Pan cam rotates by itself

My pan cam had been working fine for days. At one point I had it rotating and time lapse recording and all seemed to work.
I’ve since moved it so it would record the view of what i wanted most of the time without rotating.
Now it started rotating by itself.
I will rotate it via software about 1/4 turn. Decide to leave it there. Shortly thereafter it rotates back. I’m near enough that I can hear it rotate, but it is relatively inaccessible to me.
I’ve tried a software reset to no avail.
If I rotate it via software shouldn’t it stay there?

Check that you don’t have Pan Scan enabled.

Pan scan is disabled.,
Again - If I rotate it via software shouldn’t it stay there?

After about 5 software power-offs and 3 restart devices the “self rotation” has stopped.
But then it failed to recognize the SD card and that was only fixed by rebooting my Android phone. ON/off cycling and restart device did not work.

After you pan using the app, Does it move back by itself and return to the same previous spot each time or a different spot?

It moved to the same spot, roughly spot #2 on the “default” settings.

Maybe a mod can help, but it might be the detection zone, i can say for my pan, i have the detection zone set to one spot in the yard, i have pan scan and motion tracking both turned off, i can manually pan using the app to look at another area in the yard, after a few sections it will go back to the detection zone spot each time.

That’s what I was also going to say. If you have a detection zone set, after about 15 seconds of no motion it will return to the spot that was set.

“The Motion Detection Zone will only be active when the camera is in the position you selected when you set the Motion Detection Zone. If you (i) manually move the camera away from the Motion Detection Zone OR (ii) if the camera moves away from the Motion Detection Zone following motion when Motion Tracking is turned on, after 15 seconds of inactivity (no motion detected) the camera will automatically return to the position you selected when you set the Motion Detection Zone, and will reinstate the Motion Detection Zone.”

No detections zones set. Like I wrote after numerous reboots and power cycles the camera stopped doing it.

Apologies if this has been covered in previous posts but my question falls in line with this post. Can you completely disable any rotating on the Pan Cam? Mine mysteriously rotates at times which can cause the camera to fall over. Of course this happens when I won’t be home for quite a while which means I’d really like to see what’s going on in my house.

If there is no ‘lock’ feature I’ll go through the troubleshooting steps listed above.

Waze On my friends

@bjesp75 I don’t think you can completely disable it. I have mine set with just one waypoint and a detection zone, both the same spot, so it always stay there unless I pan it manually (no pan scan or motion tracking on). If it happens to power cycle, however, it is going to go through the full rotation of 180 in one direction and 180 in the other. Could yours be power cycling? Do you have motion tracking on?

Ah, yes, the possessed Pan Cam. I had the same issue.

Pull out the SD card, plop it in a USB SD card adapter and perform a “scan and fix” with your home PC. Mine are getting their file systems corrupted at least once per week.

I have the same problem. It started yesterday, no changes were made to setup, no power fails, etc… Camera view is in one corner of the room. Suddenly BY ITSELF camera moving to another corner of the room and then back to the original corner. Looks like camera scanning the room. I sent a message to Wyze Support.

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Reads like it got of the shelf and went to the corner :smile:

Mine (2 of them) do the same damned thing, causing them to fall from their platforms. Very frustrating and I will throw the damned hings away and buy some other brand if it continues with no fixes. Thanks, folks.

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I have a pan cam as well, and for about 2 weeks, it turns around towards the USB cable.

Even if I manually re-rotate, it’ll shortly there-after just face the USB cable again.

It’s very odd.

The latest upgrade I did has destroyed 3 pan cams here. no changes or options of any sort before the upgrade of 8/9/2020
Device Wyze Cam Pan
Firmware 4.10.6.156
signal strength 88%

Non upgraded, working camera info:
Firmware 4.10.5.111
Signal strength 91%

no uncommanded motion.

