I need suggestions from Wyze on optimal 2.4Ghz WiFi settings for Wyze Cams. I have about 15: v2, v3, v4, Pan v2, Pan v3, Floodlight v1. Initially I thought it was a signal strength issue, but sinced ruled out. I am in a crowded 2.4Ghz location, so it could be a technical limitation. I just need to know optimal settings Wyze suggests.
I have 26 cameras. The answer is to get Mesh WiFi. 1-node may cover it… I would suggest 2.
Modern Mesh WiFi has the processing power and design to handle the cameras properly. I use Ubiquiti S7 Pro’s.
I would not recommend them if you aren’t technical.
With heavily congested 2.4ghz it can get very complex. Having more of your own APs/Nodes like a mesh system can help somewhat drown out other signals, but it also adds to the overall congestion too.
I would lock yours to 20mhz (not 20/40 or 40). Routers/APs with more “streams” can help, many have 2 stream on 2.4 but getting a 3 or 4 (even though the cams are only single stream) gives them more signal paths to connect to. Wifi 6 and 7 have also improved 2.4ghz to a certain extent, but with Wifi 4 and 5 devices (which the Wyze cams are) it is not a huge difference, it helps a bit with the older devices, but to fully take advantage you need devices that also use 6 and 7. But every little bit can help.
You just have to be careful to not end up going overboard and have lots of overlapping signals. Sometimes the best solution is to have a few nodes but to set them all to the lowest power level, and lock each device to a specific node. Ensure they’re a good distance apart (3 in the same room will be counter productive, even 1 room apart is too close).
Channel selection can make a big difference too but if you don’t have a device (like a Ubiquiti AP) to analyze each channel, it becomes trial and error. Obviously if you have 2 or 3 nodes, you want each on a different channel. 1, 6, and 11 used to be the de-facto standard but these days those are sometimes the worst ones. Just using an analyzer on your phone or PC (like InSSIDer) only tells you part of the story, how many networks are using that channel. A better analyzer can tell you how much bandwidth is available, and that’s the important part.
Sometimes a single good quality router can make a huge difference, especially if you’re using an ISP supplied router or a low end one. I run Ubiquiti but I’ve run Asus routers in the past and set them up for other people and was always happy with their performance. Their Pro models have lots of features to segment your network, support VLANs, etc, but even the standard models can be set up with multiple guest networks for isolation. Ubiquiti will probably give you some of the best performance and configurability, but they can be pretty daunting to set up if you’re not fairly familiar with the technology.
Yea, So I have 2 Deco XE75’s (mesh), 1 in basement & 1 on second floor with ethernet backhaul in AP mode. TP Link only just offered beta firmware to select 20Mhz Channel Width on 2.4Ghz. Adding a 3rd XE75 Pro on ground floor didn’t help. Switching back to my old Linksys R7800 with OpenWRT made little improvement. Upgrading to TPLink BE95 did not help, nor Archer BE900. My Firewalla Gold serves as my firewall/router, with all wireless Routers used in AP-Mode. To analyze signals, I’ve used Samsung’s built-in “Connectivity Labs,” as well as WifiMan, Wi-Fi Navi (TP Link Android app) & a handful of others.
At this point, I just want to hear from Wyze what THEY recommend in terms of Wifi settings and work my way from there. All there cameras provide Zero access to system logs that ship to Wyze, so my options to diagnose are limited. I live in a Town house, so I suspect too many neighboring 2.4Ghz signals that lead to co-channel interference and adjacent channel issues. Not to mention my own IoT network of 43 Zigbee devices, 6 BT Proxies & mini Matter over Thread network.
Next option is to trash my subscription and pony up to big-boy POE cameras like Reolink or Ubiquiti (though Ubiquiti will be a pretty penny). So, want to here from Wyze what they believe is ideal settings/ requirements for Wifi (WPA2, WPA3, 40Mhz, 20Mhz, turn on/off MIMO, etc. I understand their Devices are not Wifi 6E, 7 etc, but just want to here it from the horses mouth and wish they had a comprehensive guide and troubleshooting section addressing this on their website. @carverofchoice Do you know if there might be a particular Wyze employee that could chime in?
I don’t think wyze has any recommendations for wifi settings, and if they did, I’m not sure they’d be the ideal ones, as they can’t cover every situation and environment.
TP Link makes good basic stuff for average users. In your environment, you may want to step up to something more substantial. It sounds like you’re fairly familiar with this stuff, I’d highly recommend trying the Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway line along with the U7 access points (even the U7 lite is really good). They only have 2 stream 2.4ghz but have proven to work quite well, better than the 3 stream I had before. The Cloud Gateway Ultra is a good value but doesn’t support their cameras, the other two do. I didn’t need cameras or an SSD so that’s the one I got, very happy with it. But honestly their cameras are a bit overpriced. I guess the integration is nice though but I haven’t tried them. Microcenter had a bundle with UCG Ultra and U7 Lite for $180 but Ubiquiti recently added memory surcharges on and it is up to like $220 now. Still decent. Pair that with one of their Flex Mini switches (I like the 2.5G one for $50) and a cheap $8 power injector (the 15W passive one) for each AP, and you’re golden. They do have a PoE switch too but I only have one AP so $8 extra was better than $50 extra.
As far as tweaking what you have now, unless you’ve got all new cameras that support WPA3 (I think the v4 and later do, they have to advertise Wifi 5 support to support WPA3), disable it completely on the SSID the cams use. WPA2 only, not WPA2/3. 20Mhz is definitely the way to go, disable 40. MIMO you need to try both, but since these cams won’t benefit from it, I’d just shut it off. I’d also disable beamforming (which you probably need to disable their smart connect feature to do and just configure the two bands yourself, you can still use the same SSID). Smart connect also has other disadvantages like trying to force devices to roam, band steer, etc. All stuff you don’t want for these cams.
Putting the cams on a dedicated guest/IOT network is also a good way to go. Lock each cam to the closest access point.
Wifi 4 and up handles co-channel very well, but that can’t overcome running out of bandwidth on the channel. That’s where some channel monitoring can come in handy. One of the high end ubiquiti access points has a dedicated radio to scan channels and adjust as needed, but that’s a bit overkill.