Long time Wyze user, first time poster. I just upgraded my front door from the Wyze Doorbell V2 and fingerprint Lock Bolt V1 to the new Doorbell Duo and Palm Lock. I was extremely excited about the Palm Lock in particular, as my son often had issues with fingerprint detection before. Install went off without a hitch, but the lock is behind a glass door with a handle, and this seems to be enough to cause the sensor to keep running, so I got the notification about battery usage very quickly and the recommendation to switch to extreme battery saver.
That mode is kind of a bummer because it defeats the point of the palm sensor in my opinion. I’ve read several posts about similar issues and can confirm I’m on app version 3.8.7 and firmware 1.1.6.
I didn’t see anything to indicate this, so it’s either a question or a suggestion depending. I’ve got this shiny new doorbell pointed right outside the door on the other side of the glass (not to mention multiple other cameras and sensors). Is it possible to automate it to dynamically switch battery modes for some duration only when a person is detected in proximity to the door? Or when a motion sensor on the Home Hub detects motion, even?
There’s enough other gear that can take the place of the palm lock for knowing when it’s time to be on alert for an incoming hand. Thanks!
I get that the Extreme Battery Saving Mode is less than ideal because it requires an actual touch to “wake” Palm Lock for scanning, and I know that they’re aware of the issue as described in Palm Lock Battery Drain (which links to a related topic if you read through that). The 1.2.0 firmware was released to the beta channel ~2½ weeks ago, and that’s supposed to include improvements to battery management for Palm Locks behind storm doors, so I’d be on the lookout for that once it graduates to the production channel.
I don’t believe so, at least not anything currently available beyond the Auto setting in Battery Management. I’ve never seen a feature like that exposed as an Automations Action, and if something like what you’re suggesting was already possible, then I would expect to see it in Automations within the Wyze app. Given the number of outstanding requests for Automations Actions and Triggers that already exist within the relevant Wishlist topics, I wouldn’t imagine this would be a priority for development, and I’d guess they’d say that’s what the Auto mode is for in the Battery Management setting anyway.
Appreciate the timely response. I do find it a bit confusing as to why that would not be treated as a viable and practical feature request, however, given that this seems to impact one of the core value drivers of the device.
The Doorbell is already linking to the lock for the sake of allowing locking/unlocking from the feed, and the fact that you can toggle battery modes from the app suggests there’s an API call to change the state, so using supplementary device detection when available seems like a low hanging fruit for improving false positives, whether that’s baked into the Palm Lock configuration natively or introduced as an automation action, e.g., “When the Doorbell detects a person, switch the Palm Lock to active detection for 5 minutes.” That’s not the equivalent of “Auto” relying on the Lock alone.
If I’m back to putting my fingers on the lock to get it to wake up, I may as well switch to the cheaper fingerprint based Lock V2 and have that touch finish the job.
You’re welcome to submit it to the Wishlist, and if you want to do something like that then it’s advisable to read How to Use the Wishlist first. I don’t speak for Wyze, so I was just sharing my own thoughts about why I wouldn’t expect that suggestion to gain much traction, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try! In my observation, they’ve got a lot of other features they appear to be working on across products, and it seems like they’re already trying to address the issue of Palm Locks mounted behind storm doors via firmware changes, so I wouldn’t expect them to change their approach to the problem and try to complicate it for users via Automations or some other route.
I think the same could be said about a lot of devices, features, and functions within their ecosystem. (The one that immediately comes to mind for me is the half-baked Automation support for Lamp Socket v2.) I understand what you mean, but for reasons unknown to me they’ve apparently chosen not to expose direct user control of those features even within Automations.
No, it’s, not and I think you probably have an argument to be made for suggesting/requesting a feature like that. I just wonder how many users would be likely to try setting up something like that, and I imagine that would figure into any resources Wyze might choose to devote to developing it. Like I said, you can submit it to the Wishlist and see where it goes!
