My pan cam v1 has suddenly stopped working. It shows as off line on the app. Power cycle will work temporarily, usually less than a day. It was making strange clicking noises a few days ago. I deleted it and reinstalled it but had the same issue, worked less than a day. Have three others on the same network that have had no issues. Firmware is 4.10.9.1851.
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Welcome to the Wyze User Community Forum @wolfe39!
You may be experiencing a Power Supply failure. If the cam isn’t getting ample power, it starts to act all wonky.
Do you have a cord from another cam and a 5 volt 2 amp power supply, maybe from a phone charger, that you can swap in and see if it maintains its wits? You can always test it with the cord and power supply from one of the other cams.
Thanks for the reply. I’ll give that a try.
I have 2 cams CP1’s that are baddish. One failed and one shuts sown about twice a month. I’ll try your fix/test but why would the cable be at fault, it never moves. Also, I have had 3 other cameras fail (V2 fixed) and I see failures across all models in the chat. I’m a wyseguy and convinced many others to buy them. Was I wrong? I would think the design would be stable by now.
Only if you aren’t using the stock cord that came with the cam would I suspect a cord to be the issue unless it is in an environment prone to high humidity where the contacts in the terminal ends can get corroded and loose conductivity. Many aftermarket cords and USB extensions are not capable of supplying the required power.
That being said, testing those components is a simple troubleshooting step that will rule them out as the possible cause. It is always best to eliminate the easiest diagnosed possibilities first.
There have been increased reports of Power Adapters going bad though, so that is something I would test. I have extra 5V 3A power adapters laying around that I use to rule out a bad power adapter. I also have a load tester that I use to force an adapter to work overtime just to see if it will give up its smoke.
The specific behavior of the cams when they do this is very important in troubleshooting the cause. Shuts down could mean several things. Total power down with no status lights, powered off in the app, or just offline with status lights still active?
Also, if the failure happened after a firmware update, there may have been a loss in WiFi connectivity during the download thereby corrupting the firmware install. Manually flashing the firmware will usually revive these cams.
The weakest link in the firmware update process is the WiFi they are on when receiving the OTA update. The design is stable, but the WiFi platform on which they operate dictates that stability.
Interesting result. All my cams are with their original equipment. I would never swap power adapters unless they are the same which can be hard to find with excess house equipment. Anyway i left the cables and swapped the cams…they both came on. Now I’ll wait to see how long. Thanks for the idea.
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Swapping power adapters isn’t really an issue unless it is below the Amp requirements needed by the cam. All USB power adapters should be 5V by default since that is the USB standard. Pan Cams require 2 Amps while the V3 and others only require 1 Amp. Using a 3 Amp Power adapter doesn’t hurt the cam, it just means that the Power Adapter is able to supply that much current if the cam draws it. Since the Pan Cams only draw up to 2 Amps, and very rarely will even get that high with both motors turning and the siren on, all is well and the cam is happy.
If the cam stays lit on the new, higher amp adapter, the old one may have been getting tired. I have had 3 of the 1 Amp V3 adapters do this recently. They operated for a minute or two until they overheated and fell on their face. I had one hooked up to a power monitor and watched it faceplant on the readout.
My PanCan1 that shuts off sometimes did it again less than 24 hours after switching them for this test. What can i do?
It depends on what “shuts off” means. As I said before, this could mean several different states the cam is in for multiple different reasons.
Is this a total power down with no status light? Offline in the app with a status light on? Shows off in the app but can be toggled back on?
What does the Rules History show for actions on the cam?
Is the cam shared?
What firmware is the cam running?
Is there a schedule set in Event Recording?
Is this a total power down with no status light? Offline in the app with a status light on? I didn’t check that.
Shows off in the app but can be toggled back on? Shows off in the app and can’t restart
What does the Rules History show for actions on the cam? There was an old rule for a light bulb on there by mistake. I just deleted it.
Is the cam shared? Yes but without any control capability.
What firmware is the cam running? The latest 4.10.9.1851
Is there a schedule set in Event Recording? No
You’re going to have to be more detailed in your descriptions.
If the cam is showing as “Off” in the app device list Home, what happens when you tap the camera to open the live view? What happens when you then tap the power button in the middle of where the video should be? What happens when you tap the “Off” button in the Home device list? What error message is appearing? If the app fails to turn it back on, it should be indicating an issue if it doesn’t return back to on.
If the cam is shared with someone else, there is control capability. The only way to remove that is to remove the share. Additionally, shared users can also use Rules on their app to action the cam and those Rules will not show in your Rules History.
I will have to make note of those questions the next time it happens. All i have done is unplug and wait a bit before plugging it back in. As for sharing all cams are shared with a family member who more than likely doesn’t even look at them.
One problem with cams is that they will go Offline. But, this appears as an “Offline” cam in the app and is inaccessible. A cam that is showing as “Off” appears that it has been shut off either manually or by a rule. Even if the shared family member doesn’t view the cams, any rules that family member has on their App that may trigger the cam to turn off would still execute without any notification.
When it turns off though, pressing the button in the app should turn it back on.
One trick I do when I am testing a cam that may be turning off randomly is I set up a special rule to trigger when the cam turns off to upload a short video on a Cam Plus cam so that it sends me a notification when it happens. That gives me the time that it happened so that I can try to see why.