I just got a brand new Wyze cam V3 and seeing SAME problem as well today. The camera was installed inside the garage last night. Updated firmware to latest 4.36.9.139.
Everything seemed to work last night til’ today. It’s close to lunch time now. The Wyze Cam v3 is staying in IR night vision. Plenty of light thru’ a window (window blind is down and closed) it should still be plenty light to have switched back to at least color night vision or even regular color vision.
I’ve tried switching between far/near for IR vision it doesn’t make any difference. The settings of night vision conditions to dark/dusk doesn’t make any difference at all.
I am finding I have to point the camera at the window where there’s very bright sunlight coming thru’ the window blind for IR vision to be turned off and switching back to full color vision.
If I turn OFF auto-night vision the camera immediately turns to full color vision.
@Kev455, Color night vision is what defaults with the IR NV off. You cannot have Color Night Vision with the IR on as the camera lense filter is in place.
If you want color night vision, keep the IR off.
The Auto mode will switch from daylight mode to IR black and white. You will not get color night vision.
In the top right corner of the live view, you can press the green moon icon from Off\Auto\On to see the difference in picture quality.
The problem now is it won’t switch back to full color vision even during daytime (indoor area no direct sunlight).
This is the big problem.
Unless someone is telling me in indoor setting it has only (IR or color) night vision no full color vision at all.
Here’s an experiment I just did. I think this problem is when using IR night vision.
Setting: IR night vision: ON.
Color Vision Test:
Step 1: Bright sunlight to camera: full color vision.
Step 2: Move camera to very dark area (e.g. cover with dark cloth. Very little light to camera).
Result: Camera changed to grayscale (IR night vision I think).
Step 3: Move camera to regular indoor setting (window blind, no direct sunlight).
Result: Camera STAYED in IR night vision. NO color vision.
Expected: Camera should change back to FULL COLOR in indoor area during daytime (no direct sunlight).
I’m seeing
once camera changes to IR night vision, it can’t switch back to color vision even if lighting changes back to indoor daytime (no direct sunlight).
So the problem is as stated. IR night vision does NOT turn OFF once lighting brightens (indoor area no direct sunlight). Camera stays in IR night vision.
Unless I point camera to direct bright sunlight.
This needs to be FIXED - otherwise I’m buying a B/W IR camera if I use IR night vision.
Setting Night vision mode to ON forces night vision to always be on and the image will be in black and white. Setting it to AUTO will allow the camera to switch to color in the daytime. Setting night vision to OFF will keep the camera in color mode day and night, but if there isn’t enough light during the night the image will be black and too dark to see any detail
In your test, you stated you set the IR NV to ON. In this scenario, you are manually forcing the cam to activate the IR filter (making the video black and white) and activate the IR emitters depending on the settings (2 red dots on the cam face = near, 4 dots = far… Can only be seen in very dark conditions). In this scenario, there should have been NO color vision at all.
The ONLY time the cam will automatically switch based on ambient light is in AUTO mode.
What this tells me is that the app settings are not being translated to the cam immediately. The circumstances you describe happened to me in the past but we’re rectified by an app update.
What I found was that the green moon icon in the top right of the live view screen is much more responsive to changing the cam settings than the settings in the menus.
Test the cam at night in a dark room.
Set the cam up with the lights on and toggle the green moon (IR NV) to OFF.
Turn lights off and watch the video, should be a black pic with the lights off.
Keep lights off an tap the green moon 1 time to switch to Auto. Listen for the cam to click the filter in place and watch the front of the cam to see if red dots appear.
Turn the lights on and watch and listen for the cam to switch to daylight mode.
Tap the green moon again to turn the IR NV to ON. Should be black and white with lights on and off.
When the IR NV is on, go into the settings and make sure the settings are where you want:
IR Near : low IR NV illumination
IR Far: high IR NV illumination
Dusk: Auto Switch in low light
Dark: Auto Switch in total darkness
Then, go back to the live view and toggle the IR NV moon again to make sure the settings stuck.
If it still doesn’t come out of IR NV in Auto when the lights are on, the cam needs replaced under warranty.
