8 month old V4 camera spotlight stopped turning on with motion where it had been working for 8 months with no settings changed.
I can turn spotlight on by going to manual in the spotlight settings and tap low setting and spotlight turns on. Then if I tap high it will turn on to high and stay on. When I tap auto the spotlight will stay on high for 5 seconds when timer is set to 3 minutes and then shut off which is repeatable. After that when I walk in front of the camera it will not turn on spotlight. This camera is powered by light socket and that light will turn on with motion. The spotlight used to turn on with the lamp socket and stay on after light socket turned off so there was light to see by.
Have tried removing power but didn’t fix it. Have not tried deleting cam and reinstalling yet.
EDIT - just tried my 3 other V4 cams and they all are doing the same exact thing. They have all been working but suddenly all V4 outside cams have lost spotlight functionality like described above.
Again - no settings have been changed from when they were last working.
Are the cameras current with firmware? I imagine that the answer is probably “yes”, but I didn’t see it mentioned and would expect someone else to ask because several firmware updates have specifically addressed the spotlight’s functionality.
It only works when it is dark enough for “night mode” (infrared) to kick on (you can have night mode disabled, but it must be that dark).
If you don’t have cam plus, it has a 5 minute cooldown between activations.
If you don’t want it to rely on light levels, you can create an automation to have it turn on the spotlight for x minutes when motion is detected. This won’t overcome the 5 minute cooldown but it removes the reliance on light level. You can set it to be 24x7 or only during certain times. That’s how mine are set up, midnight (when my front lights shut off) to dawn, turn on for 1 minute when motion detected.
It is for dark and they are set for night mode and I have cam plus.
I use them for nighttime only when motion is detected to turn spotlight on to try to scare animals away and for when people visit. They have been working perfectly until last night when the back deck camera spotlight stopped working with motion. Tonight when it still wasn’t working I posted and then I checked other V4 cams and found they were doing the same exact thing as the deck cam.
Changes in lighting due to seasonality, your own lights, or even firmware updates can change the sensitivity to when it thinks it is “dark”. My front door cam (originally an OG now a v4) never thinks it is dark because I have streetlights, so I use the automation. I have a feeling you’re seeing something similar.
I had a Panv3 that never went into night (IR) mode, then at one point it started doing it pretty frequently. So I had to disable that mode since it always has enough ambient light and I prefer the “color night vision”. So your case may be the opposite, something changed where it now does not think it is dark enough for the spotlight.
I agree that something did happen but all cams and spotlights were working for at least 8 months prior to yesterday and settings have not changed. That is what confuses me. Unless a camera update made a change that I can’t see however that would be possible because I have been over the settings multiple times and nothing changed.
Could a camera update have “broken” my setting in the firmware update? Is anyone talking about this problem or am I the only one?
I could do it the way you suggested but I’m an old IT man and an ex army crypto man where things had to work the way they were designed without tweaks or workarounds.
I have a few spare V4 cams so I may install a couple to see if the problem is there on the cams that have not been updated since I bought them which was probably around a year ago. It will be interesting to see if they work properly before I let them do any updates. If they work and then I let them update and then the problem shows up I would have to think it’s something in the update.
It probably has nothing to do with any setting. The camera uses a calculation based on light detected by the image sensor to determine when it is “dark” enough to use night mode and/or the spotlight (and those two thresholds are not always the same).
Age of the image sensor, seasonal changes, etc all can affect that sensitivity. Like I said, I have one camera that for a year never once went into night mode, then started doing it every other night, at which point I just disabled night mode.
Using “auto” spotlight means you are allowing the camera to decide when it is dark enough. Using an automation lets you tell it exactly when you want it to start activating the spotlight, and it has a “dusk” and “dawn” setting which uses time zone data for sunset and sunrise rather than using ambient light detection, so it is far more consistent when you’re “at the threshold” of where it does or does not activate the night features.
It could have been a firmware update (though there have been no updates for the v4 in quite a while) or could just be the sensor has gotten ever so slightly less sensitive than it was 8 months ago. Heck it could be increased solar flares or something else that you wouldn’t even see. Can even be something like a nearby lightbulb got replaced and is slightly brighter than it used to be, or some new car parked nearby that reflects more light, etc. It is likely impossible to find a “smoking gun” unless there is something really obvious that has changed.
I tried a new V4 I had here bought in 10/6/24 but the second I finished setting it up it forced me to do update so I couldn’t try my theory of something in firmware update so that theory is shot.
I still cannot understand how 3 cams could do the same thing within 48 hours especially since there were no changes in outside lights or change in positions. I could almost see one camera failing to work the way it had for 8+ months but 3 in different locations and at the same time?
Is there a way to stop the I HAVE to update when I plug a new camera in and set it up? If I can do that and have the same problem I will begrudgingly admit that I can’t find a he problem and just set them up like you suggested.
I am a bit perturbed and mean no disrespect because I know when I fail to find the problem I can get shall we say short. Comes from my crypto days.
Certain firmware updates cannot be skipped as they’ve updated the cryptography (which you should be able to appreciate) at some point recently. You might be able to manually update the cam to 1 version old but not sure if that will be enough to prevent the forced update.
I don’t think it is anything to do with firmware. The last firmware update was 4 months ago. More likely seasonal changes if it has affected 3 cams in 3 locations. Things our eyes don’t notice in the skies, electrical sensors can be very sensitive to. Even at night, being closer to the sun or at a different angle can make a big difference.
Yeah, I’ve found “automatic” to be problematic in many technical things in my life. I can’t explain why my Panv3 used to never go into night mode then started doing it like every other night (no firmware update etc). Probably same/similar reason. The only reason I had it on auto was in case there was a power outage and the street lights went out, but then I realized that one isn’t on a UPS anyway . So “disabled” it is.
Im with you here, I have 2 Cam v4 cameras indoors in a business and had them turning on the spotlight on event for 9 months. This worked great. Now I can only get them to come on manually. I noticed on my app under the spotlight settings it now has a setting for “Turn on when:” It defaults to “Light will be turned on when it is dark” and I cannot change that. Highly annoying!! May have to look into automation.
If it was coming on when light out, that sounds like it was a bug. Automatic mode should only happen when it is dark. I use an automation and find that to be very reliable on both the v4 and OGs.
. So “disabled” it is.