Anyone tried other camera brands to compare detection zone accuracy? For some reason Wyze programmers can’t get it right and I get nonstop alerts for movement clearly outside the detection zone. It happens in all 10 of my Wyze cameras. I select my driveway and not the street, and any car that drives by, well outside the zone, triggers it. It should be easy to compare pixel movements inside a zone only. Complete incompetence. I’ve just started to leave 1 star reviews for all Wyze cameras everywhere now, until Wyze gets this fixed. It’s been years of this.
I’ve tried several. I have cameras from at least 6 companies, and have played with some others that I don’t currently own. All have their pros and cons, and different ways of doing motion or AI detections can certainly help or be better for different people in different use-cases.
Most Wyze cams use Pixel change for movement detection (as do most camera brands), so they can be affected by light or shadows too (including clouds, trees/plants, etc), as well as many other things all combined for enough pixels. Sometimes AI detections can help with this, and some brands include that free.
Wyze also seems to sometimes use a soft detection zone rather than a completely hard line, at least for AI detections (not completely sure about for other motion detections for the initial trigger though). By this I mean that sometimes they will analyze any connected motion within a sort of “Object bounding box” (like an invisible square surrounding the moving pixels that goes slightly beyond what we see) and sometimes that seems to overlap the detection zones even if the object itself never seems to. This leads to some frustration like this.
I don’t expect that Wyze will be changing the way their motion detection works on any existing cameras though. It’s possible they might do things differently on future models, but we’re likely to have existing cameras continue to work in the way they currently do for this feature. So if you are willing post an example video of obvious false detection outside the detection zone and a sample screenshot of the detection zone grid along with your sensitivity settings, some of us very experienced with this kind of thing might be able to give some suggestions that could help improve your experience. Though it’s totally okay to decline. 
As for other brands, there are some that do what’s called a “tripwire” where the only thing that triggers motion is when motion starts above the line and crosses in a certain direction to the other side of the line. Everything else is ignored. This “Tripwire” feature seems to be effective for some people’s needs. I believe my TP-Link Tapo camera uses that…BUT beware that TP-Link is currently facing a potential Ban in the USA because they keep getting hacked by China, especially their routers, but also their other smart home devices keep getting turned into part of a Chinese hacker bot network (primarily for DDOS attacks). There are some other brands that use strict exact pixel zones, but some people complain about how they work sometimes, such as if a person’s lower body is in the zone but the top half isn’t, so it doesn’t alert to it or detect a person (this is why Wyze sometimes allows flexibility for object bounding box overlap exceptions). There are downsides like that with strict zones, and even those usually suffer from the same light, shadows, clouds, and plants triggering things a lot too.
Honestly, after trying 6+ brands, I can’t say that any of them are perfect for everyone, but some are better for individuals’ preferences and use cases. The best way to know is to buy one when they’re on huge sales during Holidays, Prime Day, or Black Friday. Maybe setup a slickdeals.net alert for a certain brand you want to try out and get an alert when the community agrees it’s a hot deal. Then see if you like it or it fits your needs and preferences and then potentially buy more if it better suits your situation.
I found some good ways to get my 50 Wyze cameras to work pretty well for me, so if you do end up sharing some examples, I’ll be happy to look it over and see if I have anything worth suggesting. No worries either way though. But I am fairly confident they aren’t likely to make huge changes to the motion detection on existing camera models since everytime in the past they have made small changes, lots of people complain about it not working the same way it did when they bought it, so it’s safer for them to mostly leave it alone in general for the existing cams. Sad, but true.
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Let me share my Wyze setup and you can see if this will work for you or not work for you. I don’t use Detection Zones and I have Notifications set so I only get notified if a Person is detected.
I don’t care if a car turns around in my driveway or drives by my street. Yes, all Motion gets recorded to the Cloud but I only get an alert if a person is detected.
I have used an older ReoLink NVR system at my previous employer, but I only use Wyze Cam v3 cameras at my home for the past 3 years.
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Ok. Here one of my many videos of this. I just shot another one. This is my 1 month old floodlight cam v2.
(2nd part of video) Notice how I walk through the camera view over and over with only smart alerts on and no matter what setting I choose, it doesn’t generate any event which can be seen when I refresh the alerts below, it shows it has never detected a person. It is the same for vehicles and pets, never a smart alert. I pay for CamPlus subscription here too. I have videos of cars pulling into the driveway and no notification. Yes firmware and app are latest versions.
