Strange sounds

The engineers’ best guess is that this is electrical interference of some kind, wifi or otherwise (as some of you have speculated). If so, it may be very location dependent, especially considering that this has not been a widespread complaint. So, can someone who is experiencing this issue try moving the camera around (a little or a lot) and see if the background noise continues or changes?

This is what you would expect from a company with poor technical support. “Best guesses” and suggestions that people just move things around. It is arguably a widespread complaint. There are already two active threads on this topic. Multiple people have brought this up. It is likely that others haven’t because they think “this is how it’s supposed to work”.

My guess is that they knew this was an issue and just did nothing because it isn’t their hardware. They don’t make, assemble or compile any of this hardware. They are app developers and this is why every time I have seen hardware complaints or sent my own to Wyze, all you get is fumbling and equivocation. I have just learned to live with it, just like all V1 owners are going to have to eventually. It is a defective piece of equipment that Wyze saw fit to replace just 5 months after launch. They may someday fix the connectivity issues, but the flaws inherent in the hardware itself are here to stay.

The two threads have been merged here. I count a total of four reports including yours. There have been no reports in any of the Facebook groups.

Fluorescent lights

Ok, I visited the location where my two v1 cameras are. Both exhibit the noise, but one is louder than the other, even when they are in the same location. I moved them right next to a fluorescent tube ballast, (an old one, not a high efficiency electronic ballast that may cause more interference), and there was no perceptible difference. I moved them closer and further from the wifi access point, and there was no perceptible difference. Without taking them out into the country and powering off a battery pack, I don’t know how to isolate them from “electrical interference”. My guess is that it is just circuit noise. Why it has the periodic sound, I don’t know, but it may be related to the 10 fps rate the cameras use.

To me, it isn’t a big issue; that isn’t a feature I use. It evidently does bother some people. My original purpose was to have an easy way to verify that I remembered to close my garage door, and for that, I can easily ignore the noise.

Since it affects one camera more than the other (with same firmware), likely from the same manufacturing batch since the MAC addresses were the same except for the least significant byte, with a difference of 0x0c (or 12 decimal); that suggest to me that it is in the analog pre-amp or a/d converter as suggested by dale in https://www.wyzecam.com/forums/topic/strange-sounds/#post-122670

It is also my guess that if Jason took his quiet camera to work, it would still be quiet. https://www.wyzecam.com/forums/topic/strange-sounds/#post-122700

The two v1 cameras I received were from Jan 2018, and had 4 LEDs (not two). Perhaps that batch had marginal audio chips but better night vision. You can see the 4 LEDs here https://www.wyzecam.com/forums/topic/sticking-the-wyzecam-to-the-wall/#post-108421

There are probably differences in every manufacturing “run”, possibly different component suppliers, small features (like the 2 vs 4 LED).

 

Sounds like a good analysis to me. I’ll see if I can get someone from Wyze to respond to this thread.

What’s the sound like with the fluorescent lights OFF?

Same with fluorescent lights off. The only light that was on was an LED screw in light bulb (75W replacement). I should have tried turning that off, but I didn’t.

The sound is the same in a different house than it was when I posted my first extracted mp3, and when it was where the mp3 was produced, all lights were off in the room it was in. I can’t know for sure that the fluorescent lights in the basement were off (approximately 10 ft from where the Wyze v1 was recording). This is not a 60Hz hum, which is what I would expect from an old 40 year old ballast.

Does your camera make the sound we are describing? If so, is the noise correlated with fluorescent lights being on? Are they CFL screw in replacement with electronic ballasts in the base, or 4 ft long tubes.

But, I think I was incorrect in my earlier speculation about it being related to AGC (automatic gain control). It seems to be at about the same level regardless of acoustic sound. It is more noticeable when there is no other sound.

 

 

No, I get ZERO sound from my first edition cam. It’s completely surrounded on one side by all things tech- wifi enabled bulbs, and all. 20-25 feet away is an ancient fluorescent light fixture as well. But the shielding in the walls would prevent any interference from it. Be interesting to see if a ferrite shield on the USB cable would help.

I just received two v2 cams today. Fired them up and both are making the same noise. Found a Teddit post where this does appear to be widespread going back into last year

I also have clicking from cameras when anyone walks in front of it. It’s so loud, the kids found the ‘hidden’ cameras in the hallway within seconds.

Hi, this is the electrical noise near the mic. It is actually not 100% new from v1. In v1, we have background noise like ocean wave. In v2, the background noise is like chirping sound (or helicopter sound). They are related to electrical current and hardware. So the sound could be high or low depending on specific unit and house power fluctuation. Right now we are still investigating on reducing the noise. It is a hard issue to tackle, especially with limited engineering source. Sorry for the inconvenience! We will keep working on it. Thanks!

Same exact issue and noise. Received two new cameras today and they both have this issue.

The “clicking” from the cameras when someone walks in front of them is probably the IR cut filter being moved back and forth as light conditions change. My guess is that people walking by cast a shadow. You should be able to verify that it is related to switching between day and night modes.

If you don’t want it to ever click (other than when it is doing its power on self test), you can force the camera to always use night (ir) or day (visible) mode, and then it won’t move the IR cut filter.

I don’t know if the hardware is able to control the LEDs independent of the IR cut filter. I know that none of the Android apps I have used give any option, and there have been requests from people that have the camera inside a window and want the IR cut filter to change without the LEDs being turned on.

About the only thing that could be done with a firmware/app change to minimize the “clicking” associated with switching between day and night mode would be to have an adjustable delay before switching modes, then short duration lighting change would not change the IR cut filter position (with the associated click). Without knowing anything about the underlying software, it is hard to say if that would be an easy or complex thing to do.

 

Yes, we are working on it. This is more hardware related. We are actively working on it to reduce the noise but I double we could totally eliminate it. With the tight hardware budget for the camera, I just want to set the expectation right. Thanks for understanding!

(relocated)

Thought I’d add my $.02 to this discussion. I recently setup four new V2 cameras around the house (two are still unboxed). We rarely have the audio enabled, with the exception of the camera setup on the wall above our grandson’s crib. Just noticed today that if I have the volume on my iPad turned up to more than 50%, I definitely hear a similar grinding/mechanical sound, though not as rhythmic as the one in the video that @Soli posted above. Not good (very distracting), especially since we’ll be turning UP the volume while our grandson naps. Don’t know if the firmware upgrade I performed this morning to v4.1.9.42 introduced this (unlikely, since I think it only impacted image quality, which was improved), but am nearly positive that the three V1 cameras I gifted my daughter did not have the problem. (thought this comment was going to appear at the end of the thread, tried twice replying to OP … oh well)

My brand new wyze cam V2 makes the same noise ,it actually sounds like a sprinkler . My v1 never made this noise it’s using the same WiFi and it was used at the same location.

39C01F2B-2A73-4073-ACE1-BBA3444AC2B9.mov (612 KB)

Hi, just an update for the issue. We have been working on our firmware code to reduce the noise. We will release beta firmware soon regarding this issue. Thanks!

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A beta firmware will be released soon on this. Thanks!

I also have this issue with my V1 camera. Sounds just like the other updated audio files in this thread.