A washing machine appliance includes a camera assembly mounted in view of a wash chamber for obtaining images of the wash chamber. The lens of the camera assembly is positioned adjacent a water outlet of a water dispenser and a controller is configured to facilitate an automated cleaning method for the camera assembly, the method including obtaining one or more images of the wash chamber using the camera assembly, analyzing the one or more images to determine an image quality, determining that the image quality has dropped below a quality threshold, and operating the water dispenser to perform a lens cleaning operation in response to determining that the image quality has dropped below the quality threshold.