Here is the reality of it all: the servers uploading, downloading and storing video clips run on electricity and need bigger drives to accommodate thousands of new customers and more cameras. Electricity and drives cost money and a one-time, life-time payment of $20 can’t pay for that ongoing bill. The company would go under. They knew this would eventually happen because they added a microSD slot on their cameras.
If you want a car analogy how about the fact that Chevy only offers On-Star for a limited time. Or BMW only offers Sirius Satellite Radio for a short period. Some automakers offer free updates to their multimedia software but these dry up when the new model year gets a better radio.
Maybe folks already understand this but they rather get free stuff until the company bellies up?
I agree to this. Seems wyze doesnt support the loyal first comers. What I also have a problem with is in the beginning they were so eager to help and answer questions, now its like pulling teeth. I have asked for weeks for someone to explain the change to me in detail but not one will answer my initial questions about the change but just give me the “stock” answer, “We are not requiring that you pay for cloud recordings at all! You can opt into Cam Plus Lite at any price, including $0 to retain all of today’s cloud video features.” I cant believe you can sign up for “free” or $0 and it continue $0, since you have signed up, I believe you will be forced to pay at a later time.
Why not put paying banner ads next to the wyze logo and keep CPL free for all users with 12secs vids for those who are happy the way it is? Your wyze logo on the vid isnt any more intrusive than seeing a “home depot” logo next to it. If 2/3rds of vids are not being looked at anyway then most people shouldn’t care about a small banner ad.
There is room for a collective refund, if the promise at purchase is not kept the product should be returned. Has many supporters of Wyze I feel we have been screwed.
My recommendation in order to avoid a massive negative wave on sale ( all product).
Wyze should at least respect their engagement to keep as it was and apply for any new purchased new rule with clear advice.
I feel with the evolution of Wyze growing up, having a nice community, building trust. fishing for ideas and promotions, young team, it was just a success story model.
This is a major mistake, but remain optimistic and anticipate as for all your loyal customers who did support you since launch.
Today standard push to delight your customer, you just want on again the new norm.
Please consider reviewing your decision to avoid an impact, ORIGINAL WRIGHT SHOULD BE RESPECTED, or offer a refund for all cameras we paid.
If all members started to add a review (such as Amazon, Instagram, Facebook ) that good goes very fast.
Anxious to read your answer from customer service or management.
What, they want more money for the service now? Of course right after I bought 6 of them for family because they “were” such a good deal. Can anyone help me out w what’s going on? Thanks.
If you want person detection (which involves Wyze employees looking at your videos) then you pay for it. If you don’t want the [iffy] people detection, you’ll get the original detection which records any movement in the zone you define. That’s it. If you want longer videos get microSD cards (Amazon). The cards will let you record continuously or situationally but all privately.
All this bruhaha is about people trying to get all the extras at no additional charge… at the cost of the company going bankrupt. Though I wonder if there’s a bunch of trolls who don’t own any cameras just trying to stir up a whole lotta nuthin’.
No thanks. Bad idea. No one needs 12 seconds. A microSD in every camera so a notification is all that’s needed. No employees asking to look at my videos and no ads using up my data plan. If folks want that imperfect person detection thing let them pay for it. The primary service is still free and works just as much as the pay services from other brands.
Even without SD cards we can stream the cameras live. A service that costs money but offered FREE.
That DVR is the microSD card installed in each camera. None of the video will go up into the cloud unless you opt in for as low as zero dollars. [Mod Edit]
Well said! I did the same, bought bunch of high performance 32GB Samsung MicroSD cards and using them on all of my Wyze Cams… Records perfectly, not worried about the cloud,
The wyze logo (ad) already is on the video and we arent complaining. Another Ad next to it is an excellent way to defer costs and reel people in to using the product. But i agree, if no one is watching 2/3rds of the vids then maybe the Ad income woud not meet the cost need.
My system has cards installed, but the app doesn’t replay from the sdcards. Ejecting it to put it into a computer makes them nothing more than cheap trail cameras. “You can pay anything you want” … just not $0 thats not acceptable.
The logo can be removed. Ads within apps use data bandwidth, battery power, and adds tracking of customer’s phones. In-app ads can also crash the apps. Nine out of 10 of MY notifications are of any interest. A notification is fine while a snapshot is great. Then @Thawk I can review the event straight from the SD card by just rewinding or cueing through the timeline.
On the notification you should see a “Playback” icon at the bottom of the screen. This will take you to the exact time of the event on the SD card. No need to manually rewind through the timeline.
Agree with what others have said. I bought a video camera, not a still camera. If cloud storage is too expensive to maintain, please just let me configure the camera to upload my detected events to a computer on my local network.
Hey all, so I think I’m noticing a trend here that without the added context from the other thread’s original post that a lot of folks that aren’t active in our communities are misunderstanding details around these changes. We’re super sorry for not elaborating here and we’re going to do better in the future.
To clear up some confusion, Cam Plus Lite is a plan that allows you to opt in to keep your cloud storage. There is no requirement to pay at all - you get to name your price at any amount down to $0/mo.
This means that if you opt in to cloud video storage by signing up for Cam Plus Lite, you continue to receive cloud video storage. This could be for $0/mo.
You actually gain a new feature through Cam Plus Lite - you will now have the option to use Wyze’s cloud AI to identify/notify you when people are in clips. We call this Person Detection.
Since Person Detection is a new feature to your cameras that is normally under a paid subscription that helps us cover the cloud processing costs, we’re asking you to consider contributing to our Cam Plus Lite community fund when you sign up. Our goal is to raise enough to make it sustainable to give Person Detection to everyone on Cam Plus Lite - yes, even for those folks who aren’t in a place to contribute.
We really appreciate any support that you folks offer us on this front, as this is a risky gamble but one that is in alignment with our goal of making great tech affordable and accessible to as many people as possible.
We want a great camera experience for those across all incomes whenever possible. We feel that this is the best way to increase the accessibility of one of the most important premium features that helps avoid situations where folks are spammed by notifications about waving tree branches and other stuff that isn’t useful.
I’m going to move forward to lock this thread, and have updated the OP of the original thread to reflect the changes to the cloud storage date.
If you would like extra context or wish to participate in discussion around Cam Plus Lite and the cloud storage changes, please head over to the original post at this link below.
Thank you all for understanding, and we’ll catch you in the other thread to continue discussing!!
