Support and management;
You guys must know by now that you’re selling cameras with very poorly made usb blocks as there are NUMEROUS comments by customers about these Wyze usb blocks dying after ~6months or less. In addition to reports of dying Wyze usb blocks, reports of buzzing ones, another indication of poor engineering, are on social media.
I once went through the time consuming process of filing a ticket to have the entire camera replaced where I had to take pictures of it’s serial #, and there was a back-and-forth for three days to resolve a simple bad usb block. You couldn’t just send a new usb block; I was forced to wait for entire new camera (when the camera actually worked perfectly fine with a substituted Apple usb block).
This has now happened to 4 more of your included cheap usb blocks, today was the 5th, and it was such a hassle (felt like I was being treated like I was lying about the problem) that I just replace them now with apple usb blocks bought from eBay. Note: not one Apple made usb block has died to date.
The reason that I’m writing this is to express to you that this situation has caused me to no longer recommend Wyze products to others and caused me to consider not buying more myself until something is done (and I’m told your now using higher quality usb blocks). I can’t count on these suspect wyze usb blocks to be reliable and not fail when I actually needed the camera coverage like while out of town.
The sad thing is that EVERYTHING else about my Wyze camera system is perfect and it seems that including poorly engineered usb blocks is a very bad business model that is easily resolvable.
Nobody from support or management is in here, just fellow users.
So far my USB power adapters are at about 2 years with no issues, but the quality of your power, temperature, number of power outages, etc can all impact the life of the cheap wall adapters. You can find good ones from Anker and other brands on Amazon relatively cheap. Even the amazon basics 2.4 amp 2 pack goes on sale pretty cheap from time to time, I’ve used those for a family members video birdfeeder that has been online 24x7 out in the elements (inside a waterproof box) for 1.5 years.
Thank you for letting me know! Guess I’ll take my rant to social media outlets where they will hear me, because I’m certainly not opening another ticket to get their ear.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand your annoyance. Another dollar or two and they could include more robust power supplies. But then the cams would probably cost a couple dollars more, so I guess in the long run, it pretty much balances out.
Most people are actually served fine with the stock power adapters since they are listed as indoor only and aren’t subjected to lots of power outages or fluctuations. But it does seem there is a percentage of users with issues. My guess is the percentage isn’t big enough for them to raise the price point on the cameras and include higher grade power supplies (which may still fail under the conditions they’re being used in for some).
I guess being an electronics guy and having a bunch of various USB adapters in a drawer, it isn’t a big deal. Haven’t had to replace one yet, but I’m sure if I was travelling and trying to check in and one had died, that would be annoying. I should probably pre-emptively replace them with better ones, but like I said, so far they’ve been reliable, if they start to flake out I’ll replace them all. Mine are all mounted inside with the wires running out windows. But several are in a front entry way that is not climate controlled (but still not extreme) and one in the garage that probably gets pretty hot/cold at times.