Are Cameras supposed to record to SD cards when turned off?

Yeah, I think Support has their wires crossed on this one. :smile:

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@PanCamJeff
You are completely fine with ‘putting me on the spot’. I would guess that support was in fact not understanding the issue. I was able to recreate your issue personally on my camera and talked to the PM and sent him logs from my camera. It is an issue and they are looking into it, hopefully we will see the fix in the next firmware release. I am currently not sure where they are at on that portion.

They will probably close your ticket, but that is ok as I have the issue escalated from this side and will keep following up about it.

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Thank you Jason!

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LOL - all V2 and V3 WYZE cams have done this for years and years.

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Jason,
This is good to know!
I have one V1 Pan that stays turned off, but plugged in, so it can run the old Wyze Sense controller add-on (for door sensors). It would be nice if they could add an option to turn off recording, but keep the sensor part working when in the “This device has been Turned Off” mode. Every now and then I could hear it click, so I knew it was doing something (I face the camera to the wall when not needed).
Thanks!

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Wanted to test this for my own edification. I had already found this to be the case on the PanV1 but hadn’t tested it on other cams. I have all my cams on smart plugs power cycling on a cascade schedule every night. Only my PanV1 is powered off when that power cycle hits, so it is the only one I was testing for SD Recording after a Power Cycle when the cam is off. I just tested it on 3 other models.

I can now confirm that this is also occuring on PanV3, V3Pro, and V3.

If the cam is Off in the app and not recording to the SD Card, a power cycle returns it to the Off position in the app, but the cam starts recording to the SD Card.

One interesting thing with the PanV3, since it introduced the new “Privacy Mode”, is that when the cam is turned off in the app the cam enters Privacy Mode and displays this in the Live View. If the cam is then power cycled while in that state, the app shows it as still in Privacy Mode, however the cam is not pointed straight into the base. It returns to the set Home position and continues to record SD footage while it is supposed to be Off in Privacy Mode.

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As the starter of this thread, I just happened to get two new Pan Cam v3s and had intended to also test the behavior on the v3s. Thanks to your verification on the V3, I don’t need to.

Fortunately, the new v3s are going to be installed where I won’t need to turn them off or use privacy mode. Since the behavior is the same across the v1, v2, and v3, a common fix in the code ought to catched them all in a firmware update. Along with reporting it in this thread, my support ticket appears to still be open.

IMO, this should be a priority for the next firmware update. But they need to take thier time and test, test, test to ensure any perspective fix doesn’t break something else. The logic of camera state for recording (& privacy mode) needs to be remembered between resets. Preferably on the camera, not in the cloud :slightly_smiling_face:

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Great catch, @PanCamJeff !!!

Fully agree that if cams are set to ‘electronically’ off, they should retain that same stage even after a power cycling - be it via SW or via an actual disconnect/reconnect of external power.

A post was merged into an existing topic: Cameras stopped recording to SD cards… (V2 and V3)

WyzeJasonJ
Can you confirm that this problem has been fixed or is being looked at?

+1

I had a support ticket open with Wyze on this [2664591], but have not seen anything back on it in weeks. Maybe I’ll shake them again and see what falls out of the tree :grinning:

I just got off a support chat with “Rachel”. She was trying to argue that it was normal behavior.

(2:36:04 PM) Rachel: Thank you for reaching out to the Wyze Wizards team! My name is Rachel. I will be happy to assist you.
(2:36:14 PM) Jeff: What is the status of support ticket 2664591?
(2:36:49 PM) Rachel: Please give me just a few moments to look into this for you.
(2:36:57 PM) Jeff: ok
(2:40:25 PM) Rachel: I just wanted to check in and let you know that I am still here. I will be just another moment to ensure I have the most accurate info.
(2:40:37 PM) Jeff: ok
(2:49:36 PM) Rachel: Thank you for your patience while I looked into this for you.
(2:52:52 PM) Rachel: As per checking on the ticket number that you provided me, you wanted to know if the cameras are supposed to record when turned off. Correct?
(2:53:51 PM) Jeff: I already know that they are not supposed to. What is the status of the ticket?
(2:54:57 PM) Rachel: As per checking it here on my end, the ticket is already closed.
(2:55:59 PM) Jeff: That is unfortunate. Why was it closed. The issue persists. The issue was documented and verified by WyzeJasonJ (Wyze Representative) in the Wyze forum. People are asking about the status.

