I have an outdoor cam v2 mounted on a shed near my pool. I also have the official Wyze solar panel 2.5W 5V connected with an unobstructed view of the sky.
My cam doesn’t appear to be charging at all. Bright sunny days with many hours of direct sunlight on the panel. I see the little lightning bolt next to the battery indicator on the app, as if the cam thinks it’s charging, but the percentage never moves. In fact it goes down a percentage or two every couple of days.
I’ve wiped off the panel. Unplugged all connections and reseated. Tried adjusting the angle of the panel. Also, the cam has no motion detection turned on; I only use it for on-demand viewing of the backyard. The cam reports 3 bar signal to the wireless base station. Firmware 4.48.4.418.
Thanks for the reply! The solar panel is enabled and toggled on in the accessory settings. I haven’t tried disconnecting to compare drain rate; I’ll try and see how it goes. I was also thinking of connecting my phone for a bit to see if it charged at all.
I would also detach the panel and reboot the cam, then re-attach panel. If the camera battery has gotten low, charge it via USB first and then put it back on the panel. I’ve seen both of these “tricks” work.
I assume you don’t have a second cam but if you do, try swapping out and see if you get effective charging on the other cam. I had an outdoor cam battery fail randomly and I thought it was the new panel. (That camera charged ok on USB at first but not on panel. Slight voltage differences, I assume.)
I had some real finicky problems with my panels to start but some firmware update on the cams appears to have addressed that. I haven’t seen any issues in months. (knocks on wood)
Edit: Removed my first suggestion after I re-read the OP’s first post.
So I unplugged the panel from the camera. Same drain rate.
I tried your suggestion of unplugging the panel, rebooting the cam and re-attaching - voila! It’s now charged 5% already today in just a couple hours. I had tried rebooting the cam before, but it was still attached to the panel…guess there’s some magic that happens when it’s disconnected and then rebooted.
Hello - having the same issue with the Cam Pro not charging with the solar panel. Messing around with camera I noticed that once the battery is clipped in the solar panel stops charging the battery. If you unclip the battery and leave the battery door open the battery charging light goes on and it looks like the solar panel is charging the battery.
Battery not clipped in camera - on solar panel - right light on - charging
Hope this helps in troubleshooting the issue. At this point no idea what to do next. Same pictures submitted to Wyze tech support for them to find a fix hopefully.
Is the battery still making contact with the pins in the camera in that picture?
If so, I’d wonder if there is some corrosion or dirt on part of the pins in either the camera or on the battery, so when it is fully inserted, those corroded spots are touching and it can’t charge. If that’s the case, some isopropyl alcohol or electronics contact cleaner and some Q tips may be enough to fix it (clean both the battery contacts and the camera ones).
The other thought is that after ejecting the battery it may just turn the green light on for a while to tell you it is charged. If you pull it out further does the light go off (again, trying to determine if it is making contact in that pic or not).
I don’t have a BCP but my best guess here is that the green light is just telling you how much charge it has when you remove it. The solar panel probably is charging it but you have to keep in mind that it can only charge the battery when it has “extra” power not required to run the camera. So if the camera is taking all or most of the power, the battery isn’t going to charge much, if at all. But the panel will reduce how often you have to manually charge the battery.