(First part of video) But if I turn the camera to alert for all motion it detects me as a motion event and not a person. But NOTICE IN THIS EVENT that it detected me when I was outside the detection zone. Notice the location of the detection zone, and where my detection zones are, and I’m outside the detection zone. For some reason on all 10 of my Wyze cams, it alerts for detection outside the zones. Complete failure by Wyze. It should be a simple algorithm to check for changing pixels in a range and not when outside the detection range. Strict detection zones should be an option. What is wrong with this camera and what is wrong with Wyze? I want to give Wyze a chance but they need to fix basic stuff.
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See my other reply with the video. My one month old camera doesn’t show smart detentions at all. If I turn on smart detections and not all motion events, I get no events at all for person or car or pets.
I don’t have any of the floodlights however I believe what you’re showing is the PIR zone, and I believe you have the option of using either PIR or the camera for motion detection. Perhaps trying the camera’s motion detection instead of PIR might yield different results?
Having just replaced several of my outdoor lights (not smart, just regular Home Depot brand ones) I’m reminded that PIR is a PITA. Accuracy and range fluctuates constantly.
Reolink has good (but not perfect) AI detection built in to cameras, I use the 4k series of a mix of POE, and WiFi
Reolink’s definitely use tons less data than Wyze being the camera is the host. Also quicker notifications too.
No Subscription with all the features enabled, unlike Whyze😜
2 Year warranty and if you register it they give you 6 more months.
Those whom think they cost too much, well you can pay more and have the features. Or pay subscription like Wyze and pay over time…LoL - Along with added frustration and lack of security 
I have some Amcrest cameras. They have both traditional and tripwire methodology, but also a choice to use either for person or vehicle. I’ve set a couple to ID people crossing the tripwire and it works well. All this is done on the cameras, no subscription. They take SD cards and record locally and can send email notifications with snapshots attached. I also record to an Amcrest NVR. They also don’t seem to trigger for other movment, unless you set them up to do so.
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The PIR selection is just near or far which is the solid blue green graph. The detection zone is for the camera and only the camera. PIR doesn’t have a zone really, just sensitivity to allow only near or far motion movement detection.
The nice thing about PIR is it isn’t affected by shadows and headlights. And being able to combine PIR with visual motion detection would be best which this camera is supposed to do. I have along video where I change every combination of settings in the app, with PIR with and without visual pixel detection and same results for all. Smart detection worked for like 2 days and then stopped, and detection range for all my wise cams are so far off. Wyze support is useless too. All they say is do you have the latest firmware and latest app?
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Will you go to the Account Tab, then services, and either post a screenshot or tell me everything that shows up on that screen?
I know Wyze is doing some testing and I am curious if your camera might be involved somehow. I had one doing something and I’m curious if your situation could be related to that.
My home office camera suddenly stopped doing AI detections recently just like this.
One issue I can see in your video is that you have it set to smart detections but it seems to still be showing motion events. If you want that to stop, go to settings - Event recording - switch from smart detection events to all events, then go to customize detections and at least uncheck other motion notifications, then go back and switch to smart detection events and hopefully that is fixed. You could also try toggling on the setting to “Filter by PIR sensor” to see if that helps.
Have you tried reducing the sensitivity a little? (for the camera or the PIR?)
BTW, it should be noted that the green motion tag and the actual motion detection sensitivity are separately programmed. It’s my understanding that the green motion tag is a static setting and more of a helpful reference than telling what is for sure causing an event. The green motion tag also doesn’t always respect the detection zone (it does on some models, but doesn’t on others). It is mostly useful as a general reference than an exact one. I find it mostly helpful in identifying what an object’s “Bounding Box” border is likely to be.
There are a few times where it appears the overall object bounding box may have slightly overlapped into the detection zone
But I agree, there does appear to be a significant bug in that the GUI is not showing that a person was detected even though the notifications ARE showing a person was detected. There is something odd going on. Do person detections show up in the Events tab? How long have AI detections not been showing up below the live view area?
