Wyze’s new pan & tilt cam can see everywhere

Ubiquitous budget smart home company Wyze has released yet another new product — the Wyze Cam Pan v2. As the name implies, this is the second generation of one of Wyze’s earliest products — the Wyze Cam Pan that debuted three years ago. This new model is available now, costs $39.99 (plus $9.99 shipping), and adds color night vision, improved motion-tracking, and a siren to the mix.

There’s no change in form factor, and the Wyze Cam Pan v2 camera looks virtually identical to its (now-discontinued) predecessor. It’s a wired, indoor camera with 1080p HD video and two-way talk. But its main party trick is the ability to rotate on its base and capture a 360-degree view of your home from side-to-side and a 93-degree view vertically, so you can spot Spiderman when he crawls in through the skylight. A Pan Scan feature lets you set four custom waypoints that the camera continuously scans, so you’re sort of getting four cameras in one.

Image: Wyze

But the big feature is the introduction of color night vision — powered by a Starlight Sensor that first debuted in the Wyze Cam v3 indoor/outdoor camera. This adds the option to see the 1080p full HD video footage the camera captures at night in full color, instead of the grainy black and white of traditional night vision.

Rather than relying on a built-in spotlight for color night vision, the sensor utilizes any available light to illuminate the scene more colorfully. Wyze says it can see in rooms as dark as 0.1 LUX (that’s very dark). If there’s not enough light, it can be set to automatically switch to standard black and white night vision.

Another improvement over the original model is a faster processor, which Wyze says enables its motion tracking feature to more quickly follow real-time movement. You can toggle this on or off in the Settings in the app, but when on, it will identify a moving object — such as a person or pet — and automatically track it. This is something that makes the original Wyze Cam Pan an excellent pet monitor, and the new model’s faster processor is likely even better.

Image: Wyze

The two-way talk feature can also help you keep in touch with Fido or Felix while you’re at work or yell at an intruder. And now there’s a siren option, which you can activate in the Wyze app.

The final new feature is invisible infrared lights. Anyone who’s ever tried to use a security camera as a baby monitor will know why this is key: the camera face will remain black in a dark room and not disturb any sleeping babies.

Included features that are also on Wyze’s other cams are local storage via a micro SD card (not included) that enables 24/7 recording, free 14-day rolling cloud storage of event-based videos, up to 12 seconds per clip, and the ability to listen for smoke and CO alarms. You can add longer clips and smart alerts for people, pets, vehicles, and packages with a Cam Plus subscription (starting at $1.25 a month, and you get one month free). All in, there are a lot of great specs and features here, in a tiny little camera, all for a pretty low price (although not as low as it used to be — the v1 started out at $30).

This is what Wyze is known for, rock bottom prices for close-to-top-of-the-line specs. But in reality, these features don’t always pan out. And sometimes, those that have been promised fail to materialize (Alexa and Google Assistant integration are on the way, says Wyze). We’ll check back with an update once we’ve tested the camera.

But if this is the camera you’ve been waiting for, you might not want to wait any longer. The Wyze Pan Cam v2 is shipping now, and Wyze has had a fair amount of trouble keeping stuff in stock recently.