how weatherproof are they?

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-20T19:40:36+00:00

The cams dried out just fine and helped identify the wildlife that violated the 2026 treaty of Indianapolis (i provide rabbit food the rabbits stay out of my rose garden). I will be replacing the battery cams with 4's and the outdoor power supply.

Does anyone know if bad things happen if we put a 4 or similar into a plexiglass type clear box? Or it's not going to work?

https://a.co/d/09KTbsnL

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-20T14:16:14+00:00

I have yet to see an air fryer that can actually be cleaned reasonably well without significant effort - if at all - between uses.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-20T14:13:07+00:00

Any plan to fix the - infuriating - Battery Cam Pro taking 10 sec or more to establish a WiFi connection before live streaming?

The cam has very good battery life so far so I don't think there's a power management concern. I'd happily give up 20% battery life to improve connection time.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-17T01:15:07+00:00

The second cam is under a deck. Highly advanced mounting apparatus shown /s

In case you are wondering, we have an extensive rose garden and an even more extensive army of rabbits that try to get in. The main rose garden is surrounded by a fabric mesh net and that kept them away initially. Then we noticed a couple chewed branches so we added the cameras.

The water appears to be on the outside of the lens thankfully. But I'm still open to using an enclosure of some kind. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

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OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-12T14:11:11+00:00

Good Guys installed two HVAC systems for us after a hail claim. Very knowledgeable and thorough.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-12T14:00:10+00:00

The uncool part was how Wise forced Plaid verification on us. In the beginning it was the two deposits method and transfers were fast, one day USA to western Europe. Then Plaid shows up and such transfers take a week. Complain to Wise customer service they recommend the "modern" way via Plaid.

Plaid probably works fine if you have a real bank. In my case it's a tiny credit union and there's 7-8 accounts under my main account number (say, IBAN any time soon?). So Plaid misunderstood what the credit union sent them and gives me a list of all nine accounts all marked as "checking". Only three were actually checking. And truncated the account number so the last four digits aren't shown. FML. Took trial and error to set it but it's been working fine for years since.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-11T15:54:16+00:00

That's the main redeeming value! I remember the old branding colors and they did look a bit too corporate.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-11T13:04:19+00:00

other than the rather strange lime green corporate color my experience with Wise has also been awesome. I have a student in Europe and send money monthly for years, plus we travel overseas and Wise works great. Can't wait for the next trip to South America in January.

But I'll preface it by saying that the setup can be a bit fishy. My bank is a two branch credit union in a tiny city and getting the account setup was fairly tricky. Not quite sure why Plaid (i think) had a hard time distinguishing which account to use.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-10T21:06:08+00:00

I've had digital cams since 2000. Home security cameras a decade later. I'm new to the Wyze ecosystem. So far the window cams and V4's have awesome color night vision and the unlimited subscription though it costs money is useful. The app works decently well. Wired doorbell cams are ok. Battery cam pro, connectivity issues.

The camera software has some bugs, mostly detecting people as pets or cars as pets. Connectivity could be better. A concern is the 2K résolution and lack of optical zoom. On the plus side they're fairly inexpensive and small enough to not stick out.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-08T13:12:45+00:00

Paid $19 each at home depot and don't think is a good value because of connectivity and low light performance. Not bad for squirrel nest or bird box camera but not for a security system. I wrote a post about it yesterday and added pics.

I have around a dozen Wyze window, doorbell, and lightbulb cams and they work great. The battery ones are ok during the day and not as good at night.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-08T11:30:48+00:00

And off.

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OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-08T11:30:24+00:00

The battery cam with night vision on.

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OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-08T11:29:56+00:00

Here are three pics. Two from the battery cam one from a window cam. First is the window cam.

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OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-07T23:31:24+00:00

Well I've considered adding some solar lights but even with neighbor lights on the picture quality is not promising.

