Actually getting the Wyze Cam Outdoor to work offline?

Has anyone had success getting the base station and/or Outdoor cam to work not connected to the internet? It seems you have two options. Normal and Travel Mode. Travel Mode turns it into an access point, which is worthless if you want to connect it to an existing network. But Normal requires the internet for some reason. I got them working connected to the internet, but as soon as I pull that cable connecting to the cable modem they stop responding to anything on the network with them. I’m guessing all our data is being uploaded to AWS and then siphoned off to who knows where and there’s no way to directly connect to them without turning them into their own access points? When I saw these things could be used offline I expected to be able to unplug my internet and for them to still function. Am I missing something? Definitely not comfortable sending all my video to AWS servers I have no visibility into.

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I tried yesterday to see if I could get the WCO to record anything while in travel mode, and not connected to my phone. My initial results indicate it won’t.

My method:

  • Connected WCO to base station while connected to internet.
  • Set up travel mode & connected to my phone successfully
  • Disconnected the base station from internet
  • Disconnected my phone from the camera

After disconnecting the phone from my camera, the WCO said something to the effect of Exiting Travel Mode.
I kept the internet disconnected from the base station & waited about 10 minutes to see if the WCO would record events during that period, as a standalone unit.

It recorded nothing. So I’m guessing travel mode must be used while connected to a phone? I don’t see a use-case for that, and I understand your question completely :+1:

I’ve read elsewhere in these forums that somebody wanted to use these cameras as a remote owl nest observer, and one reply indicated that would work fine.
But I don’t see how it would work with current limitations I’ve observed.

Update:
I’ve discovered that travel mode is capable of recording video while phone is not connected, however it only records continuously for a scheduled amount of time.
Obviously that drains battery quickly. I’ve currently set it to record 15 days straight to see how long the battery lasts in that mode. 15 days is about the maximum the 32gb memory card will take.

My hope is that Wyze creates event recording in travel mode, so it only records based on triggers.
Please, Wyze, please! :blush:

Update 2:
The battery dropped from 93% to 72% in a matter of hours after setting it to record continuously in travel mode. I think it will not last more than a few days in that mode.

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If i connect to travel mode before i leave house, will it still record if for some reason my base station loses power, ie, power outage…?