Tech review: Wyze Cam Floodlight Pro brings big improvements

Pictured is the Wyze Cam Floodlight Pro. (Courtesy of Wyze/TNS)

I’ve been a fan of Wyze products for several years — long enough to see them release some second- and third-generation products that have really improved in quality and ease of use.

For the last month, I’ve been testing the Wyze Cam Floodlight Pro, which is an upgraded product over the original Wyze Cam Floodlight.

The Floodlight Pro costs $149.98 from Wyze.com and it is available in black or white.

Features

The Floodlight Pro has a complete redesign from the original Floodlight.

The original featured a Wyze Cam v3 attached to a motion-detecting LED floodlight with smart features.

The Floodlight Pro has an all-new 180-degree field-of-view that can cover your entire yard. The camera has a resolution of 2.5K (2,560 x 1,440 pixels) with color night vision.

It has three LED panels with more than 3,000 lumens of dimmable light. The Floodlight Pro has a new ambient light mode that allows the user to keep the lights on at whatever brightness level they choose (I have mine set for five percent). When motion is detected, the lights switch to full brightness.

The Floodlight Pro has smart motion detection. It can activate the lights and camera when any motion is detected, or it can be used in Smart Detection mode, which uses artificial intelligence to detect people or vehicles.

The AI can also be used in Motion Warning mode, which uses the Floodlight Pro’s built-in speaker to announce, “Hi, you are being recorded,” whenever a person is detected. That speaker can also sound a loud siren when you press a button in the app, or it can be used for two-way communication, so you can talk with people who are near the floodlight.

The Floodlight Pro knows the sunset and sunrise times by your location in the app, so it will automatically turn itself on when it needs to each night.

Like other Wyze cams, the Floodlight Pro can record clips to the cloud. These clips are triggered by motion events. The cloud recording feature requires a subscription to Cam Plus, which costs $1.67 per month when billed annually. There are also unlimited Cam Plus plans if you have multiple Wyze Cam products.

If you would like 24/7 recording, you can insert a microSD card into a slot on the camera and record everything locally. You can access the recordings through the free Wyze app, where you can scrub back through the timeline to see what happened in the past and export the video to your phone.

There is no subscription needed for 24/7 local recording.

The Floodlight is also compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices and can be used with IFTTT automations. This means the motion sensor, light and camera can be used to trigger other things to happen when certain criteria are met.

Mounting and setup

The Floodlight Pro needs to be hard wired to an electrical box. If you have an existing floodlight or porch light on your house that you’d like to replace, installing the Floodlight Pro is not difficult.

I should mention you’ll need to select a location that gets a good Wi-Fi signal from your home network. The first thing the app does during setup is check the Wi-Fi signal strength.

If you are comfortable turning off the power in your breaker box and connecting fixtures and hanging lights, you should be able to mount the Floodlight Pro in about 10 minutes. There are two wires to connect (black and white) and all the necessary hardware for mounting and connecting the wires is included. There are great videos in the app and on Wyze’s website to demonstrate the mounting process, which can be on a wall or under an eave (vertical or horizontal).

If you are not comfortable working on your home’s electrical system, you’ll want to hire an electrician to mount it for you.

Once it is mounted, setting up the Floodlight Pro requires pressing a button on the camera and waiting for the speaker to announce “Ready to connect.”

You’ll need to be sure Bluetooth enabled on your phone. The app will then walk you through selecting the correct Wi-Fi network (the Floodlight Pro can use either 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz Wi-Fi) and giving the floodlight a name.

You can then go through the settings and set it up as you like.

Wyze has improved the setup process with this floodlight and their new Battery Cam Pro (review coming soon). The old way involved hold up a QR code on front of the camera to start the setup process. Using Bluetooth for discovery and setup is much easier.

Conclusion

The Wyze Cam Floodlight Pro has been rock solid since I installed it. The old Wyze floodlight dropped off my network and needed a reset way too often. I really like the ambient light mode. I have the Floodlight Pro mounted under my carport in the driveway and it is nice coming home to a lighted driveway before I pull in close enough to trigger the motion sensor. The ambient light is also nice for when we look out the window at night.

I’ve had to tweak the motion settings, which are really good. The smart motion tagging for vehicles and people works well. Every time someone walks a dog or jogs in front of the house, I get a notification. I was also getting a notification for every car that drove by, but I turned that setting off.

Overall, I’m really pleased with the new features Wyze has included in the Floodlight Pro and I’m really glad to have it protecting my house.