It has been almost a year since I’ve posted on here, and it appears some basic functionality still hasn’t been added. They are working on some of it, but a year is a little long to still not have the following:
Alert > Timeline: After selecting an alert, it will just play 12 seconds from the cloud, which for me is useless, as I’d like to see the whole event which was recorded on the microSD card. I’d also like to see the alert automatically take me to the timeline to see the whole event. I’m glad to see they are working on this, but it shouldn’t have taken this long, in my opinion.
Download Event: There isn’t an option to download the full event, and also isn’t an option to choose a time range to download. It will download the 12 second clip, but not the full motion event, and also won’t allow a time based download, such as from 1:15 PM to 1:45 PM.
Mobile App Downloading (not streaming): My main reason for not using the app on my main phone is because it will keep downloading the 12 second clip, rather than stream it. I’d rather not have it download a clip that is useless to me, and would prefer to have it allow me to stream the full event (and download it, upon request).
I’m not an expert in design and development, but taking over a year to add the above functionality doesn’t sound reasonable to me. This is all something I’d expect to have been added within a few months.
With that said, it’s obvious Wyze has made many improvements, such as adding person detection. Also, there is a great community here with many knowledgeable people who have been able to provide critical feedback, including some relating to privacy and security, which Wyze has been willing to listen and respond to. This has all made me feel more comfortable using Wyze, and I’m looking forward to recommending Wyze to others in the future.
If you have any feedback or comments, feel free to share. I’d like to hear from those who agree, and disagree, with my opinions and observations.
If this was posted in the wrong section, it was not intentional. Please feel free to move it to the correct section.
The problem I’m referring to is that choosing the event will download a 12 second clip, and not take me to the full motion event that was recorded to the microSD card. It doesn’t make sense to me for it to download the clip from the cloud, when it can just bypass the cloud storage and stream it from the microSD card (which the camera is recording to continuously), and then give the option to download the clip, rather than automatically downloading it.
In regards to#1, I believe that functionality to jump to the event on the SD card is coming soon and will be called “View the Moment.” It’s in the beta app right now.
For #2, you can add that to the#wishlist if it has not been requested yet. An alternative is to hit the record button to record a certain time on your SD card while in playback mode. This is what I would do in continuous recording SD mode.
If you are going to use the cloud recording to find your place in the local (continuous) recording, understand that you might miss some events, due to the 5-min cooldown feature.
You will need to manually search your local recording for the events the cloud recording misses.
This is why I prefer event-only local/SD recording. I use the timeline arrows to quickly jump to the events I’m interested in.
They are going in the right direction, for sure, but the development is super slow. This is something that is so basic which has been available in free software for years.
I’m curious what the problem is regarding the time they’re taking to develop. I’m not sure if it’s financial, as they have received funding and some people are willing to pay for additional services, such as the cloud storage. Maybe they are having a tough time finding hard working people. They even said their CEO and software engineers were helping with the shipping. That’s a little concerning.
Exactly! That’s the problem. We get a notification for motion, select it, and it’ll show us the 12 second clip. We don’t care about the 12 second clip, we want to see the start of the motion and everything after that it captured on the microSD card. And, like you said, there is that five minute period where we can miss something. Although the microSD card is recording, it doesn’t show us another motion alert, so we won’t know if something else happened within that five minute period unless we manually check.
This is our reason for using our Arlo Q. Although the one we have doesn’t take a microSD card, there is free cloud storage for the full motion event, and there isn’t a five minute waiting period. Sure, it was almost $200, but it worked good as soon as we opened it back in 2017. We have one Wyze working, and two that we didn’t even bother setting up since the functionality is so limited.
That’s the thing, there isn’t really a point in having a Wyze camera without a microSD card, or better cloud recording. It’s obvious, even to Wyze, as shown on their video example: https://services.wyze.com/detail/cmc
My Arlo Q will record the full motion event for free, so we don’t mind that it doesn’t have a microSD card. If they charged a lot for cloud storage or wouldn’t record the full event then we would have needed to get an Arlo Q with a microSD card, like we did with Wyze.
Arlo is in a different market segment. Asking Wyze to provide what Arlo has like unlimited cloud storage and still keep their target market segment, that’s not sustainable.
Also, there are valid reasons not to have local storage. It’s their choice. Let them be.
And if you like Arlo so much, why not stay with them?
If you pay Arlo prices for Wyze cameras, maybe they will also give you “free full motion event recording”
I’ve seen that Wyze and Arlo are similar. What do you see that is so different about them?
