An Open Letter to the Great Folks at Wyze

Watercooler
1

Not sure if this is suitable for this forum or another, but I couldn’t find a more suitable forum so here it is.

Dear Wyze -

I’ve been using your products now for a few years. Indoor & outdoor cams, video doorbell, spotlights, smart bulbs. As I watch the company grow, and grow its product offerings, I want to offer some (hopefully) helpful feedback on one area you really need to work on.

The reason I have swapped my Google Nest system out for a Wyze-Alexa-based home security system is that the Wyze-Alexa offers me the capabilities I want that Google Nest doesn’t, and after 5+ years of “we’re working on it”, I gave up on Google. Entirely.

I have Wyze cams in all rooms in my home, the exterior of the house (garage, front porch, back porch, backyard), front doorbell, and Wyze smart bulbs. Yes, I use an Android phone & tablet when I am away from home, which is nice for checking on the dog, and the security of the house. I can see that the house is fine & not on fire. And that the dog is fine in bed, not pulling the stuffings out of our new family room furniture! But when I am home, I am on my Windows 11 network and this is where I have built my home security system. And this is where your software, well, sucks. I want to have a very-wide monitor displaying ALL cameras simultaneously so that I can check the status of the property quickly at a glance. I can not. The individual displays should be scalable. They are not. No lag time on video. Little things like that. Wyze Live simply doesn’t cut the mustard. Wyze Live is a nice beta project, but its not ready for prime time. And to be honest, I haven’t seen any improvements in it for quite a while now. Why? And as a matter-of-fact, why is the Wyze app on my phone named WyzeBeta?

I realize that getting new hardware out the door is critically important to you, but so should your software platforms (plural). For those who are trying to build their own home or small business security system, Android (or Apple’s equivalent) on tiny phone screens simply don’t cut it. If the current Wyze Live is your finished product, I made a HUGE mistake.

You’re to be commended for getting great products at ultra-reasonable prices to market. Please follow-up with your Windows and MacOS software.

Many thanks for listening!

Ken

2

Presumably because you are using a beta version of the app (as am I), and not the production version.

3 Likes
3

As stated above, this is because you enrolled in the Beta program. You can unenroll from Beta and switch back to the public/production version of the Wyze app by opening Google Play, open the Wyze App page, scroll down to where it says “You’re a beta tester” and select “Leave” and you will go back to the normal public/production version of the app.

I believe it basically considered as a fully released product now, but it will likely receive some ongoing updates over time, which I suspect because I have seen several updates throughout this year, though I do not know of any dramatic or significant things being worked on right now. I would not necessarily expect anything significant to change, though it’s possible.

What most people do if they need more control or customizability on a desktop/laptop like you asked for is to either run a Tinycam server (ie: on an Android phone or in an Android emulator like Bluestacks) which will then let them stream to a browser in several different layout options. Another option is to run Docker Wyze Bridge, which will basically convert all the Wyze streams to RTSP or other formats and then you can set everything up any way you want, any size you want, any layout you want, even record camera streams, all locally.

Those are 2 pretty good options worth looking into if the default Wyze Webview isn’t cutting it for you.

I have used both Tiny Cam and Docker Wyze Bridge, so I know they both work pretty well for the kind of things you mentioned.

3 Likes
4

I use Tiny Cam Pro on a ChromeCast plugged into a wide screen TV for this. Have you considered using an Android Emulator running Tiny Cam?