I found that the Wyze outdoor cam wireless network does not have sufficient range for my needs (9 acres). However I have excellent wifi mesh network coverage everywhere, so I’m wondering if the indoor cam (which works on wifi) could be paired with a little solar charger from Amazon. Anyone tried this?
(Also I get to subzero at my location.)
The V 3 camera will run on a solar panel but there will be disadvantages if you try to run continuous recording or even just events to the SD card you going to drain the battery in the solar panel quite a lot.
It will run better with the status light off and only 12 second video clips.
I did not fully test it Just preliminary tests, and it may work better with a different solar panel than the one I have.
What you can do is buy the v 3 and a solar panel and see what you get
I will wait to purchase the V3. I will purchase a solar power bank and test it on my V2. I will test my WCO as a dashcam using one of my existing power banks, I have a 10k and 20k that are reliable. Gives me a opportunity to test if my gel pad works on the dash. It holds my phone on the wall with no problem.
that’s a good idea , test it out with V2 , come back in let us know how it goes.
I also ran it on a 23K power bank for 2 days , I had recording events only to the SD card on,
I just bought a brand new power bank too, have not used it on cams yet.
30 bucks off
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07XRJZXKY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I plan to emulate my current V2 which is on 24/7 monitoring my 2 vehicles. It is inside, shooting through a window. I can just run it off a power bank now but prefer to test a solar power bank as that would be my preferred method with the V3. I will also test my WCO on a power bank since I plan to run it as a dash cam, I can set a schedule and see what happens.
I am doing research now. The majority of power banks are designed to not charge devices if recharging. This also applies to power banks with the ability to recharge by a built in or attached solar panel. The ones that will allow both, provide warnings that the solar recharge is slow, meant as a backup method, so will not keep up with demand. Owners have reported this to be the case.
What we need is a capacitor in the camera that can provide several minutes of uninterrupted operation. Then we might be able to switch out power banks without the device having to cycle off and back on.
Oh, that’s interesting.
Does anyone have the power specs on the V2? We know it is 5V but what is the wattage and amperage needed to run it? Solar panels with batteries come in various sizes. What we need to know is the milliamp hours needed to run the camera for a given period of time, say 1 hour.
The outdoor CAMs have such limited functionality they can’t be used to view areas where power is hard to get having a solar option would be a distinct advantage and there are enough available on the market today that we should be able to find one that will run the camera overnight and recharge during the day.