Hope springs eternal. Note this issue was raised in October 2018. Three years and three months later. No one at Wyze appears to care. The only workable solution that I have heard (and put into use) is to buy a smart plug from a different manufacturer (I use Govee). Put it in line with the camera power adapter so you can remotely turn the camera on/off at will.
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Jeff, that’s a good, creative idea.
Unfortunately, I’m most concerned about my doorbell so it won’t work for my main need.
However, I might try this out for some of my secondary cameras.
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I just bought some Tuya compatible plugs for this purpose and testing them.
I am not happy to introduce one more point of failure. Actually all big problems I had with my cameras were related to AWS / Wyze outage in December.
As someone mentions before, Wyze doesn’t alert if their camera got disconnected because of power, internet or simply stolen. One of my smart devices send me email when it loses electrical power. BTW I need test my new smart power plugs to make sure I will receive a report of power outage.
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There is no reason you can’t use this solution with a doorbell. You need to plug the doorbell transformer into a smart plug. Just find where that transformer is hiding in your attic.
Yep, Tested two Tuya compatible smart plugs and they are sending “device off line” notifications 30-40 minutes apart. Nice!
My take on it: Wyze should have this and autonomous reboot features to be taken seriously by professionals,
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Here is the wish list to be notified if Wyze products do go offline. The wish list request was created in 2018, but in 2021 it was changed to researching from maybe later. This means that it is being looked into, to what extent I don’t know but keep an eye on the thread or the tag for updates in the future.
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App reconnection button or ability.
It would be awesome if there was a way to have the app automatically (or maybe with a pull-down refresh, or touch of a button) refresh and/or add back any devices on the Home screen that have gone off network.
I live in a rural area & connectivity is an issue. So often two or three of my devices go off the network. They do not automatically reconnect, so I have to manually go to each bulb, plug, camera or light & add it back on again (reinstall it.)
If there is already a way to do this, please let me know (I have searched the forum, wishlist, etc but not found anything resembling my problem.) It is a pain to have to daily reconnect one or more devices. If there was a shortcut for finding the device (and it’s settings) again & just adding it back, that would be a time saver!
[Mod edit] Merged with a similar wishlist topic.
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Hi all,
I have a video doorbell at a second home about 3 hrs away. Almost every time I have an Internet outage at the house, the video doorbell fails to reconnect. I then have to physically travel there and manually disconnect the low voltage wire in the old doorbell box on the wall.
My #wishlist item is to be able to have the doorbell automatically power cycle itself if it hasn’t detected any incoming activity (like a request to view live video) within a configurable timeout.
At this point, as a workaround, I’m searching for a wifi-enabled, battery-powered, normally closed switch so that I can remotely power cycle the doorbell.
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Resetting “offline” camera remotely
Currently when camera goes “offline” you need to manually and in person unplug the camera to re set it.
That’s impossible if your using it as a security camera and are not physically at location ( like on vacation in another state)
There needs to be a way to remotely re set, reboot the camera. Either by using the app or at least by calling Wyze with the camera information for someone there to do it.
I find it unacceptable that this can not be accomplished at the Wyze tech support section. Even Apple and my mom and pop internet company can re set remotely.
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Welcome to the community @Riki
Sometimes you can restart it by going into the Settings for the camera. While it is trying to connect, you can click the gear and scroll to the bottom and try a restart. If that does not work, then as you indicated a power cycle is required. Because of this, most of us have added a Smart Plug which the camera plugs into. We then power cycle the plug.
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I doubt “most” have bought a smart plug. That is not a good solution. You buy a camera to enhance security and provide ease of mind. There is no ease of mind if the camera goes off and you cannot reset it. Customers should not have to drive back from across the country to manually reboot, nor should they have to buy additional equipment.
Wyze is a great company that is good to its customers—it is time for them to put a Watchdog Timer into the camera BIOS/software. If the Watchdog has not had contact with the default router in a set time, perhaps 5 minutes, the Watchdog automatically reboots.
Trust me, I agree about having the feature, but for peace of mind, I and others have a WiFi accessible outlet attached.
I will say that my camera’s have been running flawlessly for the last few months. But I am testing beta Firmware as well.
This issue was originally opened in October 2018. It is still labeled as only a “Wishlist” feature. These facts fly in the face of your claim “Wyze is a great company that is good to its customers.”
We, the customers, are being ignored.
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Additional smart plug is an additional point of failure. The smart camera should be “smart” enough to reboot itself when there is no authenticated connections to WiFi. Obviously, it should be optional for a stand alone setting without WiFi.
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I don’t think anyone is arguing at that point. However, until the option is provided, an interim alternative is to purchase a smart plug and put it in place so that you can power cycle a device. As I indicated, for the last few months my cameras have been solid performers. But I still have a smart plug on my main outdoor camera’s so I can power cycle them.
Just a thought
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This doesn’t solve the problem… If the power flickers and the internet is down when the Wyze stuff comes up, the wyze stuff will just give up and be bricked until rebooted manually (switches are notorious in my experience) All they need is a retry algorithm to fix this… Easiest case is just to reboot itself if it can’t contact the wyze mothership after 5 minutes or whatever…
Control Cam via App!
Please implement an option to actually turn the camera back on via app! It does ZERO good to live by yourself or be out of town, have internet or power go out and bam! camera is off and only can be restarted via full re-installment! That is ridiculous and defeats the purpose. “Dear Burglarers, please turn my cam back on when you’re done. Here are the instructions.” I mean really!
One cam is on the ceiling and no I don’t want to having to grab the ladder every single time and reinstall the whole thing.
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Wow ! I’ve been on various vendor’s "to-do"list or “wishlist” but this one is the longest I’ve seen in years ! It’s makes the camera’s such a useless device for security applications and remote placement. I’m now having to look elsewhere for a “wyzer” solution to video security cameras.
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Feature Suggestion: Auto restart device if can’t connect to Wi-Fi for 5 minutes
Hello, I’d like to suggest a feature for Wyze Cams. I have a handful of Wyze V3 cams and Wyze Pan Cam V2’s in my house and some of them occasionally get disconnected from the network and sometimes the only way I can get them reconnected is by manually unplugging them and re-plugging them in. Is there any way we can get a feature (which would be disabled by default but able to be enabled by the user) that would auto restart the device if it can’t re-connect to the network for 5 (or a changeable value) minutes? (This would be independent from an actual internet connection; this would be the attached wireless network specifically).
Let me know if that makes sense or if you have any questions. Thank you!
[Mod Edit] Merged with an existing wishlist topic. Give it a vote to help it along!
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Auto restart and reconnect if the camera loses connection with the server for more than a minute.
The Software in the cameras should be able to do an automatic reboot and reconnect toWIFI if it loses connection with the WiFi servere for more than a minute.
The reason this a needed is once a customer has left the propety for an extended amount of time, if the the cameras go down do to power outage or server interuption, There is no way to reset cameras unless you are at to residence to perform a hard reset. Not good at it’s current configuration.
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