Same here. As of the last update I have noticed my Pan Camera keeps recording everything and anything, as if it were detecting motion. Zero motion, and all the clips are showing up as person detected when there are literally 0 person like objects in motion. Even if I put motion detection on 1 it still does that. The only way I have gotten it to stop is by unselecting motion tracking, which pretty much makes a 40 dollar camera in to a 20 dollar camera, and I’d almost be better off just throwing a gopro up.

I even went so far to do a flash reinstall the 4.10.6.156 firmware. It still just wants to bounce around as if it where detecting something, but nothing is actually moving but the camera. So after flashing the firmware(which did literally nothing) I reverted to 4.10.3.40. Which then it said the installation failed, although it shows up as that version, but I am getting code 90. Really over it at this point.

After the “security compromise” I’ve been considering how much I can actually rely on Wyze, not to mention with how glitchy these cameras have become sense the previous person detection was removed, they are starting to really feel like their price point. Which is starting to make me reconsider as a consumer, how much I want to invest in a brand that might be overtaken by something at a slightly higher price point but with considerably more reliability with a stronger focus on the infrastructure for a smaller product base.

I totally get budget smart gadgets, but if they aren’t reliable what’s the point? Personally thays why I stay away form most budget Amazon products. Especially when the most common use for these cameras seems to be for security/monitoring purposes. Last thing I want is for my camera to be dancing around, so have 0 video proof of my irrational homeless ex or someone going through desperate times destroying, stealing, or entering my property without permission, even if it’s just for insurance purposes, as a way to recover my losses. With that being said, I wouldn’t go near a smart lock at this point.

Also. 4.10.5.111 Isn’t on the revert list. I would try to flash my firmware again, but I’ve already wasted enough time, and I’m getting kinda to the point where I just want something I can put down and forget. Even if that means dropping a few hundred bucks, to be assured that when I’m not looking it’s working correctly, and it will make my life easier if something does happen. Really disappointed, but I guess you get what you pay for.

Where a lot of this comes from is that my ex contacted me today while I was at work and when I went to go check person detection footage, just to see if maybe she was scouting my location. I had hand fulls of 5 minute clips(I submitted some of them) where my camera literally seemed to be focused on empty sky, a stationary bench with red pillows, and the base of a tree. I didn’t even bother to watch any of them, cause at that point in time I could have just as easily taken my lunch and drove home and done a walk around. It really kinda hurts as well because I have suggested people to check them out. Not so sure I’ll be so willing in the future, especially when the focus of wyze appears to be a priority on the quantity of the product line over the actual quality and longevity of a product. My opinion.

For the 5 “budget” cameras I bought I could have gotten 1 way more reliable. That’s kinda where I’m at right now, but I work in health care so i have bigger things to worry about currently.

Well, I updated the settings on my cameras, disabling the motion detect completely, and the outlining (don’t recall the exact name of the feature).

That seemed to make the cameras on the same spot overnight (so far). i turned motion detection back on, still not moving on their own.

I suspect that the fiasco they have had with the people detection feature they added then lost cost effective access to and backing that out of the firmware may be at the heart of the problem.

Still annoying that a bug like this wasn’t caught.

I did just for the hell of it turn on the person detect and I never saw an event ever, so I won’t miss it. I still rely on remote viewing, a good history, and no cost for cloud storage of such. Plus any camera with internal storage is useless w/o motion detection. People ID isn’t that interesting.

I’m still mostly a fan, due to the cost. Won’t do any lock or such, that is not any use at all to me. maybe a ring cam equivalent someday, but not now.

**SO ******************

So result here, turn off the motion and event stuff. (possibly restart cam, unknown if that is necessary. my sample of 3 cameras didn’t need it), and turn it back on.

The outlining may + motion may be the bug. I haven’t turned that back on.
thanks hope this helps. Will update if any other shoes drop.

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I just noticed that one of the control page (main page) camera thumbnails seemed updated before I viewed it. Have they added a feature to grab some images from your cameras to update those?

Had never observed the thumbnails to be updated till you exit from the viewer for a specific camera.

I’d take a feature like that with like a 1 min or so interval grab of the current stuff on each camera to give a facility wide time lapes eye to watch with.