How are you happy about this?
Event video playback is blocked by Wyze!
Time to move on and used a different vendor
Honestly, I kind of prefer the new way since we can still have everything saved to an SD card, and the event notifications still link directly to that location on the SD card. This is the same way some of my cameras from other companies work too (for example, my Eufy cams), so it seems no different than the rest of the industry to me, and I don’t notice much difference since I can still see the video of every event just like before, but now with no 12-second limitation, so it’s even better IMO.
PROS:
On the older Cams, like V3’s I can still use Cam Plus Lite for free, and on the newer cams that don’t support Cam Plus Lite I still get notifications and event logs that will link to the event on the SD card Playback. I like the new SD card Playback interface since it shows me on the timeline exactly where to find the motion events I want to go look at. For example, on my V3Pro, I can see exactly where there is motion for me to look at on the SD card events:
Or when I shrink the timeline and have a bunch of events together, it easily shows me where there was a lot of activity like this:
Overall, I don’t really miss having cloud events on the newer cams since I still have access to event playback and everything on the SD card just like how other companies have done it. Plus it’s more secure. Now, not even the government can go behind your back and issue Wyze a Warrant to get your cloud events if there aren’t any stored on their server. They would have to let YOU know and get a warrant to get it off your camera’s SD card instead, and at least then you know something is going on. With cloud events, most other companies just give stuff the government and don’t even tell you…that’s not really possible if the recordings are all just local now. That’s a plus that they have to go through you and let you know now, even if it doesn’t really change the outcome, I like to be more informed with what’s going on with my data, and this helps with that.
But the main thing is, Do I still get notifications? Yes. Am I still able to record events to the SD card? Yes. Will the events log still link me to the event on the SD card? Yes. Then as far as I am concerned it’s working great, maybe even better considering it’s local and I can now see on the SD card where motion starts.
CONS:
I see 2 major downsides for the new cameras not getting cloud events:
My biggest complaint with the new way of doing things is that it is now harder to share a camera with a spouse, family member or anyone else I might to have access to recorded events. Since Wyze doesn’t allow sharing the SD card, this means that sharing a cam without Cam Plus will mean the person it is shared to can only really get the live stream and notifications, but will never be able to view recorded events. I brought up this flaw in the recent AMA:
The other downside is that the newer cams will no longer get Person detection notifications since Cam Plus Lite is not extended to them.
In summary, overall I like the changes, at least as long as I don’t need to share the camera with a spouse, etc. If someone needs to share a camera with a spouse, then I would go with one of the mid-range model cams (V3, Pan V2, etc). The OG and Pan V3 and V3 Pro are awesome if you don’t need to share them or if you plan to get Cam Plus for all the AI benefits. They will still do notifications and the playback events still work great even without cloud on them though. In my experience, I don’t think that is a negative issue at all. I hope they come up with a good sharing solution and I wish they’d do more with providing local person detection for free…but I think the playback changes themselves are fine unless I need to share the cam.
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Please expand on this. I don’t understand how Event Video Playback is being blocked. There isn’t much detail to go on from your post.
I have dozens of cams and have never had an Event Video blocked.
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