A letter from the founders, what to expect in 2023

Wyze News
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FYI, for anyone interested in HomeKit, some people use a “Bridge” to have Homekit access with their Wyze devices.

For example, people use the Docker Wyze Bridge and then use scrypted to get it to work.

Others use the homebridge-wyze-connected-home-op, though I don’t think that one supports cameras.

I saw a third option recently somewhere that someone used to get all their Wyze cams on HomeKit. I didn’t pay it too much attention since I mostly use Android, but if that is something you are really craving, there are some options out there that some people have leveraged to get Wyze on HomeKit.

Wyze is also working toward having products use Matter, which will then allow them to use HomeKit that way, though Matter hasn’t yet created their Camera libraries yet, so that’s likely to be a bit in the future considering how long it took to develop the libraries for the other easier devices, but I expect that we’ll see HomeKit officially getting addressed in Wyze’s future. For now, there are some options people use in the meantime.

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Unfortunately these work arounds only function as long a wyze doesn’t block them in some way, which they have a history of doing.

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From what Wyze has said on the subject, they rarely to never intentionally block a 3rd party solution unless there is an extreme situation causing major security compromise or functionality compromise.

I wouldn’t say they have a history of doing anything intentionally, quite the opposite. The only situation I know of them officially/actively intervening in was the excessive sensor polling in Home Assistant where us Home Assistant users (myself included) were accounting for over 50% of their server use. It was unsustainable and affecting the rest of their users, etc, and so they instituted a rate limit. Which, I was super disappointed in because I loved that integration, but honestly it was reasonable considering the impact to their being able to function. In October I was actually talking in person with one of the Wyze employees who was involved in the Home Assistant event, and I won’t get into the specifics, but the general idea is that he was explaining to me that HE personally used it himself too, and he loves it, and he hated how bad it was killing Wyze’s servers because he wanted to keep using it, but that it just wasn’t something they could support, as painful as it was. I was pretty impressed with how he told me they tried to compromise to keep allowing the integration as much as possible without destroying their server needs. It was VERY FAR from them going out of their way to permanently “block” it. I don’t believe there has been any malice or negative intent.

Personally, I still wish they would’ve handled it differently and helped fix the integration so it wouldn’t have to “Poll” the data anymore and could instead just get it pushed instead…but I can hardly fault Wyze for objecting to an unsustainable excessive 3rd party polling issue…and in fact I had a lot of respect for them purposely NOT closing off the 3rd party unofficial APIs.

There have been some others that have needed updates occasionally such as the Wyze Hacks add-on, but I don’t believe that is an active or intentional thing.

Wyze’s stance on 3rd parties has basically always been to allow them as long as they don’t try to compromise security or functionality, but that they will not officially guarantee or help with them or make decisions to accommodate them. Wyze does do updates, and it’s definitely possible some updates may inadvertently cause breakage from time to time, though typically those are easy to fix and adjust to. I don’t believe they’ve ever actively tried to STOP any, and in some cases they’ve even HIRED the people who reverse-engineered an API to their stuff. Case in point when they hired one of the earliest and most popular of them: the Tiny Cam Pro creator Alexey V as a senior software engineer, and even let him continue his Tiny Cam Pro business supporting Wyze products while he is simultaneously working for Wyze for almost 2 and a half years now. It remains one of the first and best 3rd party API’s anyone has made, and Wyze has never tried to break it, even though some updates have caused “breakage,” the dev has always fixed/updated it within a few days to run as normal again. That’s pretty much par for the course on how all unofficial integrations work.

Wyze doesn’t “block” 3rd party options on purpose, but yes, changes in the API could stop a solution from working if nobody is keeping up on a project.

Most of those 3rd party options I listed above have people actively working on them though, so I doubt that will be an issue here, at least not in the long term. I also think the days of concern about potential breakage with 3rd party integration are going to be rare in the future as Wyze releases their Matter integration. Until then, lots of 3rd party solutions have been really reliable, and I have talked with several employees who love them and use them. I love them and use them too. And I agree, I really want a more permanent solution and I am optimistic that the Matter initiative will go a long way to helping with this. I certainly continue to advocate for more permanent stable solutions and am very supportive of that. I just like to give options to people who are looking for them. :+1:

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The Tl;Dr here seems to be “wyze isn’t well thought out enough or secure enough to sustain integrations”

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As far as MATTER, I’ll believe it when I see it. If their track record on completing projects (making it out of beta) says anything, it will be years. Speaking of making it out of beta, RTSP users have concerns…

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Microphone microphone microphone. Please? Soon!