(2:58:14 PM) Rachel: Actually, a camera that is recording while off is not an ongoing issue and it’s not an issue because that is how the camera works.
(2:59:36 PM) Rachel: Camera will just stop recording if you unplug it from the outlet.
(2:59:43 PM) Jeff: Not according to what we’ve been told, and confirmed in the forum by engineering. When the camera is off is should not be recording.
(3:01:56 PM) Rachel: The camera will not record if the camera is turned off physically not just by turning it off in the app.
(3:03:49 PM) Jeff: I’m sorry, I do not believe that is the intended behavior. Please open a new ticket referencing the official Wyze form topic, and escalate. Or, someone from engineering can clarify in the thread.
(3:08:45 PM) Jeff: With all due respect, it has already been confirmed by a Wyze representative that the camera does indeed stop recording when turned off. But if there is a power cycle, the camera will come back still in the “off” state but it will resume recording to the SD card. This has been confirmed by the Wyze representative in the Wyze forum link I have provided. This is NOT the intended operation.
(3:11:49 PM) Rachel: As long as the camera is physically turned on and is connected to the Wi-Fi, even though you turn it off in the app, it will still keep on recording.
(3:14:31 PM) Jeff: I apologize, but I am out of time for this right now. Please have someone update the official Wyze forum thread at: Are Cameras supposed to record to SD cards when turned off?
(3:14:38 PM) *** Jeff left the chat ***

Can Jason or another Wyze representative weigh in here please?

The new Wyze support ticket# for this issue is 2934527. If anyone else wants to contact customer support about this, tell them you are having the same issue logged against ticket# 2934527.

I just received an email from the customer support person from my chat session. The email contained nothing but cut-and-paste generic instructions for “offline recording”. Not helpful.

I’m going to keep a tight leash on this issue until there is some kind of acknowledgment of the problem.

Once again, turning the camera off in the app suspends all of its activity, including recording to the SD card, as anticipated. A power cycle returns the camera back up to the apparent “off” state, EXCEPT that SD recording resumes. That is as simple as I can state it. That is not the proper expected behavior.

I’ve just discovered this behavior on my V3, so it doesn’t look like it’s been fixed with a firmware update.
Was your new ticket closed? Any updates?

Every time I would open a ticket, The person on the other end of the email would argue with me and say that’s how it’s supposed to work. Which is obviously wrong. All tickets end up being closed. I can’t figure out who to go to to acknowledge this issue or get any status.

May be Jason can work his magic with the front line people again.

Let me see what I can find out and I will get back to everyone.

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Were you ever given a ticket number so I can work with support so they have the correct information?

Edit: I located one of your ticket numbers above.

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Jason,

I got a post email notification where you had asked for more info, but that post appears to be gone. Nevertheless, here is the information…

Wyze Cam Pan v1, latest firmware 4.10.9.1851.

Wyze Cam Pan v2, latest firmware 4.49.3.4054.

Scenario:

  1. Turn “off” camera in app. The camera is “off”, and recording to SD stops as expected.

  2. Wait 5 minutes, remove power. Wait one minute, reconnect power. Camera restarts.

  3. Wait 10 minutes. Go to camera in App, camera shows as “off”. Turn camera on. Tap “View playback”. The camera has been recording to SD since power was cycled, even though it still showed as “off” in the app.

If a camera is “off” and not recording to SD card, and power cycles, upon reboot it should return to it’s previous state and NOT resume recording to the SD card.

Earlier in this thread you confirmed that this issue exists.

Let me know if I can provide anything else,

Jeff

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I can reproduce this bug on V2.

  1. Set sdcard to record continuously
  2. Turn off camera (wait 30 seconds so it gets a chance to turn off)
  3. Reboot camera from settings (don’t turn on camera)
  4. Hear the clicking noise from camera to confirm it’s rebooting
  5. Wait 5 minutes
  6. Confirm camera is still off in app
  7. Turn on camera and go to live view
  8. Click “View Playback”. You can see the recordings of last 5 minutes while camera was off

This is with latest app and V2 firmware versions.

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