I have 6 pan cam v3’s. They work fine for maybe the 1st year, then things start going wrong. First off, yes all my cams are up to date and so is my app.
One by one, (within the last month) the detection zone can no longer be engaged while track motion is. You have to choose one or the other but not both. The problem with this is you can no longer have a detection zone set AND track motion and then have cam return to the detection zone after motion has stopped. (I always could before, but now every week another cam becomes unable to choose both)???
Also, one by one, the sd cards stop working. They are the suggested san disk extremes and work fine for about a year, then they are unable to be found. A screenshot is taken but cant access the video footage from any screen. This makes all of my cams useless. (Mom has alzheimers and also i own a business. Both situations need to be able to watch past footage). I normally have set to continuously record.
Each picture shows the message i get when trying to engage or access the sd card. I have unmounted and mounted, i have tried to format, i have taken card out and formatted on pc and put back in. Nothing works. (Some cams are outside and some are in but all are less then 13 months old). I have never heard of a 1 yr old sd card going bad.
I’m running the latest android app and firmware on both my Pan v3s and they both have detection zone and track motion enabled.
You could try uninstall/reinstall the app, sometimes that fixes glitches caused by app updates. Maybe both issues are related. Otherwise try pulling one of the SD cards and formatting in a PC to see if that helps, at least that particular issue, don’t see why that would have any impact on detection zone.
I do not think the issues are related
But both equally frustrating. (Yes I have formatted on a pc.).
I am adding pics of notifications i now get when trying to have detection zone on and track motion on at same time. These started in the last month on 4 of my cams. On 2, i can still have both. Makes no sence.
Are you using pan/scan also?
I haven’t re-set my “home” position in a long time but I believe I used to get a warning of some sort but it did not prevent me from doing it. I think a lot of people get confused by the fact that Detection Zone really doesn’t work with track motion, other than to establish a “home” position, which is what I’m using it for (sounds like you are too). I guess most people just set a waypoint and tap that to return it home after they move the camera manually.
So maybe they’ve disabled it recently due to that confusion. However I haven’t tried to change mine (and am not going to if there is a potential limitation now). Both are still working fine. Did yours disable without doing anything or was it only when you tried to change or turn it off/on?
The way I set mine up was basically:
Make sure track and pan/scan are off
Aim the camera where I want it to be “home”
Set a single waypoint just so I can manually return it home when I want to
Go in and set the detection zone
Enable track motion, which I think would give me some sort of warning, but did not prevent it. Or perhaps it was only when I tried to change the detection zone while track motion was on that I got that warning, can’t recall.
Any time you try to move the camera manually it warns you that it will return back to the DZ position after a short time (and you can check off not to remind you for 14 days)
I have a spare Panv3 I can try it with and see if it is now restricting it.
I can confirm with my spare Pan v3 it is doing the same thing. I suspect the Android app update from a few weeks ago may be the reason, but can’t say for sure as I haven’t tried doing this in many months.
My existing cams are able to maintain having both enabled, but I suspect if I disable and try to re-enable either feature it might give that problem.
Note that I can still set both using the 2.5 app on my old phone. So that’s a workaround if you have a spare device you can load the old 2.5 app on from apkmirror.com (or maybe even a previous version of the 3.x app). Once enabled on the old phone, it is enabled on the new phone too without issues, as long as I don’t try to turn it off and back on on the new phone.
I suspect they did this due to people complaining that the detection zone wasn’t “working” with pan/scan or track motion, but it was never actually supposed to. However they really should have coupled this with having the cam return to the previously set position after no motion for x seconds, just like it does when a DZ is set.
All 3 Panv3s are running the latest firmware from October. My android 3.x app is the latest from a few weeks ago and my 2.5 is the last one released before they moved on to 3.
NOTE that instead of using Detection zone, using pan/scan with a single waypoint at the same time as track motion has the same effect. Except it returns “home” more quickly which could be annoying, however it is easy to toggle pan/scan on and off. In fact, easier than dealing with that warning message related to detection zone that comes up when you try to manually move the cam. I’m actually thinking I might change to using that method instead to get my “home” position automated. But since it looks like you have several waypoints set, if you want to keep all those that may not be a solution for you.
There’s similar thread here about the subject.
You should not use the detection zone feature to make the pan cam V3 return to a set position. If you do, Wyze disables “Track Motion”. This is a recent change.
Instead, set waypoint #1. And the camera goes back to that waypoint after tracking something.
