Maybe a dumb question. But can the wyze powe bank be used as UPS for wyze camera?
Like, if I plug my camera to a Wyze Power Bank, and I plug the Wyze Power Bank to my 120v outlet, will it switch to battery mode on it’s own if there’s a power outage?
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Of course, with any power bank that has UPS pass through.
The Wyze Power Bank is not an UPS. It has passthough charging and it will switch to battery mode and power your cam, but the fraction of a second to switch will result in your cam rebooting. Your cam will attempt to authenticate via WiFi to the cloud and since your power is out, you have no WiFi and no Internet, so your cam is basically useless. You’d need a real UPS or other continuous power source for your cam and router. And even then, you may still not have Internet service from your provider during the outage.
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Wow. I didn’t realize Wyse had a power bank. Sorry for my previous ignorance.
For a power bank for my “roving” v2 cam, I use a Bluetti 300. I used it today to watch an external drain pipe as I flushed my AC drain. The Bluetti has UPS pass-through as there is no loss or switch-over of power. Today it was portable as I placed the roving cam outside. I normally use this for my router during hurricane outages.
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The ones like that do have UPS functionality, but their switchover time is hit or miss depending what is connected. Some of the high efficiency PC power supplies will reboot, older ones will be fine. Seems like one of them (Ecoflow, Bluetti, Anker) would have added better circuitry to get the switchover down a bit.
I would love to see one of these as an “online” UPS where your devices are constantly running off clean power and the grid charges the battery only. But my guess is that would probably give the lithium batteries a pretty short lifespan. That grid isolation is used in music studios and high end home theaters etc, but typically on SLA batteries as they don’t mind being floated at 100% charge for years.
@fbb078a3c3441d08eb1e As far as the little battery packs with pass-through ability, it will be hit or miss, the only way to know for sure is to try it. As long as your router has battery backup and your internet doesn’t go down, even if it reboots, it’ll come back online pretty quickly. If your internet doesn’t have backup, then even if the cam never reboots, it will likely stop recording to SD card after a while so won’t help too much.
Mine does that. It doesn’t use the battery till it needs to. Unlike my desktop UPS.
Nah what I mean about an online UPS is that even when you have power, you are running off the batteries in the unit. It totally isolates your equipment from the irregularities in the grid power and feeds them a nice perfect sine wave. The “output” outlets are not even capable of seeing the line power from the wall, They are only connected to the batteries and inverter.
“Online” UPSes are very expensive and typically rack mount (or huge floor standing) units for enterprise use. Not something that is typically available to the home user, unless you have the money for one of those fancy home theater rooms I mentioned.
These battery packs and the home UPSes are standby or “line interactive” where they switch quickly to battery only when voltage drops below a threshold or there is an outage. Normally they’re just feeding wall power straight through (and using some of it to keep the batteries charged as needed).
For a typical home UPS the switchover time is under 10msec. With these battery packs it can range anywhere from 10 (rare and not consistent) to a few hundred msec. The good ones seem to be in the 20-30msec range.
Wi-Fi is still required even if recording to SD card continuously, even if the camera reboots due to the switchover from grid power to battery backup power?
I know there was a discussion on this a few years back that I was part of I on here, in using a plug in power bank that can function as a power adaptor as well. I had bought a PowerAdd AC5000 power bank which is a 5000 mAh pack that has folding AC power prongs to directly plug into an outlet to recharge it but also can be used as a USB power brick. I had tried to use it as a battery backup for one of my then V2 cams, but the unit would overheat under the weatherproof outdoor outlet cover in the hot So Cal heat due to the batteries inside it I’m assuming, so it wasn’t a viable solution for me anyways.
I haven’t checked since Cam v3. Cam v3 and earlier models will write continuously to SD even after reboot with no Internet, but you’ll need to pull the card and dig through the file structure to find and review the footage. Even when Internet is restored, you won’t be able to review the footage via the Wyze app as the footage is not stored in the location expected by the app. Also, the timestamp will not be correct on the footage written during the outage as the cam has no time synch when booted with no Internet.
It may also have been overheating due to the fact that it was constantly charging and powering at the same time. Some of them do support that, however I wouldn’t really call them “designed” for that, and it will wear down the batteries a lot faster than their normal intended use.
That is correct, the ones that are designed to do that they have a charge controller that will start charging the batteries once they hit certain point of discharge. Otherwise it can overcharge the batteries and kill them either instantly or shortly thereafter.
Which we can assume are none of the brands that are a series of random capital letters 
If you need it, it is definitely something you want to find explicitly spelled out in the features, and usually it is only going to be on the larger portable units from what I’ve seen. Usually advertised as “UPS Mode” or “Passthrough”.
I think the 40,000mah one I got a family member that suffers frequent power outages in the winter (an Anker branded one) may support passthrough, but it wasn’t a feature she needed so I haven’t double checked or tried it. It will definitely power stuff while charging but not sure how well it manages things once it hits 100% charge. She just plugs it in and tops it up every 6 months, and probably doesn’t even need to do that, it usually shows somewhere between 90 and 100% charge when she does (just has a series of LEDs so can’t tell an exact percentage).
It will also cost more than most of them.
