WOC Charging Tip

Whenever your warranty period runs out (if you care about it), pair a wyze plug with this and you never have to make the trip to take down and charge the WOC. All you need to do is open the app and switch on the plug for the cam you want to charge.

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This is an interesting idea, but I am curious if you could clarify the following for me:

If a person’s warranty is already up or they don’t care about the warranty risk anymore, and you’re going to leave the power cord plugged in (the plugged in part is what voids the warranty and risks ruining the cam, even if there is no power going through the cord, because now the flap isn’t sealed), why even bother to turn off the power? Why not just leave it running 24/7?

And if we are putting it somewhere that a cord reaches to, why not just use a V3, which is better in almost every single way?

I thought most people like me just use WCO’s in places where they can’t connect a V3/cord.

What are the advantages of using a WCO with a cord instead of a V3?

To clarify, I’m not being sarcastic or anything, I’m asking totally sincerely to understand.

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Because as numerous posts before have stated, the camera doesn’t support constant charging and doing so could damage the batteries; which is where voiding the warranty actually comes into play vs where it theoretically could if you had a plug that seals the port because it’s weather-resistant.

Because this tip for people that had a WOC before the v3 even released and don’t want to buy another Wyze cam. That’s why. Also, people with the v3 just try to find BBUs and solar arrays for them in case of a power outage since it needs constant external power unlike a WOC. This post is not for upselling another cam but to help those with the WOC and a spare Wyze plug.

You thought wrong.

Thanks, I really didn’t mean to offend. I appreciate the time taken for explanations.

That’s interesting information about the battery. I have left my WCO charging for over a couple of weeks before in my office and I swear it stayed charged at 100% and kept working, but as you said, a quick search showed there were multiple people reporting constant charging issues (I guess I haven’t paid much attention to WCO issues lately). How strange. I may try to run some tests on this and see if I can figure out why mine stayed at 100% when I did it before (it might’ve been with a specific firmware, and Wyze changed it since then, or maybe I can figure out some other reason why mine holds a charge near 100% while plugged in for days or weeks inside my house…very interesting, fun project for me now I guess).

Incidentally, Since I have left it plugged in for weeks at a time before I wondered if I now voided my warranty as suggested above, so I checked to see if leaving it charging [indoors] voided the warranty, or if it was the exposure to the adapter that voided the warranty as I thought Wyze previous said. The only WCO specific limitations I could find are here:

https://wyze.com/outdoor-cam-warnings-and-instructions

  1. The power adapter is not weatherproof and should only be plugged into an indoor outlet. If adapter gets wet, carefully unplug all cables without getting your hands wet and wait for the adapter to dry.

Nothing in there voiding the warranty for leaving it plugged in indoors, just warnings about the power adapter not being water or weather proof, and so by implication, if we leave it plugged in, it no longer has the IP certification, so any water damage during a warranty issue would automatically void the warranty by implication. Anyway, that is good to know! That at least means that if we use your plug idea, we can simply tape plastic or something around the power adapter area to water proof it, and then there is no warrant risk anyway. :slight_smile:

Even though they don’t mention anything in their official documentation (that I could find) about constant power issues as far as the warranty is concerned, it is clear from others posts (like you informed me of) that there is some kind of issue with this nonetheless. I wonder if Wyze did this intentionally with the firmware or if it is something that could be fixed for everyone. Regardless, the fact there are such problems makes your share an excellent solution! And even without waterproofing the connection, a person can even make sure to only turn on the power to charge while the weather is good to minimize risk from rain damage, so it’s a great idea. If Wyze adds a rule from the sprinkler system, a person could even make sure to automate only charging when the weather is clear. That would be cool.

I thought of another great reason to add to your list of why someone would want to use a plugged in WCO instead of a V3. The WCO has PIR detection, which can seriously help reduce false alerts that V3’s get solely using pixel-motion detection. With the WCO you can have it only activate when PIR is triggered, and then still use pixel detection zones on top of that if you want. Both together can actually be really effective at helping people who are really frustrated with all the false alerts, either with or without Cam Plus.

Anyway, thanks for sharing, I’m happy to learn there are some weird charging issues I can experiment with now. It does sound like your solution is well thought out and will work well for people in those situations.

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It’ll charge but the thing with Lithium batteries is that unless overcharge protection is built in with a circuit that allows proper “trickle charging” the correct way, you risk the batteries prematurely swelling. If you leave a cellphone on charge for a long period of time, you’ll risk the battery swelling if the phone’s power circuitry isn’t built for the constant power.

And about the USB cord and power adapter - The plug that you insert into the camera is specially made for the outdoor cam to create the weather-resistant seal the flap creates. So, that should restore the IP spec on that front and the USB cable is long enough to run from outside to inside the house so you don’t need to expose the actual power adapter to the elements. I basically included the bit about the warranty because of the use case and wasn’t entirely sure about Wyze’s stance. They honestly should contract the company that made the 3rd party cable to officially make them for the company, imo. It was a genius move to make them!

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You would think that every company would build in overcharge protection by default nowadays. I wonder if it is something they can fix with a firmware update (stop the charge, like my cell phone does when it hits 100% and turns off charging the battery until it drops down again), or whether it is missing some critical hardware. Seems like planning was not very good regardless of the “intentions” to have it be a battery-only thing.

Oh cool, I didn’t realize that the plug created a weather-resistant seal! So, I take it that is only when using the particular cord that comes with the camera then? I didn’t remember seeing any kind of gasket or anything, do you know how it works? I’m interested to learn in case I can figure out how to use the information for other devices in the future.

That’s the cable I hyperlinked that I was talking about there. The cable that comes with the camera is a regular flat USB cable but the third party one is flat, 25 feet long, and has a weather-resistant sealing plug on the micro-usb end that plugs into the camera. Before I ran across that cable, I jerry-rigged my own seal with packing tape that had a strong adhesive. It worked extremely well for over 7 months exposed to rain, sleet, and snow. I just didn’t want it to look so janky anymore, lol.

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That is actually really cool. Now I see what you are saying.

I actually might get one of those for my WCO…while I don’t have a plug nearby in some places I use the WCO, what I can do is instead of having to take down the WCO to go charge it, I can just leave that thing plugged in, and occasionally go plug in a portable battery pack to recharge the battery. Saves all the hassle of having to go take down the cam, bring it in, plug it in, then remember to go put it back up. This would make recharging way more simple even if I’m using a portable battery.

Thanks for sharing that plug and confirming it’s worked well for you.

@BlazeKing,

Yeah, I have been doing that for my WCOs that are not too far from an AC outlet. It’s an easy solution to the charge issue and charging is then controlled from the same app. Get a LOW BATTERY alert? Turn on the charger. Get a 100% alert? Turn off the charger.

It’s one of those solutions that stares you in the face until you notice it. Then you facepalm…

I wonder if there is an easier way to automate this? Maybe have a rule to turn on the plug for X number of hours twice a week on a schedule or something, so you never have to think about it?