After seeing so many complaints, my thoughts on Wyze

My 2 cents worth, Take it for what you will.
I have 6 wyze cams (3 V2’s and 3 V3’s) , 5 Wyze plugs and a Wyze thermostat, all spread out over 2 properties, 800 miles apart. I can’t say that I am disappointed in any of them. The V3’s are installed outdoors and are phenomenal. 2 of them worked without fail when we recently had temperatures down to-16 F, below their rated temperature range. In contrast, a $200 Ring cam failed at those temps, but eventually came back to life when things warmed up, More on Ring later.
One of the V2’s (since replaced with a V3, and repurposed elsewhere) was installed outdoors and worked without fail in the hot Arizona desert, where temperatures last summer where above 110 F often. Again, above their rated temperature range.
I bought Wyze cams after having bought a couple of $200 Ring cams. The Ring cams are great, the motion and person detection is far better than with Wyze, But, they were also 10X as much (at the time…Ring has lowered their prices by about half, but still double or more than Wyze). I liked the Wyze cams because of their price, and because they offered continuous recording (Ring does not) and local storage, which can be retrieved from anywhere ( again, Ring does not). And for about $20.
I never expected Wyze to be a “security” solution for my homes. Instead, I use them to supplement my security systems, with their own cameras, When combined with my Ring cams, they provide a robust security network. The Wyze cams (at all of $20 each, for crying out loud) fill in gaps, allow me to check on the weather, look over my surrounding property, and occasionally catch video of deer, bobcats, mountain lions, and way too many stray cats, traversing my back yards. I’ve never had a Wyze cam fail yet.
My Wyze plugs work like a charm, and are easy to set up. I use a couple of them to replace lamp timers since they are easier to program with rules, and can be controlled remotely. And they’re $10 each.
The Wyze thermostat works fine, and cost far less then other smart thermostats I was considering. I’ve had it installed in my house for a couple of months, and so far so good.
So, here’s the thing: I think it’s kind of crazy to rely on a $20 camera to be your primary security camera. As great as the Wyze cams are, I don’t think they’re up to the level of being a primary security device, yet people buy them for that, and then come here and whine and moan about their performance. Sorry, but that’ doesn’t make sense to me . Don’t be a cheapskate when it comes to your personal safety, and you won’t be disappointed. Or, if you are disappointed, you’ll at least have more of a reason to complain than when whining over a $20 device.
I won’t say that everything is perfect with Wyze. Two of my plugs have rules for turning lights on and off, but for some reason, when I disable the rules, the plugs still turn on and off with the rules. Odd, but I worked around it. Again, they’re $10 each, so I really couldn’t care less for a little inconvenience that I found an easy work-around for.
I also passed on the Wyze outdoor cam because it seems to be hopelessly complicated and the implementation seems to be rather idiotic. Maybe it’s just me, and as they say, your mileage may vary.
And for what it’s worth, when the pandemic started, and you couldn’t find a digital thermometer anywhere, I was pretty happy that Wyze was offering them, and not at a rip-off price. So I’m kind of happy they diversified a bit.
So, I am a Wyze fan who keeps expectations in check and with enough sense to not expect a $20 device to perform like a $200 device.
I know I’ll catch some flack from some here, and I don’t care. It’s just my opinion, and you can agree or disagree. Whatever.

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I don’t think you’ll get any flak at all. Glad your experience is mostly positive. Mine is as well, once I set my expectations accordingly. (SD cards useless, occasional outages, schedule nightly reboot, expect regular disruptions in streaming.)

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I’ve never experienced any of those issues.

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That should be the new Wyze marketing tag line - “Set your expectations really low and you’ll be happy with all our products.” :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

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I’m right with you as far as dont make this your only security option, but I think the problem lies elsewhere. I wish I could say I had a complaint with the physical build of their products. My complaint is with the app/ software. For me, a product should flawlessly nail 3 items- Does the product connect? Can you toggle the product on/off? Does the product schedule on/ off. After that its just bonus (two way audio, person detection, night vision etc)

My experiences mirror a majority of the posts on this forum that folks post requesting/complaints for help just getting the 3 basics. How many WCO cam posts did you see saying it wont connect? Thermostat behaves weird? Headphone connection issues? That all lies on the app/ software/ firmware.

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I am another one who is very happy with my wyze products. I have two v2’s, two v’3s and three outdoor cams. The only issue I have ever come across was the update that drain the batteries in the outdoor cams, but that was easily fixed. I just orderem more v’3s to replace my outdoor cams because I want continous recording. I do use them as a primary security at my home. It works flawlessly. I took me a bit of experimenting to get the detection sensitivity to work correctly. I like getting the notifications when the motion is triggered… These products, for me are fantastic.
My only complaint is I would like to view cameras on my PC

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You can view them on a chrome cast or you can download an android emulator on PC like blue stacks to see them. Bit of a pain but it works!

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How do you know that they’ve never failed? Unless you know exactly what is walking past them every second of every day you’ll never know if they failed.
I recently bought 2 outdoor cams. The front porch one catches cars driving by 40 feet away but not once in 2 weeks has it caught my husband walking out the front door 10 feet away, SMH!
It will catch him coming home but not leaving. So lame.

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This!!! I had a number of documented instances where either my V2 or CamPan failed to catch motion events that the other did. Unless you have multiple cameras covering the same area there is no way you can say they’re not failing.

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By going back through the saved video on the SD card. No gaps.

Wait, you have hardware that doesn’t constantly dismount and/or erase your SD cards? I’d only ever heard rumors of those, but I couldn’t believe them based on my experience with 2 v3s. Now I have to wonder if they do exist, or if the QC just isn’t emphasized on a feature that reduces the need for a subscription service.

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Or unless you know exactly what activity is going on, like my husband walking out the front door, MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY.

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I guess you haven’t seen this post:

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@ThepQZ I’m not sure what you mean, but simply put, it records in a continuous loop, The dashcam in my car does the same thing. I don’t know the details of how it works, but that’s what it does.

Problem is, SD recording is unreliable on the cameras or at least playback is. There are multiple posts on the forum about playback issues…no video at selected time, missing segments. Most of those who have problems indicate that you can usually remove the SD card from the camera and view the video on a computer but many have cameras mounted high on outside wall making retrieval difficult and not really feasible.

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I’ve not seen that problem with my cameras, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist for some. I agree that physically removing the cards to view stored video can be a bit problematic for some.

I have not had an issue at all with the playback

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Consider yourself fortunate. I haven’t been able to get decent playback from the SD card for a couple of months. When I try to play any recordings from SD cards the stream is only about 1 frame per second and very choppy. Makes no difference which camera I choose, all have issues.

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Every time I come across these threads, my first thought is just surprise at the number of complaints. I’ve had none of these issues persist. The only problem I’ve really had is with the sensors.

WIldBIll. Maybe it has something to do with the type of SD card you have . There are two kinds SDHC and SDXC. I remember reading in a thread here a few months ago that the cameras work better with SDHC than with the other. I tried to find that thread and cannot. It explained the technicality of it all…

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