If this were happening to me, I would first try the following:
Expand this for instructions to clear Cache/Memory-Leak Variables:
- CLEAR THE APP CACHE:
- At a minimum, in the app go to the Account Tab
➜ Select App Settings
➜ Go down to where it says Cache File Size
➜ select Clear on the right side. - If using Android, Go back to your phone’s home screen and Long-press on the Wyze app’s launcher icon (or wherever you tap to initially open the app)
➜ Select App info in the pop-up menu.
➜ Select Storage and Cache
➜ Tap Clear cache (and consider tapping on Clear storage too) on the Storage screen.
➜ Just to be thorough, tap Force stop on the App info screen (may need to tap OK to confirm).
- At a minimum, in the app go to the Account Tab
- Restart your phone.
- Restart your router (and modem)
- Restart the Wyze device (unplug the power cord and plug it back in)
- Now try it again with everything pulling fresh and no potential memory leaks, etc.
Also, make sure you aren’t using a long 3rd-party USB cord or adapter as those are known to cause intermittent issues due to weak power received during times when the camera needs to draw more power.
Next, Go to settings and at the bottom, consider clicking “Reset” on the “Reset Services” button. This will force the camera to make fresh connection to Cam Plus and the server. You will need to go back through your detection and notification settings for the camera. Then “Restart Camera” button just above the reset button.
If you’re still experiencing some of this weirdness it may be something we should pass on to a dev.
Can anyone else with a Floodlight V2 replicate and confirm seeing anything similar? If nobody else speaks up or confirms this soon, I can go dig out my FL v2. I have one that I saved just in case I need to help replicate something for someone, so I’ll pull it out if needed to try to see if I can confirm similar issues.
I do agree that things aren’t working the way they should for you, especially if you are getting events for passing cars on the right side. Your detection zone is sufficient that those shouldn’t be an issue. I think there may be a bug involved that a dev should look into. It would be best if we can confirm that it isn’t an edge case though.
When I go to the account tab and then services it just shows my cam plus and cam by plus lite subscriptions and which cameras they are assigned to. I will post photos though.
This non AI / smart detections has been several days now, like 5 days. I’ve tried resetting services and rebooting camera.
Maybe it wasn’t clear in my video but I am not getting all motion events when just smart detection is selected. But I am not get person events then too. I do get the motion of the person when all motion events are selected but it doesn’t detect a person.
And, you say the motion detection block might be just touching the detection zone But again, no pixels close to the detection zone are changing. A 7th grade computer programmer could write the code to detect pixel changes, inside or outside a range. I don’t know how wise can be even worse IT than that. It is really bad. The whole point of a detection zone is to avoid triggering events in areas you don’t want them.
Interesting to note that yesterday I had to reset services on my cameras and none of them lost any detection or notification settings 
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There is certainly something not working as normally intended. I don’t have any of those issues on any of my 50 Wyze cams, with 1 exception…I did have 1 camera (a different model) suddenly stop doing AI detections around the same time as you. I got it back to working as normal again though by clearing the cache, resetting the service, restarting the camera, etc. That is why I suggested the same since it appeared yours was having a similar glitch and that’s what fixed mine. If you tried that and it didn’t do anything, there is certainly something wrong as yours doesn’t appear to be functioning the way I am used to that model or the others functioning. If that were happening to me, and the reset didn’t restore it, I would probably delete the device from the app, perform a factory reset and go through setup again.
I can certainly understand your frustration. Sorry you’re having this struggle.
I didn’t clear the cache. Is cache stored in the app? Does it need to be cleared in every device I have the app? I have it installed on 2 iPhones and 2 iPads. (Mine and my wife’s ).
You can clear the App Cache by going to Account - App Settings - then click the clear button for cache files.
I do this for each device that acts weird.
Yes, as the name suggest it is app cache and it affects the app on each device.
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You say you do it for each device that acts weird, meaning each phone, each tablet? Not each camera though, right?
Mine isn’t acting weird on my phone, just on the camera as it’s not generating smart events.
Ok. Update. Today I held down the reset button on the camera, and turned the circuit breaker off so the camera reboots. I added it as a new device and saw my setting were still there and hadn’t changed. And guess what, I started getting smart event / alerts, for person detected… for like 5 minutes and then it’s stopped giving me smart detections so I get no events when a person or car cones I to view. So now it’s back to not working.