This has been an ongoing issue with my V1 Floodlight for several years now, something triggers the floods to come on (probably an insect), yet it doesn’t record anything. And I’m unable to get the camera to load via the app right away. It takes numerous attempts, often I have to shut down the app and start it again. And when that fails then I have to turn off the light switch wait a few minutes and turn it back on to reboot the thing. Makes it useless if I had an intruder at my back door. This camera hasn’t work right since day one and it was a replacement for the first V1 Floodlight which had issues.
My other issue was that it uses cool white LED’s, which I can’t stand. Of course now Wyze sells filters for the floods, which doesn’t help me because my floodlight is clearly going to have to be replaced. I have a Floodlight Pro I bought a while back but never got around to installing it. I’m hopeful it works better but Wyze doesn’t sell filters for it, so I’m back to being stuck with cool white lights. You’d think if they sell filters for their oldest floodlight camera then they’d sell them for their more recent floodlight cameras. Not sure what their thought process is about this.
Both symptoms point to a wifi connectivity problem. Keep in mind that wifi has trouble penetrating walls and getting to outdoor areas. Outside also has much more interference, meaning even if you have a signal strength within normal range, the interference can make it unusable. Moving the router or using an extender may help.
Do you have an SD card in it? That should record fine even if there is a connectivity problem and it can’t upload the clip to the cloud.
Yet I have cameras in my garage and outside the garage which are farther away than this floodlight and my router is closer in the house to this floodlight than most of the other cameras. And no I don’t have an SD card in this device or any of my other cameras because I don’t want the data in the wrong hands should someone steal a camera.
I really don’t think the main issue is my WiFi and any negative effects are minor. But I already understood how walls effect WiFi and since these cameras only use 2.4GHz they have better wall penetration than 5GHz, which all my other devices connect at. I have no other appliances that could be interferring with the signal. I really feel this floodlight is failing and hope when I install the Pro version it will last longer.
Most houses have some form of foil or metal in exterior walls which will block 2.4 just as much as 5, meaning the signal relies on windows to reach the cameras. This can mean small differences in location make a big difference in signal strength/quality.
Certainly could be failing, wifi radio going bad and not putting out as strong of a signal, etc. Maybe a new model will have a better wifi radio in it. Just don’t want you to end up with the same issue with a new one, so it is something to keep in mind.
I suppose as a test you could try temporarily putting your router in a window that has line of sight to the floodlight. Or test using a wifi extender (repeater) or a spare router you have around running as an access point (wired repeater basically). Would at least tell you if the issues are wifi related, but it won’t tell you if it is because the radio in the current flood light is dying. Honestly it doesn’t sound like the symptoms of a wifi radio that is failing, but who knows.
There is no foil in my walls, I know that for a fact as I’ve had to open up a few walls before. This is my second V1 Floodlight, the first had issues right out of the box where the floods kept coming on for no reason or not at all. Got it replaced and after about a year this one started having issues, floods coming on numerous times without recording anything or recordings wouldn’t play. I’ve had plenty of issues with my other Wyze cameras but this floodlight has been the worst of them. And it’s closer to my router than all but one of my cameras. This camera is on the south side of my house so it’s in direct sunlight most of the time, so maybe that has been too much for it but it’s an outdoor floodlight so it’s supposed to handle it. The only time it seems to record when the floods come on is if I go out my back door near it.
Oh, I also put a WiFi extender in the garage to see if that would make a difference and it didn’t, the same issues happened. So maybe the heat in the summer and heavy rains in the winter have been too much for it.
Try removing the floodlight and see if there is water behind it. I’ve heard some do not have the drain hole in the bottom and if not sealed well, they can get water behind them that can interfere and eventually damage teh electronics.
It is already sealed at the top and open at the bottom. But when I remove it to install the Floodlight Pro, I’ll take a closer look but if I remember correctly the back isn’t open and is sealed, so any water that could get in would only be in the wall electrical box, which would drain out.