The weatherCam updates automatically every 15 minutes or so. The weatherCam is pointed south southwest, and I try to keep the window as clean as possible. At night there may be some reflections from lights in the room or the little red light on the front of the camera. The weatherCam uses Webcam32 software to drive a Creative digital camera that I picked up for $35. The camera takes really terrible regular photos, but makes a perfect web-cam.