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Aug 10, 2023

Wyze Cam Floodlight Pro Review

We gave the original Wyze Cam Floodlight a high rating because of its affordable price, bright LEDs, and easy installation, but were disappointed that it didn't support voice control. The company's

We gave the original Wyze Cam Floodlight a high rating because of its affordable price, bright LEDs, and easy installation, but were disappointed that it didn't support voice control. The company's $149.99 Cam Floodlight Pro addresses that shortcoming and introduces other improvements such as a higher-resolution camera with a wider field of view and brighter illumination from three LED lamps (up from two). Those upgrades come with a price increase, but the Floodlight Pro is still an excellent value and worthy of our Editors’ Choice award for smart floodlight cameras. If you want a wireless model and/or one that supports Apple HomeKit, however, the Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight Camera ($249.99) is a better bet and another Editors' Choice winner.

Available in a black or white finish, the Cam Floodlight Pro measures 9.1 by 10.2 by 7.8 inches (HWD) and weighs 2.9 pounds. It's just slightly larger and heavier overall than the Cam Floodlight (9.5 by 7.7 by 7.0 inches, 2.7 pounds). The top of the IP65 weatherproof fixture has three dimmable LED panels that put out a total brightness of 3,000 lumens (up from 2,600) and have a 5,000K color temperature. You can adjust the panels to provide up to 180 degrees of horizontal light coverage.

Wyze designed the Floodlight Pro to attach directly to a junction box, and you can mount it to either a wall or on a soffit. Two wires for power (one black, one white) extend out the back of the fixture. The box includes a round mounting plate, mounting screws, wire nuts, a tethered hook, a Philips screwdriver, and a basic user guide.

A camera assembly sits below the LED panels on a swiveling mounting arm that lets you adjust it for optimal coverage. The assembly includes the camera lens, a speaker, a microphone, and a status LED that glows solid red when the device first turns on, shows solid blue when everything is working properly, flashes purple when it is ready to connect, and blinks blue during the Wi-Fi pairing process.

A rubber cover on the bottom protects a microSD card slot for storing local recordings (it supports cards of up to 256GB) and a Reset button. Under the hood, the device features a loud 105dB siren, a dual-band Wi-Fi radio, and a Bluetooth radio.

This camera doesn’t have a passive infrared (PIR) motion sensor; instead, it uses onboard AI technology to trigger motion recordings and alerts and to activate the lamps. It offers a Smart Detection feature that lets you decide whether person, pet, vehicle, or package motion events trigger alerts and recordings, as well as an ambient light mode in which the lamps provide constant low-light illumination and automatically brighten when the camera detects motion. It also has motion tagging and a motion-activated voice warning feature that plays the prerecorded prompt, “Hi, you are currently being recorded.”

The Floodlight Pro’s 2,560-by-1,440-pixel camera is a significant upgrade over the 1080p camera of the original Wyze Cam Floodlight. It captures 2.5K video at 20fps, has an incredibly wide 180-degree field of view, and uses low-light amplification to capture color video at night. If you don't need color night video, you can configure the infrared LEDs to stick to black-and-white clips.

The camera continuously records to the card until it runs out of storage, at which point it starts to overwrite the oldest footage. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the Cam Plus plan for $1.67 per month (or $19.99 per year). That plan gets you 14 days of cloud-based video history for a single camera. It also unlocks the aforementioned person, pet, vehicle, and package detection features; Smart Event Reports (alerts of abnormal events such as a person on your property in the middle of the night); 2x and 4x fast-forwarding through recordings in the app; and access to the Wyze Web View browser interface. The $8.25-per-month ($99 per year) plan gives you all the same features for an unlimited number of cameras.

The Floodlight Pro doesn’t support Apple HomeKit or Matter, but it does respond to Alexa and Google Assistant voice commands. It also works with IFTTT, which means you have plenty of options for third-party smart home device integrations. The Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight Camera does slightly better here, as it supports HomeKit.

The Floodlight Pro uses the same mobile app (available for Android and iOS) as every other Wyze device. It appears in a dedicated panel on the main screen that shows the last still image capture and a power switch. Tap the panel to see a live video stream from the camera. Just below the video panel are buttons for accessing videos on the SD card, taking a snapshot, manually recording a video, activating the siren, viewing photos and video in your saved albums, and turning the camera on or off. Other buttons let you toggle the lamps, activate two-way talk, change the video resolution, and mute the speaker. The bottom half of the screen shows thumbnails of recent events. Tap any thumbnail to view, share, or delete it. You can also save any clips to an album.

A gear icon in the upper right corner opens the Settings screen. Here, you can adjust motion sensitivity, create detection zones, enable motion tagging and voice warnings, configure notifications, and manage microSD card settings. The Floodlight Settings section lets you enable motion activation, set the lamp brightness, and configure Ambient Light settings. In the Rules section, you can configure the camera to work with other Wyze devices, as well as set individual floodlight components (such as the camera, lights, or siren) to turn on or off at certain times of the day or otherwise react based on your location.

The Floodlight Pro is simple to install, but the setup does require working with high-voltage electrical wires (and most likely a ladder). If you're not comfortable with either, hire a pro.

I started by turning off the power to my existing floodlight fixture at my breaker panel and removing the older device. I attached the Wyze mounting plate to the junction box and used the hook and tether line to hold everything in place while I wired it up. I secured the wires using the wire nuts, tucked them away behind the plate, and attached the fixture to the plate using the included bolt. Then, I restored power to the circuit and moved on to the pairing process.

I opened the app (you need to download this on your phone and create an account if you haven't already) and skipped through the instructions for installing the device until I got to the pairing steps. I selected the camera from a list, confirmed that the LED was flashing purple and that I heard a "Ready To Connect" prompt, and tapped Next. The app found the device immediately and prompted me to provide my home Wi-Fi details. Once I tapped Connect, the Floodlight Pro immediately appeared in the app and on my Alexa device list. I gave it a name and updated the firmware to complete the installation.

The Wyze Cam Floodlight performs wonderfully. Daytime recordings show excellent detail with good color saturation, and the wide-angle lens covers not just my driveway and front yard, but the street as far as three houses in either direction. Color night vision recordings look decent but the colors aren't nearly as vibrant as daytime captures. The good news is that black-and-white night vision footage shows better contrast and excellent detail.

The three LEDs are more than sufficient to light up my driveway as well as the one across the street. Thankfully, the adjustability of the lamps means I can shift them back to my property to avoid annoying my neighbors. Motion alerts arrive instantly and the smart detection feature correctly identifies the subject of events. Motion tagging also works as intended, as does the Ambient Light mode. The siren and the motion-activated voice warning option both sound loud, and two-way audio comes through clearly. Additionally, Alexa voice commands to stream video to an Amazon Echo Show and turn the lamps on and off work as intended.

The Wyze Cam Floodlight Pro is proof that you don’t need to spend a ton of money for a feature-rich smart floodlight. It sports three dimmable LEDs that can easily light up your yard, responds to voice commands, captures 2.5K video at a super-wide angle, and can store recordings locally. Color night vision, intelligent alerts, and interoperability with scores of third-party smart devices help it secure our Editors’ Choice award. Just keep in mind that you might want to spend more on the Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight if you need HomeKit support or prefer a wire-free setup.

The affordable Wyze Cam Floodlight Pro captures an ultra-wide view at a sharp 2.5K resolution, features three bright, motion-activated LEDs, and works with both app and voice control.

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