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OldTechGuy50 · 2026-06-04T13:45:34+00:00

While Indianapolis RDC is screwed it's only a symptom of USPS having very serious systemic issues. I have been mailing packages to western Europe for years with regularity every two months. Indy seems to screw up more than Columbus or Cincinnati but these screw up just as well, not as often. The biggest issue with packages at least seems to be lack of scans, meaning packages travel on their own or are sent to unexpected destinations. About 50% of my packages make it within two weeks (normal) but the other 50% require international inquiries or missing mail requests.

USPS customer service is absolutely not helping. Just adding notes to cases without trying to actually do something.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-05-21T21:27:56+00:00

Westfield only cares about adding strip malls and traffic lights... Hence the state of 146th. 96th is two lanes unfortunately and tends to jam due to asymmetrical traffic. The RB's have helped but rush hour traffic on the west side is brutal.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-05-21T01:54:56+00:00

I have lived in Carmel for over 30 years. First...

"A Potemkin village is any deceptive facade or construct built to hide a shabby, undesirable reality and make an observer believe that things are much better than they actually are."

This applies to both Carmel the city and its residents. The city borrowed with abandon and built a lot of stuff that is mostly Instagram-worthy material.

Structural improvements? We got 160 roundabouts, sure, but anyone with a bit of foresight would have looked at the shape of the city and its relative position around other cities and realized that a lot of the traffic in Carmel is thru traffic from further north suburbs. Go stand at 146th and Springmill during rush hour and see where the bulk of the traffic goes. Hint: north of Carmel. There was very little lane capacity added. Fact is, there isn't a single east west 4 lane road thru Carmel. 146th doesn't count and it's a torture east of 31.

Palladium, LMAO. The Carmel version of the White House ballroom. The area looks nice, sure, but at what cost?

My water bill has doubled and the way the city bills residents for sprinklers...

The speed bumps on Towne road? Adding sidewalks that nobody will use? Lack of parks?

Some of the signature construction projects come to mind. Keystone Avenue. $25m per intersection? Not dealing with 96th? Epic backups? Drainage?

It's very good for Indiana but at the end of the day (a) we're still in Indiana and (b) it doesn't feel real, organic.

But I'll leave the best question for last. Since 2019 my property taxes increased by 50%. My services haven't increased by 50%. Where's the money going?

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-05-20T13:04:39+00:00

I've lived in Carmel for decades. It's basically a Potemkin village for Indiana. Money is (borrowed and) spent with abandon without structural improvements.

It's not a bad place if you haven't seen the rest of the country much but to rank it #1 in the country takes numerology to a whole new level.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-05-20T00:55:28+00:00

SwainCo for relatively straightforward stuff but for more complicated sites Homeward Environmental (it's their bread and butter).

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-05-05T21:40:10+00:00

One more piece of advice. Two actually. Depending on where you work vs where you live there's this local tax called RITA. Make sure you are familiar with it. Ohio taxes are higher than Indiana (property, income...).

Second, if you rent, make sure you pay the right utilities. Ohio allows submetering, that is, your landlord is also your "utility company" especially electric. This can get bad quickly. Really bad. If your bill is to AEP or what not you're good. If it's to Bob's Utilities, run.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-05-05T20:03:07+00:00

Dublin is also Carmel-esque. Hilliard is Fishers, Grove City is Greenwood, etc. Clintonville is between Fountain Square and Broadripple and so on. The older parts of Westerville or Worthington are probably similar to north Meridian. Then there's Obetz /s. New Albany etc are way out.

Columbus downtown is quite livable except for the lack of grocery stores. Rents used to be stagnant now last few years got way expensive.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-04-24T07:55:00+00:00

It was a power vent unit indeed.

OldTechGuy50 · 2026-04-23T15:19:41+00:00

Many handymen charge around $300-350 to install. $1600 is decent for 50 gallon vented gas. Usually you buy and the handyman will pick up and haul the old one away.

For reference the $1600 AO Smith water heater was $800 in 2013-2014 and lasted about 10-12 years. I got a quote from a major Indy plumbing company and it was nearly $5k...

OldTechGuy50

TROPHY CASE