The Wyze Wired Floodlight is a recent addition to Wyze’s suite of home monitoring solutions. The floodlight uses one of Wyze’s V3 cams for the monitoring portion of the solution. This is the same V3 cam that has been out for a few years now. The floodlight acts like an accessory to the V3, so if the cam ever dies you can just swap it out for a new one (I’m pretty sure). I have been V2 user for 2.5-3 years, and recently added V3 cams and the doorbell. All this makes me pretty familiar with the Wyze setup and ecosystem.
I have actually reviewed the V3, so I knew what to expect from the camera portion of the floodlight. The V3 is an entry level camera with a decent array of features available to it. It records in HD (1080p) at 20fps and has a 130° field of view. The V3 has color nightvision, which works well and at pretty low light levels before switching to B/W video. You will really only have B/W recordings if you have continuous recording setup. Otherwise, the floodlight is triggered by the motion event (or whatever event parameter you set), and the cam switches over to color. The V3 also uses streaming 2-way audio setup. You can hold a conversation with someone without needing to press and hold or mic button – you just toggle it on and then talk back and forth like a normal conversation. Sound is not produced by the camera, but by a speaker on the floodlight body. This is a good thing because the cam has OK volume, but the floodlight speaker is considerably louder and can be heard from 50+ feet away. For continuous recording you can install a microSD card. The V3 supports 32GB cards formatted in FAT32 and larger cards up to 256GB formatted as exFAT. However, there is a known issue with cards larger than 128GB not using the full capacity (stopping at 90GB or about 9-10 days of continuous). My current firmware is 4.36.9.139 (released in May ’22), but an updated firmware (4.36.10.2864) was released on Nov. 2nd before the rollout was paused on Nov. 10th due to some issues.
Setup for the camera and floodlight was very simple. I had a different floodlight cam installed beforehand, so I removed it to install the Wyze floodlight. I killed the power first before removing the first system. Inside my junction box I had hot/neutral/ground. The floodlight wiring harness only had hot/neutral, so you are instructed to tie the ground wire off on the mounting bracket. I used the included hardware to install the mounting bracket, which only took a few seconds. The included hook comes in handy and lets you hang the body of the camera from the bracket while you tie off the wires. The light comes with wire nuts as well, so you don’t have to go and buy any hardware. After that a single screw passes through the center of the floodlight body to attached to the mounting bracket. The body has silicone gasket that gets squeezed against the mounting surface to help lock out the elements – you make still want to caulk around it if the junction box goes to an interior wall or if the sealing surface isn’t very smooth. Mine is into my unfinished garage and its right up under my eaves, so I didn’t feel the need to caulk it. The install took about 20 min total – it was super easy. Connecting the camera was next and it took all of 2 minutes to put it on my network. When you setup the camera you have the option to signup for one of their subscription models. The camera gets basic motion alerts and a picture of the start of the event without a subscription, but you would have to opt in if you wanted anything more advanced. There are 3 tiers – CamPlus Lite, CamPlus, and CamPlus Pro. You can check out their website to see if one of these plans offers something you need. You would have to signup for Cam Plus Lite (at a minimum) if you want recorded events – you get 12 second clips with Lite.
Accessing the camera is done through the Wyze app. There’s a couple second startup time before you are viewing the feed. The alerts are very quick so it may only be 10-15 seconds from the time of the event to you watching the feed. Within the app you can set up the types of alerts you want. If you want more advanced alerts like person/vehicle/package/animal detection then you have to opt into the Cam Plus subscription, otherwise you just have basic motion alerts. You can narrow your alerts down and reduce false triggers by using the PIR sensor (Passive Infrared) on the floodlight to filter motion detected by the camera. The camera uses pixel changes to detect motion, but these events can be trigger by moving shadows, passing headlights from cars, etc. By using the PIR sensor to filter things, I was only notified when something actually happened in the detection zone. The detection zone is something you configure by selecting areas of the camera view you want it to monitor.
The floodlight itself is fairly responsive to motion events and casts a good amount of light. The lights do a perfectly good job of illuminating my entire drive and walkway when they are on. They also are easy enough to aim, so you can shed light where you need to and minimize it where you don’t (like shining into your neighbors’ windows). You can set the light to turn on from dusk to dawn, when motion is detected, or when sound is detected. For motion detection you can have it trigger via the PIR sensor or via the camera’s motion detection. The PIR sensors range is determined partially by how you aim it. I have mine setup to trigger the light just as a car or person crosses onto my driveway. I don’t want it to trigger when vehicles are passing by, so as not to have my light constantly popping on. The sensor also picks me up when I am exiting my garage, so it will pop on then as well. The sensor also has 3 different zones for detection (left, center, right), which you can toggle on or off depending on your desired operation. You will need to configure the length of time for the light to stay on after an event – 15s to 15min is the range.
Overall, this is really a great floodlight/cam setup. For the money I think its one of the better deals out there for what you get. The install and setup processes are very user friendly and straightforward. The app navigation can be a little cumbersome with how things are organized in the menu layers, but once you get things set you rarely have to dive back in. The V3 camera is a very nice little cam with a lot of great features available with or without the subscription. The floodlight looks nice on my house, and it does a great job of lighting my driveway up when I get home at night or when I get back from walking the dog. I have no problem recommending this setup to family, and have already recommended it to a few neighbors.