The main difference I’ve seen is that the cost of Arlo is higher, and basic cloud storage was (and maybe still is) included, where the Wyze camera is at a much lower cost, with the option of paying for cloud storage coming soon. My preference is Wyze, because you can decide if you want to pay for cloud storage or not. Also, although eventually Wyze with cloud storage can cost more than my Arlo Q which has it included, it is a more sustainable business model as you mentioned.
I’m not sure of any valid reason for a Wyze camera not to have a microSD card and also not have full cloud motion event recording. It would really need one of the two for most people.
We have one Arlo Q, which is great, but I’m not interested in paying for another one, as I’m expecting Wyze to continue to improve and eventually offer more for our money than even the Arlo Q.
That’s another option, Wyze could charge more and include cloud storage, but I’d prefer their current method of having a lower cost camera and giving people the choice. They should, in my opinion, offer a one year prepayment option for cloud storage though. I’m sure some people would rather pay once per year rather than monthly.
Why would Wyze change its business philosophy to satisfy one person? They obviously did some research before they started and they didn’t follow the Arlo model. There must be a good reason they didn’t.
ok, so some of these have been mentioned here before but I’ll attempt to go into a bit more detail.
#1 is currently in Beta. upon receiving and viewing a 12 second clip, at your leisure during the clip you can jump from the clip you are viewing to that specific time on the sd card ( the full recording) with the current setup the 12 second clips are a necessity as they are utilized for the notification itself. its best to think of the clips as flags for where to look on the SD card for events.
#2 utilizing an Sd card you can download a full event directly to your device. using the playback feature (Playback views the sd card directly, not the 12 second cloud clips) you are able to view the event that was recorded. pressing record when you want to begin the “download” to your device and being able to stop it at will would typically be more useful to the masses especially if there is continued movement in the frame and the recording continues. by doing it this way as opposed to downloading one complete event you can effectively trim the video you want without the need for a third party video editor.
#3 Im a bit confused by what you mean here so please correct me if my deduction is wrong.
you stated
im guessing when you view your event clips you then find all the viewed clips in your media library? if this is the case this is actually through the fault of your phone and not the Wyze app. depending on your settings your media library finds all videos, even those in the cache of the apps ( which is needed to see the videos) this is something almost all apps do. its pretty much SOP.
so depending on your device you would be able to remove those from your library. maybe even an automatic cache clearing app would help you with that. I had the same issue at first so I feel that annoyance, I was able to fix them in my settings. no more clip folder for every clip I view. and again upon viewing the clip you will be able to jump to the full event and save exactly the amount of event you want from the sd card directly to your device.
and because it’s been a year since you posted. WELCOME BACK. its great to have people return and bring valid concerns. I hope some of this information helps.
Why would you expect that exactly? There are plenty of things in the app that I’d prefer worked differently, but just because something bugs me doesn’t make it Wyze’s number one priority. They seem to be doing a great job of continuing to develop and improve the product.
As @cheaplikeafox mentioned, #1 is already in the final stages of being implemented. I use the beta app, so I’ve already been using this feature for several weeks.
#2 and #3 seem like nice ideas, but I’m not aware of whether or not Wyze is working on implementing those or not. Personally, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if they do, and I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if they never do. Just depends whether customers seem to be demanding it, and I haven’t seen a lot of people asking for that. If you’re trying to download a large range of video files, it’s not that difficult to just physically remove the SD card and copy the files that way.
Why do you think it’s slow? They’ve been adding tons of stuff. We all have our own personal prioritzed list of things we’d like to see implemented, but that doesn’t mean your number one priority is the company’s. As a parallel example, Amazon’s resources are practically unlimited, but Alexa still can’t do half the stuff with routines and logic that I’d like to see implemented. Just means my priorities aren’t the same as Amazon’s.
As for free camera-viewing software, that’s a totally different type of market, but you can download the RTSP firmware and use that kind of software with the camera already if you’d prefer to.
Yes, but you paid 10 times as much for it upfront. It’s economics. Bandwidth costs money.
I guess it might seem slow to you but I have some other budget cameras from D-Link and zmodo that I pretty much abandoned because they don’t have any development. Personally, I’ve noticed many improvements over the years for the wyze cam through either firmware or software updates. There are still many issues that have not been resolved yet either though.
I’m not recommending they change their core business, from having a low cost camera with optional cloud storage to having a higher cost camera with cloud storage included. My preference, as mentioned above, is actually Wyze, because they give customers the option to pay for cloud storage, and some won’t want or need it due to the microSD card.