All cameras only taking picture instead of recording video during events

My dad has 10 different wyze cameras in various locations. Two days ago instead of recording videos it would only take a picture during motion and sound events. I’ve been trying to find a setting but haven’t been able to figure it out. I just got my wyze cameras recently so I don’t have too much experience.

Any tips?
Thanks!

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Found a fix.
He had to go into Account > Services >Slide the top bar to Cam Plus Lite > Enrolled all his cameras

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He needs to sign up for cam plus lite (there is a no charge option). An email went out earlier this year that if you wanted to keep cloud video recording you needed to subscribe to cam plus lite, otherwise, cloud recorded events would be thumbnail only.

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Yeah this is bs… they could put the link to the pic to allow play back. I have an SD card. They ripped out the playback function. They changed the app UI to make it difficult. F that !!! We didn’t cause this issue they did. I’m sympathetic. However !!! Making the app less functional isn’t the right way to handle this. I’m not sorry I bought this to not to have a subscription plan. So stop shoving it down my throat. If you don’t understand what I’m saying is they took out the play back from the Time stamp of the alert pic you get. I don’t need my alerts to play from their servers when I have sd cards on all my cams. Waste !

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If you were accustomed to clicking Events on the bottom, you were never ever seeing SD card recordings. Those were cloud event recordings. That’s what’s gone away unless you enroll in CamPlus Lite at $0 or higher. Your SD recordings are elsewhere. Always were.

It’s a very common misunderstanding.

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There is no misunderstanding. My cams have playback function from my SD cards ! I use it everyday. What they are doing is removing local play back function from the alert. This is my beef and pushing a sub plan! Yeah this is bs… they could put the link to the pic to allow play back. I have an SD card. They ripped out the playback function. They changed the app UI to make it difficult. F that !!! We didn’t cause this issue they did. I’m sympathetic. However !!! Making the app less functional isn’t the right way to handle this. I’m not sorry I bought this to not to have a subscription plan. So stop shoving it down my throat. If you don’t understand what I’m saying is they took out the play back from the Time stamp of the alert pic you get. I don’t need my alerts to play from their servers when I have sd cards on all my cams. Waste ! They did not disclose when I purchased they would cripple the app in favor of a subscription plan. I want a refund for all my cams!! Shady as heck! I would have went with ring or nest if I wanted a sub plan. Here an idea stick to a what made you successful, not trying to create 50 other nonsense items that waste money. Business 101.

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They did not remove the ‘local playback function’ unless that button is missing from the bottom bar when you open the thumbnail. Can you post a screenshot?

As Customer stated, when you click on an Event in the Events tab, whether it was a 12s clip or a full length clip, what it was showing you was the clip that the camera captured and sent to the cloud for 14 day storage. ALL video in the events tab IS cloud streamed video. Your SD video is still accessible.

Your SD card video is accessed from the VIEW PLAYBACK bar at the bottom of one of these Events. Or alternatively, by pressing the playback button that looks like an SD card at the bottom of the Live View screen when you open the cam from the home screen.

Now, with the introduction of the new Thumbnail base version (no AI) I am not sure if there is a view playback bar at the bottom. I will have to test that. If someone has a screenshot of the thumbnail event tab please post. If the view playback bar IS missing, this is something Wyze will need to address. You should be able to open your alert notification to the thumbnail or from the events and press playback. I agree.

As for CamPlusLite, you can get your 12s clips Plus Person Detection at no cost if you are willing to jump thru some hoops. Yeah, PIA. I know. But it is a solution rather than a rant. There are many people here who will help you work thru this if you ask.

Wyze is in huge transition right now and it is showing. Thousands of posts. Much growth, much pain. But, it will get better. I am nugging my way thru the changes and updates.

You might check these out. Some of them will help with the CamPlusLite.

My post:

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Sorry… I had it backwards in my last post. View Playback bar is in Live View, Playback SD card button is in Event Clip view. OOPS!

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Ok, so I just pulled my Garage Cam OFF of CamPlus so it has no subscription at all.

I triggered the cam by walking in front of it and did get a notification. When I opened the notification it took me directly to the thumbnail. At the bottom, the playback button is still there. If it is not there, update your app to the most recent release.

When I clicked playback, it DID take me to the exact time on the SD card so I could watch the video playback of the event.