I have one of those combos power bank phone charger/car booster. It has a wireless charging pad, USB A and USB C. It is made by Energizer and cost me a bit over CAN$200. I keep it in a car for obvious reasons. You are not supposed to keep it plugged all the time as it will fry the batteries. No passthrough and no charge controller. Can’t remember the capacity but it will deliver 1000 Amps in a single burst to start a car with a totally dead battery. It works as advertised. Nowhere in the specs or manual does it say that has passthrough or not to keep it plugged in all the time. I found that by reading the reviews after I bought it.
I’m sure it has a charge controller/BMS but it is designed to be charged and kept in your car so likely doesn’t account for someone leaving it plugged in all the time. As we’ve mentioned before, leaving lithium charging at 100% all the time will decrease the lifespan of the batteries quite a bit, unless the charge controller is smart enough to switch into a float or maintenance mode, which probably isn’t something this has/needed to have.
But I wouldn’t worry about plugging it in and leaving it for the day or overnight to charge up. Some people think that they can (or should) plug these units in to the AC/USB port on their car and just leave it there all the time, which tends to be what kills them. You can top it up once or twice a year (and after each use) and be fine.
I haven’t used this one, have seen the Noco units in action and they pack a good punch. I don’t think any of them actually put out their rated amperage (maybe for 1/10 of a second), there just isn’t enough room for all the cells and capacitors that would be needed for that. But playing tricks with numbers is nothing new in the consumer electronics industry.
That is exactly what I do. As we said, lithium batteries are the happiest between 40-80% charge.
Not sure, but I used this baby few times and it starts the car on the first try. If it doesn’t than you’ll have to charge it again because it dischargers right away. The way I understand how they work is that they flood the battery with whatever amperage they hold and than the battery is using that juice to crank the starter.
That’s one of the challenges, if the battery is just a bit low, 100-200A is plenty to give it the boost it needs (well, depending on engine size and temperature). But a totally flat battery will suck up everything you throw at it and not leave much for the starter. I have a plug in charger/jump starter and the rare occasion I use it, I’ll let it charge the battery at 40 amps for 5 mins then switch it to the 5 second 200A jump mode, which is 200A for a full 5 seconds (then it requires a 5 minute cooldown). Otherwise, the battery attempting to charge itself robs all the power from the starter.
Just the idea that one of these little boxes can discharge a small pack of lithium ion batteries that fast is pretty far fetched, the cells would likely explode. It would even be a tall order for a LiPo and those things are dangerous enough as it is.
My guess is if you looked into it you’d find it is 1000A over the course of 5 or 10 seconds or something like that. So not 1000A instantaneous but 1000A “total” or something. Or the total opposite, 1000A for a fraction of a second followed by 100A for 5 seconds. Who knows, there is definitely some sort of marketing involved.
The way I’ve always looked at it with chargers and jump starters (even the ones that used to run on lead acid batteries and were much bigger) is the bigger your engine, the bigger the unit to buy, pretty much ignore the numbers and go by size and weight. Same seems to apply to these new types. 4 Cylinder Honda Civic in the summer, smallest one will probably work fine. Diesel truck in harsh winter, get 2 of the biggest ones and hope it is enough (and hope you had your block heater plugged in).
The civic in the screenshot below is my youngest daughter. It needs a rack and pinion, the brakes are seized as it’s been sitting in the same spot for two years now. The battery is totally dead, it will not charge with a smart plug in battery charger. The charger has a boost setting and it will start the car. Also, my little Energizer booster will start the car. I’ve done it couple of times just to have the oil in the engine circulate. Honestly, I was sceptical when I bought the thing but has performed really well. Last year on my Outlander the battery was dying. I was on my way to the cottage and usually half way through the trip we’ll stop and grab a coffee and something to eat. Twenty minutes later the car wouldn’t start. The booster did it’s job until I replaced the battery.
Yeah I have 2 big V8s, a 7 liter and a 6.4 liter (the 6.4 drives a big ass alternator and fan so really draws a lot to start). Takes a lot to crank those suckers over.
4 cylinders are a lot easier, though I’m impressed it can start a battery that is low enough to put your normal charger into safety mode (not totally flat, probably somewhere in the 5 to 10 volt range).
With the charger I have, it will do the same safety thing, but it has a hidden bypass mode that will charge it high enough to be considered “safe” for normal charging or jump starting.
They’re great little devices, I still doubt they’ll put out anywhere near 1000A at 12V but most cars would never need that unless it is totally flat and sub-zero temps.
A friend of mine is notorious for leaving stuff on/plugged in and draining their battery, convinced them to get one of those. But of course she leaves it in the car for 2 years without topping it off. Still usually has enough to do the job on a battery that just barely doesn’t have enough to start the car though.
It’s not that it puts it into safety mode, it will sit there for hours at 80% charge. The cells in the battery are totally shot. It is one of those intelligent charger that will charge at 2Amp/10Amp and crank at 30Amp. But the little Energizer bunny outshines it when it comes to starting the car.
Ah, so the battery is not trying to draw much power at all leaving it all available for the starter to use.
The battery is probably heavily sulfated so pretty much just a paperweight at this point.