I’ve a bunch of pans. My OLDEST was activated 06/05/2019 and is still in use and pans when needed. But I’m thinking of putting a few v4 pans up on my roof, relatively inaccessible. Their prime use will be panning the visible area 24/7.
I’m wondering if they will be able to handle it for long duration.
So I’m looking for some data points on what to expect.
Anybody have long term data they could report?
My oldest Wyze Cam of any model is a Cam Pan v3 that was activated in March 2023, so it’s not super old. In all this time, it’s been set with Track Motion enabled almost continuously, and it does see and track frequent movement throughout the day and night, but I’ve enabled Pan Scan only rarely. It’s also been used indoors only.
I have a panv3 pointed at a moderately busy street (not a main road but a cut through between 2 main roads) with track motion enabled 24x7 since July 21, 2023. Still going strong. My neighbors laugh that during the busiest times it looks like it is watching a tennis match going back and forth. I do have it reboot once a week via automation to eliminate the bit of “creep” off its center position but otherwise been good.
A few weeks ago once or twice I noticed it was way off center and started to think it might be dying, but honestly I think both cases were probably me panning it manually and forgetting to tap the waypoint to move it back “home”. Used to be a way to have it do that automatically but since they removed that, I still forget sometimes. Hasn’t done it since.
My other one in my driveway has been active about 2.5 years with track motion on, but it doesn’t move as much. Though when it is raining or the bugs are out (I have the IR lights enabled on that one) it moves around a lot. Even cars going by at night cause it to move due to the headlights, but not as many cars after dark.
The one looking at the street is outside a window, and while there is an eave probably 7 or so feet above it, it gets direct heavy rain, snow, ice, full afternoon sun, and single digit temps in the winter. The driveway one is slightly better protected from rain and snow but definitely gets wet (which is how I learned not to mount the Panv3 upside down without good protection, even with an eave 1 foot above it got water in it).
Overall very impressed with the longevity of the motors, I sort of assumed that front one might not even make it to a year.