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I’m bookmarking this so I can reference this to others who are confused.

Thanks. You can find 100 others out there explaining the same thing.

Having so many people on the forums with the same issues proves 1 thing.

Proper Prior Planning & Preparation Prevents Poor Performance

Wyze rolled this thing out thru a meat grinder. What a mess.

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Just had another exchange with another poster with the same issue ranting about the Wyze conspiracy to take away the SD Playback unless you pay.

The playback button just wasn’t there in the opened event thumbnail and the SD was ON and Continuous. But wouldn’t upload screenshots. I don’t doubt them or any of the others. There are too many posts reporting the missing playback button.

Both had WCO’s. @Mavens and @Mods, I’m tagging just to see if this could be a problem that might only affect WCO’s? The disappearing playback button. Or if a solution has been uncovered elsewhere.

Thanx for all you do!

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Yeah, I think it would have been better for all existing accounts that viewed a clip from the cloud in the past 60 days would be automatically converted to lite with the option to opt-out, and new accounts have to opt-in. Or something like that. It amazes me that this that announced 3 months ago and they set emails and notifications in the app and people seem that they never got them.

In regards to WCO I don’t think it was ever designed to have the SD card footage viewable to the app.

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That’s a little confusing ATM.

Forgetting the WCO, the SD playback buttons are not supposed to be affected. But as you say, there are several possible complaints. Is that a bug, or because so many people are logging on about the change? I can’t tell. Right now there is a bug that won’t let me turn off Cam Plus Lite to test this on non-WCO cameras.

The SD card ‘Playback’ button IS there on my non-WCO Cam Plus and Cam Plus Lite cams I have. I just can’t simulate a non-WCO Cam Plus Lite without a 12-second clip, nor an account that isn’t in some way subscribed to Cam Plus Lite. Maybe tomorrow I will create a new account and try not signing up for Cam Plus Lite (with can be had for $0, so no ‘pay’ conspiracy…?)

As far as WCOs go, there never has been a Playback button on any of them, and probably never will be. Those are battery-powered cams, and Wyze isn’t going to create yet another flurry of complaints about ‘why did my battery die in less than a day?’ on those. You can still schedule a recording if you like though, so they left people a method.

As far as automatic sign-ups, I think they did that for anyone on the legacy person detection & Cam Plus. Maybe they could have done more here, but up front those were the people that obviously cared the most.

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I have non-WCO cams (v2, v3, CP2) with no subscriptions, Cam Plus Lite and Cam Plus. All variations have Playback buttons on the Event display (image and video versions) and pressing the Playback button takes me to the correct spot in the continuous SD recording.

There is one scenario where Playback does not work, i.e., it’s a known Android app bug. Attempting to view SD card Playback while viewing an Event from a Wyze notification results in “No micro SD card installed in camera” error. I submitted this issue as a Fix It Friday item with logs. Wyze replied that they are working the issue and hope to have it ready soon.

Spot on with your WCO comment. WCO has no continuous recording feature and therefore has no Playback button on Events or live stream to review SD footage.

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Ah, that explains some of the threads I’ve seen.

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I agree, I have been using micro sd 128gig. It now only registers 62 gig and my cams do not even recognize that they are there. This sucks. I went from telling everyone about the cams to feeling like crap about my purchase. Why as a company would you change current camera. You should have cam out with totally separate camera system and left the old ones alone. Especially for those who care nothing about the cloud. I have my own cloud, in my own network. Also, I have been trying to call Wyze for 2 days. None of the recommends work. I guess i’ll take all cameras and boor bell back to home depot. NO customer support, no call backs, no reason to change camera proto calls, no working cameras, to many no’s. When is the company going to provide me with a yes

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I think that is the answer, I don’t have a WCO and never used one. I think that the change to the new platform pushed the WCO users from 12s CLOUD clips to Thumbnail CLOUD images on the Alerts tab and all along they have been under the incorrect assumption that those were stored on the SD.

No wonder there is no Playback option. It never existed.

Thank you @Newshound, @towelkingdom, @Rareapple3, and @Seapup (for tagging into the ring with the poster I referred to) for the valuable education.

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I don’t get that error because I can’t even push the playback button from a event video launched from a notification:

But, if I launch from Events…

And playback produces…

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Looks like it’s probably related. Which app version, cam type and subscription type?