I have this Wyze Cam V3 since a few months and I have been trying to see the sky, that’s all I want from it. Now I don’t want to see distant galaxies with it, just the normal sky filled with stars. Sometimes I can’t fall asleep and often want to see clear sky filled with stars. And may be see some aliens in their little spaceships flying around, may be!
But why is their so much pixelation and visual noise? I have tried the night mode, auto day/night mode and even turned off the night mode. But no matter what, this is all that I get.
It is about 15 feet from the router, should not be causing any problem with picking signal and I don’t think there is too much light that may be causing this pixelated view but I don’t really know.
Would anyone be able to tell me if this is normal or if there’s something wrong with my camera? Am I doing something to cause this crappy view? Please suggest what can I do to fix this issue and at least get a clear view of the sky. During day time, the sky looks all clear with zero issues.
Thanks in advance for any help!
(I can’t upload my video, bummer. May be soon I will have the ability to upload video footage or perhaps an admin can allow me to upload. Please, thank you!)
This type of cam uses very high compression in order to fit within the bandwidth of a 2.4ghz wifi network and not use up lots of internet bandwidth. I noticed when I briefly had a v3 that the compression artifacts were especially evident on that one when dark. From my experience the OG and v4 are better, but they will all have ghosting, blocking, pixilation, etc especially when it is dark or they don’t have clear things to focus on. The v4 will probably be better for you but it will still be there. Unfortunately for your use case, this probably isn’t the type of cam you want. Curious why you picked the v3 over the less expensive and newer/better v4?
From the calculations I did a while back, these cams are well over 99% compression rate, targeting around a 1mbit/second average, which is huge.
To add to @dave27’s comment, these are wrong cameras for your intended purpose. Anything that is using internet and WiFi will not give you clear picture of the night sky. What you need is a high end hardwired camera that will be much more expensive than any Wyze cameras.
The old adage, you get what you pay for holds true in your case.
Dave, thanks for the detailed reply covering my question. I picked the V3 mainly because of reviews, they said it is better for skywatching. I don’t know which specific reviews said that but I did a regular Google search and watched a few YT videos that I could find. I don’t remember exactly what they said against V4 but my decision to buy V3 was primarily based on what people mentioned online.
LOL Habib, I guess that’s what I might have to do, install skylights. My daughter has done exactly that. While that can make a kid happy, can’t really make me happy. I remember sleeping on the terrace in my childhood and sleeping while watching stars. Can’t sleep outside now but can probably watch skies on my phone.
It’s not only star gazing, it is actually the excitement, “What if I capture a UFO or something flying out there?” Nothing comes even close to the LIVE stargazing. I guess I’m going to have to drill a hole in my wallet for a better camera.
I really don’t wish to blow up hundreds on a sidekick hobby because it’s not like I am crazy about star gazing, it’s just when my anxiety kicks in once or twice in a month or two, it helps.
Oh well, I guess I better let this go and rather watch some YT videos of stargazing, that would be the cheapest option
After looking at your video, I’m thinking if you totally disable night vision and let the camera record in colour and see what happens. I’m guessing you are doing Timelapse video, have you tried different settings?
That would be amazing. If you do please come back and post the video, I’d love to witness a UFO.
Thanks for sharing your video! Was that a meteor you captured starting ~9 seconds in? Based on the clock, it looks like a real-time (not time lapse) capture, and I’m also curious about what you’d see with it if you turned off Night Vision Mode.
There is another thread here where a user is trying to capture the Auroras, and so far the v4 seems to be working well for them, much better than the v3 Pro (though they didn’t try a regular v3).
As others have mentioned, try turning off night mode, or you can also try night mode but with the IR lights disabled. Each will cause the image sensor to calibrate differently so may be a matter of trial and error.
I have too much light pollution in my area to really give any insight, I will say my v4 has probably the best night clarity and least compression artifacts at night out of all my cams. Though I have noticed the colors at night to be a bit muted on the v4 vs my other cams (but since you’re not looking for colors, it may no be of any consequence for your use).
All that aside, none of them are going to be great at it. Gopro might be one to look at, and also any cam that uses the Sony StarVis2 sensor (even starvis1 was good but lower resolution).
I have tried disabling the night vision but recently checked, it was on auto mode. I will check tonight with the night vision off and report back what the video looks like.
I am really pissed with all the mosquitoes flying in and out and they too hinder the quality of the video.
I will look into the V4 videos and then also look for GoPro captures. But before that I’m going to look into that Sony sensor, if there is any attachment out there with that sensor that can be hooked to regular cameras.
But as Habib mentioned, it’s the compression that is killing the quality of the video, not too sure if any attachment will help. I’m just thinking out loud lol.
The Starvis isn’t an attachment, it is the actual image sensor (what records the video). Sort of the gold standard for night images. Lots of car dash cams use it.
So the camera has to be manufactured using that part, it isn’t something you can add.
Cameras that aren’t oriented toward security or internet connectivity typically will have much less compression. My dash cams record about 10x the size of the wyze cams (so a lot less compression), many others like gopro have even less than that.
It’s not perfect, but the v4 is FAR superior for night sky viewing over the v3. I have actual security cams on my house that give off IR light, so I don’t have any of the camera night vision/IR lights on. It’s pure color night vision and I have caught aurora, fireballs, ISS, Starlink trains, etc. If you are dealing with the smoke from the Canadian wildfires (or any wildfires) it may look clear to the naked eye, but the smoke will make it hard to see the sky. Your video looked like fog to me. I see stuff like that on my house cameras and it’s when there’s a lot of moisture in the air. Sometimes it’s dust, other times it might be little bugs.
