Yeah they won’t call it an outage if it is done during their normal maintenance window (varies with ISP, most try to keep it to like 2 or 3AM start time but some will start at midnight). Xfinity in particular has been taking people down for hours, sometimes even during the day, to swap in the new “mid split” equipment, aka NextGen and 10G.
There are apps an utilities you can use to monitor your internet uptime, but you can often even just look in the modem logs (assuming it is cable) or router logs for other types and often see evidence of when it went down/came back up.
If it does happen again on just the phone that is still using the VPN, I would go back to the likelihood that the VPN or even the Wyze app is preferring an IPv6 endpoint, and your home internet only has IPv4. It can be somewhat luck of the draw which DNS responds quicker and thus which path it takes (IPv6 or IPv4) on a given night. It is a total guess on my part without being able to monitor your network, but an educated guess and a very feasible scenario. If it is the issue, there are workarounds to block IPv6 on your cellular network settings, and probably in the VPN itself too. Doing it on the cellular network settings is not a great idea, can have side effects, but probably could be done in the VPN settings.
Hello again. I actually understood your explanation, much to my surprise.
Checked again after last night and no mobile data usage on either phone. Will continue to monitor. I’ll leave the settings as-is so we have one phone w/ VPN on, one / VPN off so I have at least one setting different between the phones.
I have Spectrum and I don’t seem to have any access to logs, reports, etc. I know we love to bash ISPs, but it’s been very reliable for many years. As the data usage seemed to happen overnight and was (hopefully) isolated to a few nights, perhaps it was maintenance.
Thank you so much for your help. Will reply to this thread if it happens again. Let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to check/test on the phone for this issue or if others have similar issues.
Back to using mobile data. It occurs any time I’m watching a Wyze camera live; only noticed overnight because that’s when we’re using it as a baby monitor but tested during the day w/ same result. Tried tech support w/ ISP and mobile carrier; neither had any solutions. Only thing that prevents is to turn off mobile data at night and turn it back on in the morning, but that’s a hassle. I tried adjusted the following with no success. Any other thoughts? Only Wyze app is using mobile data in this manner. Very frustrating.
VPN on/off
Data Saver on/off
Private DNS on/off
Adaptive Connectivity on/off
Roaming on/off
Automatically Select Network on/off
Allow 2G on/off
Background Data on/off
Wyze app beta on/off
Settings/Apps/Special App Access/WiFi Control on/off
I thought this last one one surely fix as I had “Allow app to control Wi-Fi” off…but
it didn’t fix it.
I don’t know what the answer is, but since this seems to solve the problem (for now), then I wonder if trying to automate that process would be less of a hassle unless/until a more definitive solution is provided.
I was looking at Rules on Android 13 ( Settings ➜ System ➜ Rules) and hoping to find something there because I’ve used that for things like automatically turning off my ringer at certain locations, but I didn’t see disabling mobile data as an option. I imagine automating this would require a third-party solution.
I get ya. I was trying to think of a way to alleviate some hassle, but then that’s one more potential complication and/or failure point to throw into the mix. The juice might not be worth the squeeze.
Has it been doing it consistently every night or did it work since your last response until now?
It is unlikely you’d notice another app using mobile data overnight as they’re in the background and probably not using much, whereas the Wyze one uses a lot.
I’ve never seen an app force itself onto mobile data. Do you know if your home internet/wifi has IPv6 enabled? Your cellular connection most likely does (you can disable it in APN settings, but use caution when messing around in there). IPv6 takes priority, but cell phones are supposed to ensure wifi takes priority first, without taking protocol into account. But maybe there is something going on there, the Wyze app is insisting on IPv6 when available and the only path to it is cellular…
I want to say it was OK for a few days, but it’s been consistent every night most/all nights since. Looks like IPv6 is enabled per my phone settings (had to dig for that). Only other thing I can think of is that the Wyze Cam connects via 2.4G and maybe my phone is connecting to 5G; would that matter?
Sorry, I’m not a techie so apologies if that’s a silly question.
No having your phone on 5 and the cam on 2.4 is fine.
Does your wifi also have IPv6 enabled?
