V4 Spotlight won’t trigger, but I can still manually turn it on

Moved into a new house and brought all of the same cams, cables and settings with me. Everything is working great, except ONE of the V4’s. No matter what settings I change, the spotlight will not come on automatically. I CAN manually turn it on from the app, but for some reason can’t get the spotlight to come on automatically with either smart detection or motion detection.

I remember the OG spotlight attachment would sometimes have an issue with third party usb cables. Could this be the issue possibly? I am using a 25ft usb cable, as this is my driveway cam. The cam works perfectly otherwise, and I’ve got another in the back with the same brand cable & it’s working fine.

Thoughts?

You wouldn’t think it would work manually if it was a USB cable issue. Is it the same length of cable you were using before?

Someone else was reporting that when they toggled the auto spotlight feature on in the app it was turning back off. Is that happening to you (the toggle in the app, not the light itself)?

Also could just be a matter of factory resetting and re-adding the cam, something may just have gotten corrupted in the settings.

The only other thing I can think is these cameras rely heavily on internet for automations, and technically the auto spotlight is an automation, just a built in one. I don’t believe the logic is in the camera itself (though I could be wrong), so maybe it is having trouble sending the motion and getting the trigger back to turn on the light. I actually have auto spotlight disabled since my cam never goes into night mode (street lights), so I created an automation that from midnight (when my outdoor lights shut off) to dawn, it turns on the light for 1 minute when motion is detected. That particular cam is in a fringe wifi signal area, and occasionally I’ll find the light stays on, so the command to shut it off after 1 minute doesn’t make it to the cam every now and then. I suspect the command to turn it on probably doesn’t work every now and then, but that wouldn’t be as noticeable since the light wouldn’t be shining to alert me to it.

You mentioned that the spotlight won’t turn on at night… Have you tried to set a schedule from Sunset to Sunrise? That’s what I was using previously and it was working fine with the same cable… But now I’m wondering if maybe the street light is causing an issue. The new house does have a street light near the driveway, but you would think that it would still respect the custom schedule. I’m going to try the original cable and a different power brick and see what happens… If no change then I’ll do a factory reset

I suppose signal could also be the issue… I understand that the camera has to first “detect a person“ and then send that information back in order to even trigger the spotlight in the first place… Although the camera does load pretty quickly, almost immediately actually with the new beta version for iOS… But I guess you never know

OK you’re using an automation which definitely makes me think it could be an internet connectivity issue.

The automatic (built in) auto-spotlight feature only works when the cam is in night mode, and mine never switches to that, hence the need for an automation, basically same reason as you.

The street light should not interfere with your automation, since that works based on time and not the mode the camera is in.

I would also make sure your camera’s time is synched correctly and that you have the right zip code, since both are used to determine when to fire the rule (i.e. when sunset and sunrise are).

A more powerful brick can help compensate for cable length to a certain extent, but if everything else is working and that’s the same length cable you had before, seems unlikely to be the problem. Though who knows, maybe the cable puts you right on the edge of functionality and the new house has a bit lower voltage. Seems unlikely though.

Since this is an automation, you can try going into the app and doing “clear cache”, maybe that will refresh the settings on the cam. But factory reset and re-add the cam may do it too. I’d actually delete it from the app first, while that means you’ll have to re-do all the settings for the cam, it will ensure it doesn’t download some corrupted data potentially. But you could try just re-adding it first to see.

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I’m in the exact same boat :rowing_man: as you. It was WAD wyrkin’-as-designed for many months.

I wonder if the 4.52.8.0648 firmware caused the issue? The firmware notes even mention “Added environment brightness judgment for the spotlight”.

EDIT: I also swapped out my outdoor light bulb… so I got a couple variables goin’ on. I don’t have the bandwidth to mess with it :cry:

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I didn’t know that. It’s good to read old posts. My cams are inside looking out a window but always good to know.

#bumpdate. Well, I turned OFF my front porch light, and, the V4 spotlight is auto-triggering back ON. I guess my new front porch light bulb is marginally brighter than the old bulb.

Every bulb, even LED, dims over time. It could be it was just enough. But color temperature and even CRI of the bulb could come into play too.