Tag: Wyze

Wyze Battery Cam Pro Review

Wyze recently released a new battery powered outdoor security camera called the Wyze Battery Cam Pro. It is the subject of my latest review.

This camera differs from other Wyze cameras in that it must be more judicious about its power usage. While it is capable of continuously recording onto an SD card it will quickly run out of battery power to do it. As such it’s better suited as a “notification camera” vs. a surveillance device in that the camera will only record and notify on events triggered by motion.

Unlike the previous generation outdoor camera it does not require a base station and will connect directly to WiFi.

The big standout feature of this camera is that it has swappable batteries – a rarity among consumer electronics. The battery packs have a built-in USB-C port for charging so no other charging hardware is required. Wyze does sell a desktop charger that might be more convenient for those with multiple cameras.

Battery life will vary based on how active the scene is in front of the camera and how often the camera is accessed for live streaming. In my case I get about two to three months before I need to do a battery swap. The camera is also compatible with Wyze’s solar panel which can eliminate the need for battery swaps if the panel can get enough sunlight.

I have found the camera to be quite robust, having endured several months outdoors through various weather conditions without any signs of wear or internal damage.

In use, the camera provided clear video quality with 1440p resolution, and its night vision capabilities were enhanced by an integrated spotlight that illuminated the scene effectively, offering clarity in color even in the dark. The camera also has a traditional infrared night vision mode along with an infrared illuminator. You can choose how it handles nighttime in the Wyze app.

One of the strengths of this new camera is that it rarely has a “false positive” motion event. Wyze added a low powered radar system that gives the camera an additional sensor layer for determining when something really is in front of the camera. As such imagery like branches blowing in the wind are far less likely to trigger an event. The distance this radar looks can be adjusted to narrow down the trigger zone inside the Wyze app. Wyze also allows users to narrow down the visual area the camera should be looking for motion.

Unfortunately Wyze encourages a subscription for optimal functionality. This subscription includes additional features like cloud storage and smart alerts capable of distinguishing between different moving objects such as people, vehicles, and pets.

It is possible to use the camera without a subscription by recording motion events to a SD card. Accessing recordings off the SD card does consume more battery as the camera needs to stream the playback to the Internet. I also found that accessing SD card footage can be a hit-or-miss endeavor sometimes requiring multiple attempts to access footage.

Overall I am pleased with the performance of this camera. It’s a major improvement over their prior offering but I still have issues with products that require a subscription to access the full feature set.

See more of my Wyze reviews here!

Disclosure: Wyze sent the camera to the channel free of charge for my review. They did not review or approve my review before it was published and no other compensation was received. All opinions are my own.

Wyze Cam V4 Review

Last week Wyze released the latest iteration of their low cost camera, which they call the “The Wyze Cam V4.” I checked it out in a recent review.

Like before it retails for around $30. That purchase price used to get a lot more bang for the buck, including cloud storage and AI features but those added functions now cost extra.

The Wyze subscription is priced at $3 per camera per month or via an unlimited subscription at $99 a year. In fairness the subscription isn’t all that expensive, but many original Wyze customers are put-off by once free features that are now locked behind a paywall. Wyze still gives customers the option to use an SD card for continuous or event-only recording to avoid the subscription fee.

The camera’s design maintains its plastic weatherproof design, allowing it to withstand outdoor conditions. It operates through USB power, with the package including a sufficiently long cable, though longer options are available for outdoor setups. A notable upgrade in this model is the visual quality, transitioning to 1440p resolution from the previous 1080p, enhancing both daytime and nighttime surveillance capabilities. It also now has an LED spotlight that can help its color night vision features extract more visual information.

Through the accompanying Wyze app, users can control the camera and review footage easily. Wyze subscribers can review footage in a single tap, but SD card footage review takes a few more taps and requires a connection to the camera be established. In addition to the lack of off-site cloud storage, non-subscribers also do not get the very useful AI detection feature for persons, pets, and vehicles.

I found the image quality to be a nice step-up from the previous iterations of the cameras. They are so inexpensive that it doesn’t take much of an investment to cover an entire property or add more to existing infrastructure. They’re also compatible with IFTTT, Amazon and Google so they can be integrated with other equipment too.

We’ll have some more Wyze related product reviews coming soon. Stay tuned to this playlist!

Disclosure: Wyze sent these cameras to the channel free of charge. However they did not review or approve this video before it was uploaded, and no other compensation was received.

Using Docker to Add RTSP Functionality to WYZE Cameras via a Synology NAS

Yes this headline is a mouthful! But I stumbled across a great solution for Wyze camera users who want to keep their cameras up to date yet still use them via RTSP to their own security NVRs. Setting this process up is the subject of my latest “how to” video.

With Wyze pulling their official RTSP firmware some super smart community members figured out a way to build a “bridge” that takes video out of the Wyze cameras and makes that video available as an RTSP, RTMP or HLS stream that can be used by any compatible security DVR/NVR. It does this through the use of a Docker container that can run on just about any compatible Linux based device.

Once installed and logged into your Wyze account, any compatible camera on the same network as the computer hosting the container will be available. Your security NVR will connect to the stream on the container which will in turn bridge the video from the camera. Since this process mostly passes a relatively low bandwidth video stream it’s not very resource intensive and even a Raspberry Pi can get the job done.