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Yes…Magic Microphone.

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Be wise. Don’t buy Wyze!

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Hmmm. Is that a good idea, really? If everyone moves to a 5ghz mesh (probably required to cover camera/automation distances), haven’t we just moved the problem from one band to another? Could it end up making it worse? I’m no radio engineer, so I really don’t know.
And where does that leave the computers/phones/etc that need to be on 5ghz?

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Hiya @peepeep , long time no see.
Well, that gave me a good laugh watching that video.

I think it’s fair to say that they’ve come a long way since then :smile:

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Mike! :wave: :frog:

Wyze rocking ‘the terrible twos.’ It is now a phD candidate in Home Security. :man_teacher:

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From what Wyze has said on the subject… :hourglass_flowing_sand: …I just like to give options to people who are looking for them.

Sure, get all substantive on us, like that matters. :wink:

Though the more cynical among us might cry ‘anecdotal!’ or ‘flack-ish!’ :wink: :wink:

Still, data is data, it’s all good!

image

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To me, the TL;DR of my statement is:

Wyze is working toward Matter, but allows 3rd parties to maintain their own integrations as long as they don’t cause security or performance issues.

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By then (who knows), Wyze and the networks should be perfectly capable of balancing across a dual band network. But for simplicity, allow the user to choose the balance - I already do that with devices that can handle both (e.g. 2.4 gets thru walls better, but 5 is faster). I suspect 90% of devices out there require 2.4 still.

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Then people just shouldn’t invest while the focus is churning out mounds of gizmos instead of creating a robust infrastructure

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Absolutely a good idea. Ideally, you want both 2.4ghz/5ghz compatibility. Unfortunately, 2.4ghz for many cameras is a crowded space. It’s really meant for low consumption IoT devices at this point. Certainly, it’s not meant to handle 10 cameras all uploading video events constantly. It’s not that it can’t be done but unless you have enterprise grade hardware, you’re probably going to suffer. I have enterprise grade hardware and believe me, I am seeing the channel utilization go nuts at certain points. And, I have several APs with hard backhauls. It’s just not sustainable. The future is more APs at short distances which may ease the shorter haul of 5ghz.

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Yes! Please, consider dash cams!

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So, the problems, as I see them, are that you are attempting an unsustainable model, introducing a large variety of products, some of which are just shiny gizmos, over a short period of time while several of the existing products are not functioning properly. At the same time, they attempt to increase mass marketing by selling them in big-box stores and warehouses.
This ‘Ponzi’ thinking is a loser; you cannot keep selling more products at cheaper prices to cover the cost of maintaining prior products. These are not some little kitchen gizmo, like a can opener, that can exist without support and further development. These are high tech items that need to have (and keep) a dedicated product manager who has a dedicated development and support team. The devs can’t be moved to the next shiny object because the company ‘needs’ to sell more shiny objects. It doesn’t work as all you end up with is having half-assed finished products in various states of disarray. The cheap churn model also means you have to resort to the cheapest offshore tech support possible. People who don’t know anything more than the script in front of them on the screen and who have little or no power to do anything beyond that script.
This is a company with a good set of core products but with issues that need to be addressed. Basic items such as Wifi radios, server communication issues remain unaddressed while they worry about whether string lights changing color or other shiny objects not related to their core business. The reaction time to resolve issues is abysmally slow. There are no excuses like “we’re doing more and are having volume issues”. Stop with the new crap, take a breath, and design fixes accordingly. If AWS or Azure, Google, whoever, can’t handle your volume (not likely), do something different.
A year and a half ago, I said the bug reports/wish list/roadmaps were an unmanageable bowl of spaghetti. Hey, they changed it now. This was a blatantly obvious issue; I’d have been pissed if it took more than 90 days to resolve it. The plug/bulb/switch issues, some still unresolved after more than a year. Nope, not good and not acceptable.
Refocus and stop being the crow that doesn’t eat because it’s drawn to the piece of metal it sees off to the side.

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The customer service in the Philippines is a joke! I know what they are doing. They give you a scripted response on have you tried this, have you tried that? A complete joke! I will never recommend a Wyze product again.

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I agree, having a choice is the best solution. It’s going to be a while before that crowded space is relieved since many aren’t going to upgrade hardware.

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