In reality, if you can get it so the cams to stream direct to your phone without using the internet, that should solve your issue, but that would require them to be on the same wifi network as the phone(s) you’re using and the Wyze app set to bypass VPN. The wifi network in question also must not have client/AP isolation enabled (which many guest networks do and it is often an option on main networks too).
Of course that should not be necessary, they should also work via the internet, a bit of a mystery why it is switching to mobile data. My only two guesses are it seeing the IPv6 path on your cell provider as better, or there are frequent hits to your internet overnight and for some reason it does not switch back.
Are the cams and your phone on the same wifi network? If they are, and you have the Wyze app allowed to bypass your VPN, they should not use the internet at all for the video stream. Very odd that it would go to the internet in that case, and even more odd that it would choose Cellular over Wifi.
What happens if you disable IPv6 in your home internet router (it isn’t needed)? Reboot the router and the camera(s) after, and toggle wifi off and back on on your phone.
Only other thing I can think is going into android settings, under the system resets there should be a “reset wifi and cellular network” or similar. Try doing that. You’ll need to rejoin your phone to the wifi but other than that it can clear out some stuff and downloads the latest carrier settings.
Cams and phone on same wifi network. I’ve tried w/ and w/o VPN on phone; same result. Are you saying to bypass VPN for Wyze, mobile network and/or wifi?
Can’t change anything on ISP provided modem/router other than name and password. I reboot modem/router weekly. Cameras have been rebooted multiple times. Also tried the network resets. Nada.
What ISP and router is it? If it is the Xfinity or Rogers XB7 that has various known issues, not this behavior in particular but who knows with that thing, it is all over the place with the problems it has. But usually they allow you to disable IPv6, but they’ve been locking it down more and more so who knows.
Normally, as long as the VPN is off or you have Wyze allowed to bypass it, your video should stream directly from the cameras to the phone when on the same wifi network. Some minor stuff uses the internet but the main stream stays on your LAN.
But I’m thinking if your ISP router is interfering/blocking something then maybe the Wyze app now routes it via mobile data automatically. The main issues with the ISP routers have been mostly when trying to view away from home but I recall at least one person saying the XB7 was causing problems with their LAN streaming too.
It’s a Spectrum router. SAC2V1A. Unable to edit anything other than name and password. I turned off phone VPN completely and it’s still using mobile data. I give up.
Bear in mind after disabling the VPN you may have to bounce your wifi or even cellular, possibly force stop the wyze app and re-open it. Or wait a while and the connections should time out and re-establish, but forcing it is quicker. Does your VPN tell you any info on what it is connected via, wifi vs. cellular? I wonder if it is having the same issue, preferring cellular even when wifi is available. Other apps may be doing it and you don’t notice since they don’t use a lot of bandwidth. You could try installing the speedtest.net app and running one of those, that will use 500 megs to 1 gig depending on your internet speed, should be pretty obvious which path it took (as long as you don’t mind eating up some of your data possibly).
I guess if it insists on preferring mobile network, you just have to switch to wifi only at night, or maybe grab an old phone and use it as the Wyze monitor on wifi only?
I think you said you were using a Pixel, several models (5 through 7 and possibly 8 too) had issues with the “Tensor” radio chipset in them being inconsistent, maybe some fluke related to that. But you said it didn’t happen on the old 2.5 Wyze app?
Hi. I reset network settings, reinstalled Wyze (not beta version), excluded Wyze from VPN, restarted phone…still using mobile data. I’ll just plan on turning off mobile data or using an old phone w/ wifi only as you mentioned. I think we tried everything possible.
Thanks for your help. Will post if anything changes.
Back to using mobile data. It occurs any time I’m watching a Wyze camera live; only noticed overnight because that’s when we’re using it as a baby monitor but tested during the day w/ same result. Tried tech support w/ ISP and mobile carrier; neither had any solutions. Only thing that prevents is to turn off mobile data at night and turn it back on in the morning, but that’s a hassle. I tried adjusted the following with no success. Any other thoughts? Only Wyze app is using mobile data in this manner. Very frustrating.
Settings ➜ System ➜ Rules) and hoping to find something there because I’ve used that for things like automatically turning off my ringer at certain locations, but I didn’t see disabling mobile data as an option. I imagine automating this would require a third-party solution.