Window glare

That’s a good point. Even the status light is annoying and problematic when aiming the cam out through a window. That should definitely be off, too. :+1:

Heck I’d imagine even a lamp near the window or a ceiling light could potentially be an issue unless you’re using a mount with it right up against the glass (even then, it could still diffuse a bit in front of the camera).

While I realize it isn’t an option for all, if you have double hung windows, I’ve found mine can be fully closed and even locked with the flat cord running under the bottom. Most of my cams are mounted just outside of windows with the wire running that way. I even have 3 cords running right next to each other through a sideways sliding double hung (or whatever it is called when they’re sideways) and it closes fully and hasn’t had any issues. Then I have one running through the top of my garage door and even repeated opening and closing hasn’t hurt it. Though my garage doors are probably 30-40 years old and don’t exactly close super tight, but the windows are pretty new and close very tight.

This v3 is in a completely dark room. I believe my neighbor’s bright light on the right side of his garage makes my mini blinds refracts off of the inside of my double pane window (see the upper left side of this picture).

The small artifacts I get aiming through double pane windows is acceptable for me.

I have one V3 powered the same through a window that slides left to open right to close. I took off the screen, opened the window, ran a flat 16 foot USB cable out. Put the screen back on, closed the window gently and locked it, It has worked great for the last 8 months and the window is closed tight. I tested it with my garden hose spray.

For sure that’s a genuine issue, and it’s something that I see with one of my Cams. I haven’t done a whole lot to try to mitigate it completely, but I’ve been curious about Wyze’s Window Mount, and what I probably should do is find/design/tweak a 3D model to fabricate and give me interior light blocking and the angles I really want from my outward-looking Cam v4s. Really, though, keeping rooms dark and drawing drapes behind them has given me acceptable results for my applications so far.

Yep, I can see your blinds. Send me $1000 in bitcoin or I will email this compromising photo to all your friends.

That neighbors light seems incredibly bright, but maybe it is just combo of the glass reflection and “color night vision”.

This is my low-tech solution to installing a camera behind a window. I came up with this well before Wyze introduced its window mount.

It’s a cube made from thin panes of balsa wood. I glued 2 small wood pieces to the sides, which have enough surface to use 3M double-sided sticky tapes. I drilled a hole (visible in the pic) for the USB cable. This blocks out the room light and still allow for a slight downward camera angle.

I had to temporarily take it down due to room painting; too lazy to put it back up. There’s one installed in another room.

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Yeah, my warning to anyone doing it is to ensure you have a small drip loop, but since most modern windows have lips on the inside and the sill tilts outward, the wire has to bend several times to come in, so most likely water would never track the wire in anyway. I do pick windows I don’t open and close a lot, however so far the included flat cables have proven very durable.

Especially that sideways one, probably similar to yours, it bends when it comes through the screen (which has an outside lip on it), then like 4 more times as it tracks the shape of the window where it closes (outside and inside lips plus a tongue and groove sort of thing to seal shut). The wires are now permanently molded that way and so far are no worse for the wear.

Can’t help but think of a scene from Tommy Boy. Neighbors have a pool? :rofl:

I always prefer home made solutions (especially considering I have pretty much every woodworking tool there is and plenty of wood around at all times).

I think another issue that might be hard to mitigate is double/triple pane windows will reflect/refract even if the cam is completely up against the glass and boxed in. But it should be minimal/usable unless the light is coming from some perfect angle.

My house has newer high efficiency windows with some sort of coating on the outside to reflect heat and UV. I wonder if that would help or hinder. I haven’t tried a cam out through them.

The bright light neighbor has had some break ins to his cars in his driveway, so I think he tries to go very bright

I really like the elegance and simplicity of something like this. A box like that could be big enough to allow the camera to be rotated/tilted to the desired view, and you could even stick the metal mounting disc in it to keep the camera in place. Then you’d just need to seal out the light where the box contacts the window pane, eh?

Nice work. Thanks for sharing! :+1:

This makes me wonder if gently softening the cable with heat at the time of mounting would help. Did you try that or just let time take its course?

No, but now I’m thinking of :musical_note: Fat guy in a little coat…. :musical_notes:

No, they were flexible enough (installed them in the summer) it didn’t seem necessary, and over time they just stuck that way (mom always warned them about their face would stick that way some day).

Sometimes heat on wires before bending them can actually make things worse, but as long as you aren’t crazy about it and just use something like a hairdryer and not a heat gun on max, should help change the “memory” of the PVC coating to whatever you want it to be. But in my case at least, the window being tightly closed over the course of a few sunny days seems to have accomplished the same thing. I’ve also helped neighbors run flat cables for their Blink cams, one even goes through a window they open and close almost every day and they’ve held up fine too. I think the saving grace is that most windows have a thin soft weather strip on the bottom which reduces how much force is on the wire, as long as you aren’t the sort to really slam them shut.

Right, which is why I specified

:upside_down_face:

Experience has told me that is a widely varying matter of opinion for different people :slight_smile:

I once recommended someone heat something up “a little”, at which point they went in and got their propane torch :rofl:

I’m convinced that a certain percentage of the population isn’t actually capable of doing things “gently”. Though in all fairness, I’ve damaged things when I was being careful and gentle too, so there are certain things that just don’t respond well to any sort of manipulation. I do recall one instance where a piece of plastic transitioned from “starting to get pliable” to “melted right through” in very short order.

Here’s some ideas.

and

I’m guessing the image banding is caused by interference between the refracted light that went through the first glass pane and the partially reflected light from the second glass surface.

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So I decided to by 50’ power cable and I’m going to run the line and mount the pan cam on the corner, I wish it was a fish lens that had 360 recording. For now it will do

So I decided to go with it on the corner of

That power cord is way too long, the voltage drop is almost certainly going to be a problem. You need to extend an AC outlet to near where the cam is going to be and use a max 15 to 20 foot USB cable. You can also use ethernet with POE and a POE to USB converter.