As of the time of this writing it’s compatible with most Wyze cameras with the exception of their new “OG” cameras and their Video Doorbell Pro. It’s likely Wyze is disabling whatever loophole existed in their older hardware to prevent this circumvention around their subscription services on newer devices. You can learn more about their push to subscriptions in my recent video on the topic.

In my Docker how to video we connected my cameras to Synology’s Surveillance Station – a pretty robust NVR that’s included with most Synology NAS devices. I did a tutorial series a few years ago on it. But this should work with just about anything including some of the popular open source projects.

Docker is something I’ve been learning about over the last year or two and this is a great first project to play with if you’re interested in dipping your toes into containerizing applications. Synology has a great graphical Docker interface that helped me wrap my head around how it all works.

If you’d like to learn more about Docker I found this video from Networkchuck to be a great summation of its power and potential.

Wyze Cam Pan V3 Review

Our look at some of the new Wyze cams continues with a full review of their Wyze Cam Pan V3. This latest iteration of their pan and tilt camera is nicely improved over prior models but it loses a lot of the free functionality those had. See my full review here.

The biggest changes here have to do with its industrial design. The camera now has a wider range of motion (a full 180 degrees vertically) along with an improved image sensor that has great infrared night vision along with a low light color mode.

The camera’s motor, while still audible on recorded clips, is much quieter than before. It also has a neat privacy mode where the camera shuts down and also points itself at the base for added privacy.

Missing though are a lot of the free out of the box features of the prior versions. This model does not support RTSP nor will you get any cloud video storage without having to pay an additional fee. And it’s not compatible with their “name your price” subscription plan called Cam Plus Lite. We detailed most of these changes in my video from last week.

I also got in the new Wyze Cam OG and OG Telephoto. I unboxed both on the Extra’s channel the other day and provided a quick look at their image quality (spoiler, it’s not good). Both of those cameras have the same restrictions for non-subscribers so unfortunately a lot of the value proposition Wyze delivered with their new cameras is not going to continue.

Is the Wyze Free Ride Over?

Last week I got in the new batch of cameras that Wyze is rolling out, including their “OG” camera and the latest Pan Cam. One thing I noticed right out of the gate was that functionality that was once free on their old cameras now requires a subscription fee. I dig into that in my latest video.

The biggest change is that their new cameras will no longer get any free cloud storage. In the events feed you’ll only see a still image – not a video clip. In the past the cameras would store 12 seconds of video clips in the cloud each time a motion event triggered something. Additionally the older cameras also benefited from some of Wyze’s AI technology which could cut down on false alarms by only triggering when a person was detected for example.

Wyze went through some financial difficulties during the pandemic as their business relied upon hardware sales for solvency. When component supplies became constrained they couldn’t sell cameras and they had a hard time paying the bills for their cloud server overhead.

Their solution was to create a “name your price” subscription plan called “Cam Plus Lite” for their existing camera line. Customers could declare a price of 0 and continue using their cameras for free, but they did require everyone with an existing camera to sign up for the plan in an effort to reduce the load on their cloud services.

Wyze’s new cameras are not eligible for Cam Plus Lite. The only option is to subscribe to their “Cam Plus” subscription plan. Cam Plus currently costs $1.67 a month per camera but subscribers can also opt for the “unlimited” option that costs $99 a year and connect as many cameras as they’d like.

Competitively it’s fairly reasonable but I think many loyal Wyze customers will feel like the rug is being pulled when they buy a new camera and find it won’t work the way the prior ones did without coughing up a few more bucks on an ongoing basis.

Additionally Wyze has stopped development on their RTSP firmware that allowed their cameras to work with security NVRs like Synology’s Surveillance Station. While old cameras with the RTSP firmware installed will still work, the firmware is no longer available on Wyze’s website for download. There are no plans to offer it with the new cameras.

Stay tuned for reviews of the new Wyze cameras! I wanted to get this piece out first so people knew what to expect. In the meantime I have some first impression videos up on the Extra’s channel.

Wyze Cam Pan V3 Unboxing & First Impressions

On my Extra’s Channel I unboxed the brand new Wyze Cam Pan V3 – a sizable upgrade over their prior edition pan & tilt security camera.

In the video we take it out of the box, set it up and get some initial first impressions under ideal lighting conditions. Over the weekend I’ll be testing more of its features and will have a more detailed review early next week.

Wyze is taking a harder stance against those who opt-out of its subscription services. You’ll find that the Cam Pan v3 offers far less functionality versus their prior cameras unless you cough up the monthly or annual subscription fee. More on that in my review. Stay tuned!

See more of my Wyze videos here.

New Extra’s Channel Video: Unboxing the Wyze Cam Floodlight

As many of you know I use a bunch of Wyze IOT stuff because it’s convenient, cheap, and can work without a subscription fee. I have a long dead motion detector floodlight on my garage and recently came across this Wyze floodlight that has a Wyze Cam Version 3 attached to it.

I haven’t hooked it up just yet (I am having an electrician friend do the work for me) but thought I would unbox it so people who are more handy can see what’s in the box for hardware. The TLDR is not much.

Watch the unboxing here! And see some of my prior Wyze reviews here.