I tried cycling from NV OFF to Auto (menu or moon button) and it worked fine on the camera activating color NV.
What I am seeing now is this scenario:
NV mode: Auto
IR Night Conditions: Dusk or Dark
Camera Target: points toward garage ground location (e.g. concrete ground).
Change: Ambient light level rises from very low-light condition to daytime indoor light level (e.g. light coming thru’ from frosted glass paneling of garage door)
Problem: Camera stays in IR night mode (B/W) and does not switch back to color NV
Manual Fix:
If I switch NV mode to OFF and back to Auto mode manually thru’ the settings menu or the green moon button, the camera immediately switches to Color mode.
Those two things are the same. There is the traditional night vision (black and white) where you can use the IR illuminators to light your scene if they are enabled or there is when night vision is off, and the view is in color. There is no “color night vision” and “regular color vision”.
The starlight sensor is the sensor within the camera and helps in all low light level situations, either the traditional night vision (b/w) and color are in use.
Same as above. There is no difference between color night vision and daylight color. The modes are:
Night Vision ON (black and white view where the IRs can be used to illuminate your scene)
Night Vision OFF (color view)
Night Vision AUTO (camera switches between night vision on and off on its own depending on your dusk or dawn settings)
Can you provide screenshots of your different lighting scenarios and note when you think the night vision mode should be on or off? I just want to clean up some terminology that’s being used to better help troubleshoot.
Location: Garage
Lighting: indoor, lighting from garage frosted panels and through one window blind. Sunny day outside.
Time: Around 3:18pm (daytime indoor).
Night Vision Mode: Auto
IR Night Conditions: Dusk or Dark (doesn’t seem to matter which selected)
App Version : 2.32.0(154)
Firmware version : 4.36.9.139
Plugin Version : 2.32.0.15
At night, the NV activates. However, in the morning when the light levels return, it does not shut off the IR mode. If the IR mode is manually shut off, and then Auto is turned back on, it will stay in daylight IR off color mode until the light levels lower to the threshold to turn them back on.
So, as you can see, the threshold to switch the cam out of NV is not the same as that which puts it into NV.
Edit: I just scrubbed uSD video from yesterday. It never came out of NV the entire day in similar light conditions.
It is dark here now (9:30pm). Garage cam is in NV mode. I just flipped the garage lights on and it did shut off NV and switch to full color mode. When the lights went off, it went back to NV mode.
What this tells me is that the light sensor is working, but it takes the presence of exponentially more light to turn off the NV mode as it does to turn it on.
Being only a shade tree tech user, I would agree that this is a firmware issue. The coding has to get a light level reading from the cam sensor in order to trigger the mode switch. Theoretically, the on and off should be at the same light level or slightly overlapping so that it doesn’t sit there and constantly toggle in variable light conditions.
But, this is an extreme variance. You shouldn’t have to toggle it to get color.
Push a log on your cam and post it here so that it is available if the devs need it.
I just checked the cam that was giving me these issues. This morning, it automatically switched itself out of IR NV into Color @ 7:08 am which it wasn’t doing previously.
The only change made to this cam was that I introduced a nightly power cycle on the smart plug with an Alexa routine.
Thanks for the info. Any chance you could submit another log right after you perform the test (where you let camera go b/w mode first and move back to daylight) and noticed that it doesn’t switch back to color mode? Previous log only has 7/24 log.
@Kev455 , I have posted the issue with the IR NV Auto switching to this month’s Fix-it Friday thread.
If you are still experiencing this issue, feel free to follow the link, like the post with a heart coin, and add your experience in a reply post (if you are so inclined).
Thx for mentioning the problem in the other thread. I tried it this morning and things haven’t changed. The problem is still the same.
I tried to upload a new log file, but I kept getting “upload failure”, so I wasn’t able to provide the latest log.
I restarted the Android App and it didn’t help.
If I ever get to submit a new log later I’ll do it.
If someone made a ‘fix’ recently.
It probably wasn’t a fix, but a quick workaround to keep IR night vision threshold lower, so it won’t kick off IR unless in very low lighting condition.
If IR is ever triggered, the problem will still show up.