Camera is 15 feet from my router and has FULL wifi bars.
So far, I am disappointed the panv4 camera in live view lags. It basically freezes for a second or two or three consistently.
If I change it to 360p its good, but the image is not very good.
If I switch it to Auto, it still skips. 4K is the same.
This camera is almost unusable.
I have a panv3 and do not have these laggy issues. I also have a solar pan cam as well that is probably 100 yards from my outdoor router and no issues with lagging.
I really dont need 4K resolution, but 360p is not acceptable.
Trying to decide if to return it again or open a ticket with support.
Distance to the router doesn’t really mean anything especially when passing through an exterior wall. In fact when going from inside to outside (and outside to inside as the traffic from the cam has to do) further away can actually be better. If your walls have any metal in them (mesh for stucco, aluminum siding, foil vapor barrier, etc) the signal needs to get out/in through windows and doors, so having it too close can prevent that.
The signal strength you see in the app is what the cam is seeing from your high powered router with big antennas. You need to look in the router to see the signal strength back from the cam. Not only does the cam have a lower powered wifi chip and smaller antenna, but getting from outside to in is a lot harder than inside to out.
But even both of those aside, signal strength does not mean the signal is good quality or has enough bandwidth available for the 4k stream. Your neighbor could have a router in their window facing where your cam is blasting it with interference and taking a lot of usable bandwidth away from it.
The Pan v4 supports both 2.4ghz and 5ghz wifi
2.4ghz has better range and better penetration of non-metallic walls, but is typically congested and prone to interference. Changing channels and making sure it is set to 20mhz bandwidth only (not 40 or 20/40) can yield improvement, as can repositioning the router.
5ghz has more bandwidth but worse penetration and range. Repositioning the router can help some but it is a lot harder to get 5ghz out and in through an exterior wall.
So depending which one you’re using, it may make sense to try the other just to see if it is better or worse.
Also note that most ISP routers have pretty notoriously bad wifi (they’ve gotten better, but are still designed for indoor use on a single floor). An after market router or AP with external antennas can make a huge difference. My AP is mounted on the ceiling of my 3rd floor and reaches all 3 floors of the house with 5ghz and covers my 1/4 acre lot with 2.4, and I have aluminum siding and foil vapor barrier. It is mounted central to the house so that it has plenty of windows and doors to go through (whereas the cameras are on either end of the house).
I have a large property with many acres with indoor and outdoor routers. I also have many various types of Wyze cameras that are running without issues.
A lot of times one can post here and instantly the wifi is to blame. I have also run wifi metering test for actual signal stength. I know that wifi can be the issue, but don’ t think it is in this case.
All that said, I do appreciate all the feedback and analysis.
I believe you mentioned your other cams aren’t 4K. The 4K wyze cams take more bandwidth, and again they support 5Ghz so it may be trying to use that but having issues penetrating the walls.
Again, signal strength is not a good indicator of signal quality. That requires more specialized hardware to test. I have 2.4ghz channels around me that have 8% available bandwidth, and others that have 20%, but you can only see that with the proper equipment.
And like I also mentioned, trying to run 40mhz on 2.4ghz or 160mhz on 5ghz can also create problems, it claims to increase your bandwidth but all it really does is make the noise exponentially worse and make it harder for 20mhz devices (like IOT cams) to communicate.
Obviously wifi isn’t the only possibility but given your symptoms (especially the fact that it won’t stay on 4K resolution), it is very likely. If you can, bring one of the cams inside and see if the issue goes away. There are many others here using the Panv4 without the issue you describe.
No. I have Wyze OGs and V4 at the same distance within a few feet apart of the V4 pan. Each camera that wyze puts out seems to be worse than previous versions kinda like Windows OS. … 7 good, 8 bad. 10 good. 11 bad. …. With Wyze, v3 good, v3 pro bad, v4 good, v4 pan bad. Wyze puts out a bid for some company to slap on their label, that’s why they are cheap and you won’t know what your are going to end up until a few firmwares down the line.
The OG and v4 are totally different cams, as I mentioned, 4k needs more bandwidth, and the Panv4 supports 2.4 and 5ghz wifi which makes a difference too.
If it was a design issue, everyone here with the Panv4 would be having the same problem.
