Wyze Cam Pan V2 review: Twice the camera for half the money
There’s no shortage ofsmart home security systemsand companies right now, and if you’ve shopped around at all you’ve probably already heard of Wyze. Wyze has differentiated themselves from the competition by selling serviceable hardware for bargain-basement prices. The Cam Pan v2 is no exception, costing just $50 when the entry-level cameras from Nest retail for twice as much. This camera can also rotate 360 degrees, giving it much more coverage than a single stationary camera. Add that together with its user-friendly interface, easy setup, and decent image quality, and this camera starts to look very appealing. There are some drawbacks, but nothing big enough to give me second thoughts.
Wyze Cam Pan v2
The Wyze Cam Pan v2 is an affordable security camera with powerful features. It offers more camera coverage for less money, making it an easy recommendation for anyone shopping for home security.
Design, hardware, what’s in the box
The Cam Pan V2 is a subtle update to the original Pan model, with the outside practically unchanged. It’s an inoffensive-looking block of plastic that spins around and records things. It doesn’t look as good as something like theNest Cam, but it doesn’t have to look beautiful to be a good security camera. Inside is Wyze’s new “Starlight” sensor for improved night vision, along with a more powerful processor.
As the name suggests, this camera can pan. With a 360 degree range of rotation, and just over 90 degrees of tilt, full room coverage is pretty much guaranteed, and covering multiple rooms is easy. The base has a 1/4”-20 mount (the most common camera mount) and a grippy pad on the bottom, giving you the flexibility to mount it long-term or just set it down anywhere that’s close to an outlet.
The only other things in the box are the 5v wall adapter and the annoyingly short power cord. It’s only 6 feet long, severely limiting your camera placement. The wall mount kit from Wyze does include a much longer 15’ cable, but being able to place the camera more than 6 feet away from an outlet without spending extra money doesn’t feel like an unreasonable expectation. The cable isn’t wired into the camera, so you can just use a third-party cable, assuming you still have any micro USB cables lying around. While it might have been nice to see a USB-C port on here, it’s understandable given the price.
There’s a MicroSD card slot for local storage. Out of the box it only supports up to 32Gb cards, but Wyze hassaid that that limit will be increasedin a firmware update by February 15th. The presence of a card slot at all is refreshing, though, since so many other companies skip that feature to push their cloud storage subscription.
The Cam Pan v2 has 2-way communication, so you can tell your dog to get off the couch no matter where you are. The same speaker doubles as a “mini siren” in case you want to try and scare away intruders. I personally think the “siren” function is too quiet, but it’s still better than trying to scare someone away by yelling “wee-woo” at them through a glorified intercom.
Unlike the cheaper stationary Wyze Cam v3, this model has no IP rating. So, this isn’t the right camera if you need it out in the elements. Another problem: it doesn’t have 5GHz Wi-Fi support. That’s only a dealbreaker if you’re unlucky enough to have bad 2.4GHz congestion where you live.
Software, features, video
The main selling point of the Pan v2 is, of course, the panning, and there are a couple of ways the app lets you use that. By default, it will continuously pan through its full range of motion, stopping for a few seconds at a time. You can also set as many as four waypoints for it to stop at instead, which is useful if you don’t want it looking at the wall half the time. There’s also the option for motion tracking, letting the camera follow any motion it detects. While the Pan v2 has access to the same motion detection zones that other Wyze cameras have, it only works with the camera in stationary mode. At that point, why not buy the cheaper, non-motorized Wyze cameras?
Like all of their competition, Wyze has an optional paid subscription, but they also give access to some nice features for as little as $0 on a pay-what-you-want plan called Cam+ Lite. The paid Cam+ subscription gets you a lot of extra usability, obviously, but it’s not a requirement. Pairing the included person detection with a MicroSD card gets you a great experience. You can easily select any recent event in the app, and pull up your local recording of it, all without a subscription.
It’s worth mentioning that person detection was originally promised as a free feature, but was only available as part of a paid subscription when it launched. Additionally, the basic plan has been hobbled. Initially, you got 12 second recordings saved to the cloud for 2 weeks, but with the introduction of Cam+ Lite, now you only get thumbnails. While you can still get these features for free, you have to opt-in to get them, rather than just having them right out of the box. With all the changes Wyze has made to their subscription model in a very short time, it’s hard to say what you may or may not get in even the very near future.
The app is very user-friendly and has lots of options to tailor the experience to your needs. It’s easy to set schedules for monitoring, location-based triggers to turn your cameras on when you leave, and plenty more. You can also check any of your cameras on smart displays (Alexa and Assistant) or a Chromecast.
A security camera loaded with features wouldn’t be useful if thecamerapart of it was no good. The Pan v2 is no slouch, though. Wyze promises better low light performance out of their updated starlight sensor, and it delivers. Between the new sensor and the wide-open f1.6 aperture on its lens, I got great low-light performance well after sunset. Impressively, I was able to see clearly and in full color at 2 am with nothing but moonlight and a street lamp at the end of my block. If you havenolight, though, the night vision mode works just fine, and I didn’t have any issues seeing entire rooms—it’s completely pitch black in the above video. While something higher resolution would have been nice, 1080 is still plenty good enough to make out faces from across the room.
Should you buy it?
Probably.If you wanted to add a smart camera to your home without breaking the bank, Wyze has a lot to offer. This camera is just $50, is incredibly easy to set up, and has better low-light performance than any of their competitors. If you want something for the outdoors, though, the lack of any weather resistance makes this a pass.
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Carriers get the upper hand
Google’s made several improvements over the years
New data from Circana affirmed that Nintendo Switch 2 is still a resounding success in the United States, having now sold 2 million units
Generative AI, now poolside
Check your order status!
EA has confirmed the early access release date for the next game in the Skate series
