Wyze cam outdoor battery life

Looking for advice before resorting to returning these things. Have 2 outdoor cams. One needs to be charged every 2 weeks. Firmware is updated. The cam is in a low motion area with few events. It does charge to 100%. The other cam, which is in a high event area and sees a lot of action, LOL, still hasn’t needed to be charged, and it’s going on 3 months. So I’m confused.

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Welcome to the community. I am a community member as well but signed up to beta test the apps and firmware. So I try to provide some assistance when I can.

It can also have to do with the Base station and the signal to the Camera itself. In low signal area’s, between the camera and the base, I have seen faster battery usage. I personally have experienced that. When I positioned the camera to an area either closer to the base or moved the base closer to the camera, my battery life increased. Could be a fluke. But My battery life now is great. I go many months before recharging. You could always swithc the base and camera’s to see if it is location related. The reason I am saying switch or swap is because you are paired already to the base, no sense in removing and adding it to the other base station. You may want to try that as well, basically removing some of the variables to narrow the possibilities.

Also, verify the version of the Base and Camera to ensure it is at the latest production version. If you are beta testing, then make sure you install the latest Beta releases as there have been some reported issues. A new base station update was provided today.

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Hi @Dmgooding, Have same experience as @spamoni with camera mounted further from base. Switching the camz is good idea to isolate the problem. :slightly_smiling_face:
Want to add, the IR lamps drain battery, esp if they are accidently left on all day.

That’s good to know, and seems logical. Trouble is I have to keep the base plugged into the modem/router which is the opposite end of the house and across the driveway from the outdoor cam. The cam probably averages 4 to 6 events per day. It’s been up a couple of weeks and is at 34% tonight.

Can you not switch the Base to WiFi, and move it halfway to the camera?

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Is that an option during setup, or can it be done later? I put a camera on a tree opposite the garage which is opposite end from the house of the router. I was really surprised that it worked. Now I’m thinking I may put one down at the street at my mailbox, which is about twice the distance of the garage cam.

The closer the base is to the camera, the less power the camera will use transmitting info back to the base. If you had previously set up the Base’s WiFi, then you can simply unplug the base from your router. You’ll just need to provide power for the base unit.

My setup: The Base couldn’t maintain a good (WiFi) connection back to the router. Used a GL-iNet travel router as a repeater GL-AR750S

I believe you can switch from an Ethernet cable connection to WiFi under the Base station’s Device Info screen.

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How securely is your camera mounted and what does the battery usage chart look like?

I have one cam on my garage that was blowing through a full charge every three weeks and showing only 7 minutes of uploaded events but 40 minutes of filtered events. I mounted my cams in aftermarket enclosures and the one on the garage had to be screwed into the soffit. I discovered that when the wind blew hard enough, the soffit would flutter and cause the cam to vibrate enough to detect motion and turn on the cam but not enough to record an event video. I discovered it when we had some 40mph winds one day that rattled it hard enough that it recorded event videos all day long. I re-mounted it to the OSB through siding corner trim and it solved the problem.

These things have a surprising range! One of my base stations in the house is 30’ from the router through two floors. One of the cams connected to that base is mounted on my polebarn almost 350’ from the house and through one wall. It has never dropped below 2/3 bars connectivity and live stream connection is instantaneous. It’s actually faster than my other outdoor cams that are closer to their bases. Maybe my property is like the Bermuda Triangle or something.