I actually checked that in my test and it only returns to waypoint 1 if you have pan/scan enabled (in which case it returns to it pretty quickly which can be annoying). Maybe I didn’t wait long enough but it was a decent amount of time.
i use detection zone to alert me of motion, then i use track to follow the intruder until they are out of cam view.. Then the cam goes back to detection zone position. It was great because if i shared my cam with others, i always knew the cam would go back to my set position and detection zone.
Anyway, any thoughts on the sd cards? That is actually way more important to me especially because its only a matter of time beforethe last 2 cams dont work and then i will be forced to buy new cams or purchase a wayze cloud plan.
This no longer works.
Set waypoint #1. That does the same. Setting the detection point disabled “Track Motion”. Enable it again.
Detection zone doesn’t have any impact on the alerts. It will still alert you without detection zone set (in fact the detection zone does not filter or limit any alerts since it only has effect when track motion and pan/scan are disabled). The only effect it has is returning to home when someone moves it (which is a nice feature and I use it on mine specifically for that).
As far as the SD cards, if the cards work fine in a PC or other device, that would imply the slot in the cam may have some problems. Are they mounted cam on top or bottom? When I had mine “upside down” water got into it, even when it was protected under an eave. Not having a drip loop in the power cord can also let water get in, and while that shouldn’t directly impact the SD card slot, it could short something out internally.
You can try cleaning out the slot with rubbing alcohol or contact cleaner by putting a few drops in, then inserting and removing a card you don’t care much about several times, cleaning the contacts on the card each time to try and remove any buildup/corrosion/etc. Obviously you do that at your own risk, and you should leave the camera unplugged for an hour or two with the SD card slot cover open to fully dry out after.
If they’re within a year, they should replace them under warranty if you can’t get them working (assuming you’re positive the SD cards are good).
No, it doesn’t, I just confirmed it again, unless you turn on pan/scan, and since OP has several waypoints I’m guessing that’s not what they want.
I don’t know about your cameras, but it works on mine. It’s on the latest firmware.
To be clear, my “Pan Scan” is off, my “Track Motion” is on, detection zone off, my waypoints are set. Been this way from day 1. And it’s been working since I bought the pan cams.
Latest app version. Latest firmware. Waypoint #1 is set. DZ off, track motion on, pan/scan off.
Cam still staring at the manual position I put it at 5 mins ago, even after exiting the app.
Where have you seen this intended behavior documented? Maybe multiple waypoints have to be set or there is some specific order you have to do things.
If you’re saying that after tracking motion, the cam will return to waypoint #1, that’s not actually correct. it will return to the position it was at before it started tracking the motion. Nothing to do with waypoints unless you happened to have it in that position when it tracked the motion.
What we’re talking about here is after the cam is manually moved, having it automatically return to a “home” position after some time.
I think the point of the detection zone was so you can block out the areas you dont care about, and only get alerted if motion is detected within the unblocked areas. This feature combined with track motion is not the same as the cam just returning to the same waypoint. Why would wayze get rid of features? If anything they should be adding, not taking away.
Nah, the detection zone really only works when you have motion tracking and pan/scan off. Been a major point of confusion for people, which I’m guessing is why they’ve now made it not work when one of those features is on.
In theory, if the camera doesn’t move, it won’t detect/alert on motion outside of the detection zone, but since that motion will almost always cause the cam to move, it negates that possibility (detection zone has no effect on what it does or doesn’t track, there has been a feature request for a “tracking detection zone” but no progress).
If you move it, then it likely thinks you intend to be in manual mode from thereon. I put it back in auto mode by pressing any of the waypoints.
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If you move it manually, it will still track motion after that. It will just move back to that manual position after. Tapping a waypoint is no different than manually moving the camera in that case.
The benefit of the detection zone is it set a point where the camera would return to after 15 seconds if you or a shared user forgot to tap a waypoint or move it back “home”. This is a nice feature to have, and you shouldn’t be telling people that waypoint 1 does this, since once they disable DZ, they can’t get it back without manually loading an old version of the app.
Default behavior of the cam is to move back to the last fixed position before it started tracking motion.
Behavior with DZ set is to return to the spot that DZ was set in, regardless of whether someone manually moved the camera or not. When you manually move the cam with DZ set, it gives you a warning that it will return to the home position after 15 seconds.
The latter is what we’re discussing here. Waypoints have nothing to do with it, those are just “saved” manual movements of the cam.
Exactly
I can’t find it now, but I did read that officially, Wyze prefers setting waypoint #1 as a position to return to. That’s where I got my info; I wasn’t guessing nor experimenting.
That setting detection point also sets the “return point”, I suspect is a programming error. Which is why they removed that “feature”.