outlet and unplug on the way back in. Not sure if this is recommended, but something to think about.
Anyhow back to the distances. The top left of the triangle is my target. This distance will not change from the base and is 93 feet. The top right of the triangle is where I will shooting from and where my phone will be. The distance from the base point to my shooting point and phone will change as I can move back from 10 to 65 yards. Seeing the arrows at 10 and 20 yards is not an issue. Beyond that my old eyes have a hard time! Here’s how that breaks down:
20 yard shooting point which is straight out from the base is 75 feet.
30 yard shooting point (moving right) is 82 feet.
40 yard is 104’ and 50 yards is 133’.
The distance from the camera to my phone and me will be: 10 yards (3’x10 =) 30 feet, 20 yard or 60 feet, 30 is 90 and so on.
Not sure if this hurts or helps but it would be great if you/someone else reading this post, could test out at least a few of the longer distances like 40 yards and beyond. Assuming you don’t have a bow and arrow laying around it should work if someone else walks through the camera path where you plug in some of my above dimensions.
Thank again, Alan
Instead of using an extension cord with the regular camera, why not use a USB power bank (assuming your regular cam is a Wyze cam or other type that uses USB power)?
You should get about 1 hour of use for every 625mAh, so even a 3000mAh unit would be good for almost 5 hours.
The base station is what provides the internet to the outdoor camera. So, you would connect it to your router via ethernet (and then once set up, you remove the ethernet and can connect the base to the router wifi with your wifi credentials. Then you can move the base station wherever there is power.
I believe, if it’s direct line of sight/no obstacles from the base to the outdoor cam you can get over 100 feet distance.
Alternately, you can put the outdoor cam in travel mode - essentially connecting the cam to your phone to view it over your phones wifi - - but in my experience with travel mode, you don’t get near the distance. You have to be fairly close to the camera for it to register the live feed (I want to say this is closer to Bluetooth distance ~30 feet give or take.
Good idea…I’ll looking to power pack. Thanks
Thanks for the additional info. Sounds like the outdoor cam is not the best option…yet. Perhaps in the future things will improve. Thanks again for all the great info.
A Wyze cam may not be the best solution for your need. Take a look at the Amazon Blink camera. Runs on AA batteries. Last a long time compared to power bank. But power bank is good idea too. You need a Sync module too sort of like the Wyze Outdoor Cam base. But Blink will give you more flexibility and easy to use it elsewhere when not using for archery.
As an owner of both Wyze and Blink cameras, I’m not certain I would agree. Blink cameras tend to complain if viewing the live view for too long (so as to guard against running down the batteries). Whether that would be an issue depends on how quick it is to check the archery target each time. They also don’t have a stand as the Wyze Cam does, which might be the biggest issue in this situation.