Wyze is quickly becoming a household name in affordable home surveillance, and last year the company updated one of its popular cameras with the Wyze Cam Pan v2. Much like the Wyze Cam v3 that we reviewed, the Cam Pan v2 takes a similar design from its earlier version and upgrades it with a new sensor that can nearly see in color in the dark and the ability to pan 360°. Like many of Wyze’s products, it’s packed with features for the $39.99 price tag ($50 on Amazon). Be sure to check out the video below to see all of the details.
Design
If you’ve seen the first generation of the Cam Pan, the new v2 will look very familiar. It features the same tall rectangular design with a round base that allows the camera to rotate 360°. In the back, the Wyze Cam Pan v2 has a micro-USB port on the base for powering the camera. On the bottom of the camera, there is a slot for a micro SD card as well as a setup button and a microphone.
On the front, there is a small sensor and status light, and the lens can tilt up and down 93°.
Wyze Cam Pan v2: Setup
Like with the company’s other cameras, Wyze keeps setup very easy. The first thing to do is to download the Wyze app and set up an account. If you already have the app, make sure you have the latest version to have all of the latest cameras available.
Then power on the camera, open the app, and hit the plus icon in the upper left. Wyze will take you through a few quick steps which involve scanning a QR code on your phone with the camera to get it connected to the network. Then, give the camera a name and it’s good to go.
Wyze Cam Pan v2: Night vision
One of the biggest upgrades with v2 is the inclusion of the Starlight CMOS Sensor. Just like on the Cam v3, this sensor can display full color in dark environments down to .1 lux. If there is a little bit of light in a room or a street light on the outside, there is a good chance that the Cam Pan v2 will be able to show full color.
On most other cameras, even the Cam v3, when the camera does need to go into night vision mode, there are visible red IR lights on the front of the camera. This is something that my kids have even commented on when I have one of the cameras in their rooms for a monitor. But with the Cam Pan v2, the IR lights are invisible making it even stealthier to not disturb kids or pets – which is a welcomed feature considering the camera can pan and tilt by itself.
Wyze Cam Pan v2: Video
Speed + Responsiveness
Once the app is open, the Cam Pan v2 is pretty fast to respond to controls. The delay between pushing a direction on the app and the camera responding is maybe a half-second. The camera can pan 180° in about two seconds at its quickest speed setting, which is adjustable in the app. Notifications for movement take about 15 seconds to pop up on my iPhone in my experience.
Walking around my office, the Cam Pan v2 did a pretty good job of tracking my movement. With faster movements though, it can have a bit of trouble keeping up. I had my kids run through the living room and then tried it myself. The Camera would move to the one side when it detected motion, but by that time my kids were already out of the frame and it lost track. So for really quick movement at a medium distance from the camera, it can have trouble keeping the frame locked onto the action.
Walking through the Wyze App
Selecting the Cam Pan v2 in the Wyze app opens up some quick settings. You can mute audio, enable a speaking feature to talk through the camera, record video, take a photo, and control the pan and tilt of the camera. At the bottom is a button to view playback of locally recorded footage from an optional SD card.
Tapping the more button on the right opens up even more controls. Motion tagging will outline motion detected by the camera in green boxes. This helps to give a better idea of what is causing notifications, but it can be turned off.
Next, Motion tracking will enable the camera to pan and tilt to follow motion through the image. Without this on, the camera will be stationary, but when enabled the camera pans around a room to track and follow any movement that is detected.
Pan Scan will have the camera rotate between the waypoints which can be set within the app. Pan Scan kind of works with motion tracking turned on, but the tracking will be overrun by the pan scan intervals so it isn’t as dependable in my experience.
The more button also enables viewing an album of saved video and photos, setting up a timelapse, turning on the siren, and turning the camera off. For a more in-depth view of the app, be sure to watch the video.
Wyze Cam Pan v2: Video Quality
For the price, I’ve always been impressed with the video quality that Wyze gets out of its cameras. The camera is 1080p, with an f1.6 lens that provides a 120° field of view, but zooming in the app makes it easy to pick out details. In a well-lit room, the resolution seems sharp even when fully zoomed in. At night things can start to get a little less hi-res, but just like Cam v3, the Starlight sensor does an incredible job in extremely low light.
Additional Settings
Beyond what’s available on the home page for the camera, tapping the settings button in the upper right opens up a world of more options.
Motion detection sensitivity and sound sensitivity can both be dialed in by diving into the detection settings menu as well as creating a detection zone. If a camera is picking up motion from something like a tree waving in the corner, adding a detection zone that excludes that area can help to make notifications more meaningful.
In event recording, a schedule can be set for recording as well as enabling or disabling motion and sound events that will trigger a recording to start. With Cam Plus, this tab also enables turning on and off recordings from detected people, pets, packages, and vehicles.
Notifications can also be tailored to any needs by toggling on and off AI events, all motion events, and sound events.
Free recording vs. subscription
Out of the box, the Cam Pan v2 comes with a two-week trial of Cam Plus. Once that’s run out, though, Wyze cameras are limited to 12-second snapshot recordings with a five-minute cooldown between recorded events. The basic plan also features motion-triggered alerts and sound-triggered alerts, but not the advanced AI alerts from Cam Plus. This will be changing in February, and we’ll talk more about that in the Wyze Cam Plus Lite section below.
One almost essential upgrade in my opinion, though, is adding an SD card. With a card, the cameras will record video 24/7 to internal storage, which can still be viewed through the Wyze app. While this does add to the cost, Wyze sells a 32GB card for $13, and we often feature deals on micro SD cards on electronicsforward.com.
Wyze Cam Plus
To unlock the most powerful features, the Cam Pan v2 requires a subscription to Wyze Plus which costs $2 per month per camera. So for a single camera, that’s pretty affordable, but if you have multiple cameras that can start to add up.
With Cam Plus, advanced notifications for person detection, package detection, vehicle detection, and pet detection are unlocked.
Cam plus also unlocks full-length video recording with no cooldown between clips. So if you’re not using an SD card, this is a great way to get longer recordings and ensure you don’t miss any events.
Wyze Cam Lite
Recently, Wyze announced Wyze Plus Lite, which will be the new bottom tier for Wyze Plus and it is a pick your price subscription, which can be $0. If you don’t want to pay any money for the added features, you don’t have to.
With Cam Plus Lite, Wyze cameras will now be able to use person detection for more meaningful notifications. In the forum post announcing this new plan, Wyze stated that on average users receive 250 notifications per week, and 70% of users haven’t viewed recorded videos at all for 30 days or more.
With person detection available to all at any price, Wyze hopes to provide more meaningful notification to everyone. Person detection is a great feature considering how much motion the cameras can pick up so I see this as a win.
One note here, starting February 15, all users will need to opt into Wyze Cam Lite or Cam Plus to keep using cloud storage for recordings. Users who don’t opt in to these new plans will lose the cloud-based recording feature.
Wyze Cam Pan v2: Smart Home integration
While the Wyze products don’t support HomeKit, they will integrate with Google Assistant, Alexa, and IFTTT.
Electronicsforward’ Take
With the Cam Pan v2, Wyze has another great camera in its arsenal. The upgrades to this new version make it more powerful and capable. If you want to save some money or want a more discrete camera, the Cam v3 is also a great option. But, if you need something that can pan around a large room, the Cam Pan v2 is a great choice.
Buy Wyze Cam Pan v2 at Amazon
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