Solar pan cam

Cameras
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1

It worked for a couple of weeks. Then it just stopped working. And now I’m not getting it to charge. So I don’t know if the battery went completely dead. Is that a possibility? And then it won’t charge back up?

2

Welcome to the Forum, @Rach1966! :wave:

I’ve had one that’s run completely down a time or two, and I think that was because I was being pretty aggressive with the detection and recording settings and because I was having some Wi-Fi issues so the Cam was working hard to reconnect. When that happened, I unclipped it from its mount, brought it in to charge (I just used the included cable to plug it into the USB-A port on the back of my Internet gateway so that it’d be right there by the Wi-Fi source for a better signal to connect it after it recharged), and let it sit overnight. Repeatedly pressing or press-holding (sometimes >20 seconds with and without the microSD card removed) the SETUP button the next day has gotten the Cam to go through its startup calibration and get back online without my needing to re-add the device to the app, and the app shows that it’s charged/charging when I reconnect the solar panel and clip the camera back into its mount outdoors.

What has Support said when you contacted them?

2 Likes
3

Thanks, brought it in the house, plugged it in. Overnight charged. Pressed the setup button 20 seconds. It’s working now. You’re my new hero.

2 Likes
4

Right on. Thanks for taking the time to post an update! :+1:

5

I have 4 solar pan cams now. 1 of which constantly has to be recalibrated because it loses it’s location (i.e. when going to home position it points in a completely different location). I’ve seen people say they run regular recalibrations or reboots. Are those scheduled and if so, how? Anyone else having issues like this?

6

I haven’t seen reports of this issue, but this is what I think I’d do with the problematic Cam:

  1. Delete all your Waypoints for that Cam in Waypoint Edit mode.
  2. Tap Calibrate Motor while still in that mode to manually calibrate the Cam. You want the Cam to be freshly calibrated when setting Waypoints.
  3. Recreate your Waypoints and set the desired Home Waypoint.
  4. Additionally, you could do things in  Settings, like Reset and Restart, but I don’t know if those would have any effect on the position. (Restart should also recalibrate the Cam.)

Scheduling calibration is something that a lot of users have done going back to Cam Pan v3 to accommodate for its Waypoint drift issue, and that’s typically done by creating Schedule Automations using the “Restart the camera” and/or “Reset Position” Actions. I have a couple of Cam Pan v3s that do this weekly. Since Solar Cam Pan apparently has no “Reset Position” Action available in Automations, you could create a Schedule Automation to restart it, and it would end up looking something like this:

  • DO
    • Solar Cam Pan
      • Restart the camera
  • WHEN
    • Start Time     12:00 PM Wednesday[1]

That should reset the Cam’s position to your Home Waypoint on a schedule.

In addition to this stuff, you could try a factory reset on the Cam and set it up as new, but I don’t know if your results would be any different doing that. If this one Cam refuses to return to the position you’re setting, then I wouldn’t hesitate to submit a log and then follow up with Wyze Support by creating a ticket referencing the Log ID you create.

  1. Obviously choose your own start time/day to select your desired frequency. ↩︎