I have same issue. Cam pan v3 is way better. Hopefully they fix that issue. I move my pan V4 to the backyard where there not much motion like my front yard
Their release notes are so vague, lagging makes me think that it is a second or two behind what is actually happening (or maybe worse), but who knows what they mean by that. There are plenty of Panv4 users in here, including some regulars (yourself I believe too?), I’d think if it was freezing as OP described, that would be getting more attention. The fact that they mentioned it refusing to stay on 4K also points to a bandwidth issue…..
If you’re on beta firmware, that could actually be the issue. If they’re trying to fix a lag issue it could be having unintended consequences (hence not being released as production yet). Betas have bugs, that’s by design.
I still think your symptoms sound like a bandwidth issue though. If possible I’d try bringing the camera inside and see how it performs, just to narrow it down.
I didn’t know that 3005 was Beta. Wyze support must have pushed it to me to fix an original issue.
I did move the camera today to test and it still hesitates at times…basically the clock and picture freezes for a second or two and then starts up again. Gets worse when flipping to 4K.
I have a mesh system with several router nodes. I have a seperate IOT network. I have moved the camera…also forced it on to my other nodes. I have tried it connected to main mode to eliminate any backhaul questions.
Dont think its channel congestion… I dont have any neighbors nearby.
I do appreciate the suggestions as it makes me think what else to try.
Mesh systems can be a bit of a challenge on their own. Some are very aggressive with “band steering” trying to force clients onto 5ghz (assuming you have the same network name across both), and others have too much signal overlap (“too much wifi” as I like to call it) that can cause issues too. When testing indoors I’m guessing your cam was on 5ghz so band steering should not be the issue. However keep in mind that when you isolate cams to an IOT network (like I do also) and your viewing device is on another network, your traffic loops out to wyze servers, then back in. So you need to make sure your upload bandwidth with your ISP is good and not getting saturated by other stuff. The fact that bringing it inside helped seems to point to something connection related, but who knows.
I don’t have any Panv4s (nor do I usually run beta firmware) so what you’re seeing could very well be a bug in that beta firmware and not related to wifi at all. Before you mentioned the firmware version, my thinking was there are plenty of Panv4 owners on here not having issues like that, and often when you see it dropping the resolution, it means it can’t get enough bandwidth.
Your internet upload speeds are ok? Are you leaving the cam on “auto” resolution? I think there was an issue with trying to leave it on “4K”, it really seems to want to be left on auto.
Correct, and I’ve experienced the live view lag, especially when trying to manually pan and tilt the Cam. Initially I thought it was because of the resolution, as sometimes it seemed like there was more response latency when I had live view in 4K mode than when I switched to 360p mode, but then that was kind of hit or miss, and even 360p mode seemed laggy sometimes. This was even when I had a solid 5 GHz Wi-Fi connection with the Cam in the same room as my gateway.
I think the performance has gotten better over time with the production firmware updates that have been released since this product launched. Right now on firmware 4.70.0.2714, I’m seeing response latency with manual pan/tilt on par with what I get from a Cam Pan v3. This is with the stream mode set to 4K while Device Info shows my Signal Strength to be 2/3 bars (-51dB), and my router’s app says that the signal is “Weak”.
Again, I think its performance has improved over time since launch, but I’ve also made changes to my home network, and I imagine that has helped, as well. Generally with this product, though, I’ve had concerns that they may have launched it prematurely, especially since they didn’t even have its time lapse feature ready to go out of the box.
I agree. I think it’s clearly an ongoing issue, and I do think that Wi-Fi quality can be a hairy variable to account for, so it’s important not to dismiss that.
My CP v4 is on FW 3005. I’m also on app b744. FWIW I have 2 bars, signal strength, -53dBm on the 5 gHz band.
As @dave27 said lag is hard to define. I’m not seeing freezes, ie it freezes for a period of time.
What is keeping me from replacing my CP v3’s is it is still to hyper. I have motion detection on so I can watch it track. I have watched it track the dog and the gardner in the backyard. It does a good job until either one pauses for a second or so then it loses track and either goes home or to the next way point. This results in many short events. The CP v3 was much better, it would wait a bit before moving on.
Not sure if this is related to freezing but it’s a data point.
I’m not giving this much attention as I have other priorities I’m chasing.
As far as Cam Pan v4 is concerned, I’m waiting on a few more firmware updates before I feel like I can really judge it. I don’t know if there will be problems with time lapse when that finally makes it to production firmware, but that’s one thing I’m curious about seeing, especially when it comes to feedback from the community.
