Wyze Recalls 2,562 Solar Security Cameras in Canada Over Lithium-Battery Fire and Burn Hazard

The Product

The recall covers the Wyze Solar Cam Pan outdoor security camera, model number WYZESCPWH. It's a battery-powered wireless camera with a motorized pan-and-tilt mechanism, an integrated lithium-ion battery, and an integrated solar panel that tops up the battery during the day. The Health Canada recall notice classifies the product under consumer electronics — audio-visual and photography — and lists the affected audience as the general public. In other words, this isn't a niche professional device. It's mainstream outdoor smart-home gear.

If you bought one between October 2025 and April 2026 from Wyze directly or through a retailer, you're in scope.

The Failure Mode

The hazard description in the recall is unusually specific, and worth understanding before you decide whether to ignore it. The Solar Cam Pan ships with two long flat-head wood screws intended for mounting the camera to a wall or eave, and shorter hardware intended for attaching the solar panel bracket to the top of the camera body. The recall states that the included assembly instructions can lead consumers to use the long mounting screws in the wrong place — driving them down through the top of the camera and into the lithium-ion battery's metal casing.

What happens next is well-documented in battery physics. A punctured cell loses its mechanical separator between the electrodes. The result is rapid, uncontrolled discharge — what fire services call thermal runaway. Ontario's firefighter guidance on lithium-ion batteries describes the outcome plainly: a rapid release of heat energy that can cause intense fires and toxic off-gassing, and that is notoriously difficult to extinguish once it starts.

The U.S. incident record reflects that: 12 reports and 5 burn injuries. A puncture during installation is not a theoretical risk. It's a manufacturing-and-instruction issue with consistent real-world consequences.

The Recall Process

The official remedy from Health Canada is to stop using the recalled camera immediately and follow Wyze's online recall process. The dedicated landing page is wyze.com/en-ca/pages/scprecall, the recall identifier is RA-82139, and Wyze offers four remedy paths according to its voluntary recall page: a free replacement camera bundled with a solar panel accessory, a full refund to the original payment method, reimbursement by cheque if the camera was purchased from a retailer, or a gift card for the original purchase price. Wyze can also be reached by email at recall@wyze.com.

Power the camera down before you remove it. If it's been damaged during installation — if you noticed any heat, swelling, an odd smell, or unusual sounds at any point — do not bring it indoors while you sort out paperwork. Move it to a non-combustible outdoor surface away from siding, decking, and anything that can catch fire, and contact Wyze for next steps. Once a refund or replacement is in motion, the recalled unit cannot legally be passed to anyone else. The Canada Consumer Product Safety Act prohibits redistribution, resale, or even giving away recalled products.

How to Recognize a Battery That's Already in Trouble

The Wyze case is specifically about installation, but the warning signs that a lithium-ion battery is failing are the same across every product category. Health Canada's lithium-ion battery safety guidance names the danger signals directly: a battery that is unusually hot, swelling, leaking, or giving off an odour or audible noise. Any one of those is grounds to stop using the device, move it away from anything flammable, and treat it as a safety incident rather than a warranty dispute.

That advice translates cleanly to outdoor smart gear. If you spot a deformed doorbell camera, a sagging or warped enclosure on a solar floodlight, or any battery-powered exterior device that's running hot to the touch, the right next step is to power it down — at the breaker if necessary — and contact the manufacturer or your local fire service. Not later. That afternoon.

What You've Quietly Added to Your Exterior

Five years ago, the typical Canadian home had no batteries mounted to its siding. Today, a single homeowner might have a doorbell camera, a solar floodlight or two, a side-yard security cam, a garage-door sensor, and a smart lock — every one of them carrying a lithium-ion cell, often less than a metre from cedar siding, wooden eaves, or composite decking. Federal guidance is direct about why that matters: lithium-ion batteries are more volatile than other common battery chemistries, and damaged or modified cells can cause significant property damage if not handled carefully. The national Battery Safety portal at canada.ca/batterysafety covers the basics, including the rule that lithium-ion batteries do not belong in household garbage.

The pattern Canadians are getting used to indoors — managing e-bike batteries, laptop packs, and power tool cells — is showing up outdoors too. The risk profile is similar. The proximity to siding is the new variable.

Installation Habits That Reduce the Risk

Two habits do most of the work for outdoor battery-powered devices. The first is to follow the manufacturer's hardware spec exactly. If the box ships with three sets of screws, only the ones marked for the battery side of the device belong there — never the longer mounting hardware, even if the holes "seem to line up." The Wyze recall is a textbook example of what happens when assembly instructions allow that ambiguity. Federal battery-safety guidance reinforces the same rule for any consumer product: do not modify, crush, puncture, or otherwise damage a battery during installation or maintenance.

The second is to register the product. Smart-home gear is a category where firmware updates and recall notices both reach the customer through the same channel: the account tied to the device. Subscribing to Health Canada's Recalls and Safety Alerts is a complementary backstop, especially if the device was purchased as a gift or installed by a previous homeowner. Canada's general guidance on what to do when a product is recalled walks through the same playbook: confirm whether your device is affected, stop using it, follow the manufacturer's process, and stay subscribed to official channels going forward.

A Quick Audit Worth Doing This Weekend

If you've installed any battery-powered outdoor smart device in the last two years — Wyze or not — three small checks are worth ten minutes:

• Confirm that every device is registered in the manufacturer's app under your current email address. This is how recall notices reach you.
• Visually inspect each device for heat signatures, swelling, discolouration, or hardware that looks subtly wrong (a screw head proud of the housing, a panel sitting crooked).
• Note which devices are mounted within a metre of siding, decking, or eaves, and make sure their exit path — for removal or for emergency response — isn't blocked.

None of this turns a homeowner into a battery engineer. It just closes the loop between a recall notice published in Ottawa and a device on the side of a house in Calgary or Halifax.

For the 2,562 Canadian Solar Cam Pan owners, the action this week is unambiguous: stop using the camera, start the refund or replacement on the Wyze recall page, and do not attempt to inspect or repair the battery yourself. If anything about the camera already looks wrong — heat, swelling, deformation — treat it as an active safety issue and move it away from the building envelope before contacting Wyze.

For everyone else, the recall is a useful prompt rather than an alarm. Outdoor smart devices have made our homes more visible and more responsive, and they've also added a category of fire load that wasn't there a decade ago. Treat damaged or unusually hot batteries as emergencies, follow installation instructions to the letter, and register your devices so that the next recall notice — and there will be one — actually reaches you in time to do something about it.