Husband and I went on our morning walk and it did not go as expected. He noticed a small red light blinking at the wood line as we approached and we found a game camera, on our land, pointing at our house that isn't ours.

X ^ | Apr 19, 2025 | Julie

[minnesota_bound]

My wyze camera lets you turn off the light. It also sees in the dark in color.

[Hermes37]

There are 2 ‘common’ types of InfraRed (IR) LED’s used for camera illumination at night. The dim red glow comes from 850nanometer(nm) (wavelength). Many humans can see that long wavelength of light. The ones that claim invisibility are typically 950nm and very few rare humans can see 950nm light.

A thermal camera can easily see both 850nm and 950nm and may also detect the heat from a camera. Even possibly a camera that has no LEDs or LEDs off/unpowered until it detects a heatsource(animal) in motion with PassiveInfraRed (PIR) detector. A thermal camera is expensive. A crude small screen cam starts over USD$100.00 and USD$250.00 begins to be a barely useful sized thermal camera. USD$350 begins useful detector but still not great ‘pictures’. For detecting heat small can do but if ya gonna invest consider other uses that include FUN! :-) Thermal cameras commonly detect to 1500nm and beyond. (some animals that see in the dark can see a hot mammal in total darkness)

For reference an outdoor motion night light typically uses a PIR detector also. The “passive” in PIR means it does not emit any light but detects light/heat of animals.

A night vision/starlight scope and or camera may not detect either the 850nm or 950nm LEDs. Test night vision scopes before purchase.

Slightly off topic;
A hidden cam with all night lights turned off might record the popo disabling your clearly visible cams before they go into the wrong address and kill you or a loved one.
Tell a trusted person not likely to be present like a relative in another state! ;-)

They sell IR floodlights to illuminate areas where the camera LEDs do not reach. With those you could always leave the camera IR LEDs off and a detector will only see the illuminator and possibly not the camera unless the camera is hot. Without IR LEDs running many cams are not very hot.
YMMV