Camera groups confusion

Can somebody explain to me how Camera Groups works? When I have my five cameras selected in this group, and then put my system into Away mode, two of my cameras will immediately begin blaring their sirens.

Note: These are the only two of my cameras (interior) that I have set up to turn on their sirens when motion is detected, but I don’t want the sirens to go off immediately when I select Away mode!

Thanks

I presume you mean V3 cameras since those have sirens. What do mean by “away” mode?

I’m referring to the shortcuts you can create with customized sets of actions. For example, I have created a Home mode, Away mode and Disable mode. When I put the cameras in my Away mode, it will set my cameras to activate their sirens when they detect motion.

But when I have my cameras checked off in the Camera Groups, they will immediately sound their sirens when I activate the Away mode. But if I uncheck the cameras, they won’t sound their sirens at all.

In other words you created a rule called “Away mode”, and we were supposed to magicly know what you were talking about without you telling what you meant. We’re not mind readers. If you want help on this or any other forum, you need to explain yourself. You are our eyes and ears.

Now with that said, I can’t help you on any sort of automated action - I don’t use any rules or other automated actions in any of my 28 Wyze cameras. Nor with the lack of reliability would I expect to ever do so, Hopefully someone who has used the rules can help you out.

Can you post pictures of the actual rule/shortcut? I use the different rules and may be able to help

Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I have several other camera systems (Eufy and Arlo) and they both have “Away” modes. I mistakenly thought that Wyze also had an “Away” mode, until I remembered that it was a rule I had labled as such.

No need to get upset about it … especially when you can’t help me anyway.

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Here’s a picture of my “Away” Rules.

The actions below activate and “turn on” the siren the moment you press the away button.

Think of each action in the same rule as it’s own stand alone action. So “turn on siren”, well that turns on the siren. If you want the siren to activate when there is motion, create another rule like this:

Now within the rule actions of your away shortcut you can actually control the activation of the siren by activating motion detection or not by having “turn on motion detection” or " turn off motion detection" in your away shortcut rule. As long as motion detection is enabled the camera with the siren activated via trigger rule, when motion is detected, the siren will start screaming.

I use rules. :slight_smile:

Touching on this:

If a camera is checked off by the buttons on the right of the camera thumbnail in app, it’s in a sleep mode sorta. I don’t believe it can receive commands until you turn it back on.

Edit again/. If you want the camera to always detect motion and notify you when it’s “on”, you can set those settings for the camera, then you can super slim down your “away” shortcut rule to just turning on cameras you want on when your away. Then in your home shortcut, turn “off” the camera. No need to have “turn on camera, turn on motion and turn in notifs” if your opposite shortcut has " turn off camera, turn off motion and turn off notifs". Set the settings, then only use the on or off action. Easy peasy.

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Great write-up. You beat me to the response.

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Thank you very much for this detailed response. I didn’t see any “When” and “Do” options when I set up my shortcuts; I will have to look again. But it seems like you’re saying that my rules are too convoluted and redundant.

It’s probably best for me to delete them all and start over again. Too bad an owner’s manual didn’t come with these cameras.

It’s just that the rules operate alot simpler than folks think. It’s pretty much “when this happens” (purple circled action), “then this happens” (red circle/red dots, one action at a time, down the list if more than one). There is a smidge more logic if you have a trigger or scheduled rule when you have the “time” variable (green circle) where the rule then only triggers if you are within the time frame added.

Now looking at what you want to achieve above, here are atleast two ways you can accomplish that with an away shortcut and a home shortcut.:

Use the shortcut to turn the cameras on or off. I have included a screen shot above of the “away” button, just think that the “home” would be the exact opposite. When the cameras are on, make sure to enable motion detection and notifications in settings. That way when ever the camera is on, it’s detecting and notifying you of events in app and showing events clips in the event tab.

This shorty only turns on motion detection when away, and the home would disable motion detection. In you camera settings, enable notifications, but they will only be sent to you when motion events are created when detection is enabled via the shorty.

I like this way, because it leaves the camera “on” at all times, because I have each of my cameras set to record to my local sd card (most are continuous recording, and some are local event only). If I were to turn the camera off, local recording would not be possible.

Make sense?

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OK, I understand most of what you said, but actually doing it is something else. I can set up the individual Device Triggers, but incorporating them into a shortcut is confusing. Also, I still don’t understand the purpose of Camera Groups. What does including a camera in a “Group” do?

Thanks.

It allows you to live view more than one camera at once, and control multiple cameras with a single rule because you don’t select the individual camera in an action, you choose the group (at the way bottom).

I’ll edit my above post here is a sec, taking some screen shots.

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What is the sequence to create a Shortcut? Shortcut first, and then add Device Triggers, or Device Triggers first, and then create a Shortcut?

Neither way is working for me.

Here is a shortcut using groups. Each group has 4 or 5 cameras in each. This will enable motion detection of each of the cameras in both groups when the shorty is pressed.

As in each rule? The short cut rule and the device trigger rule? Either way, they just need to be in place. The trigger rule and scheduled rules happen automatically, whereas the shortcut only happen when you press the associated button to enact the actions in that shortcut.

I am guessing the included words on paper are kept to a minimum because as features get added and firmware and ui updated, it would make the paper become outdated fairly quick. There is a support page for all things v3 that touches on alot of things, and is updated fairly often as things change with the camera.

https://wyzelabs.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/sections/360011231672-Wyze-Cam-v3

OK, let’s say I create a Shortcut called “Away,” and I add some actions to it. Now, I want my interior cameras to sound their sirens when they detect motion, so I need to add a specific Device Trigger to that same “Away” Shortcut.

But when I click on Add Action, it doesn’t let me create a Device Trigger. :confused:

Are you going with the “turn on camera” action for the away shortcut?

This will actually be a “triggered rule”, not a “shortcut” rule. Got back to this screen:


And click on “trigger”, not shortcut. Then you can create your trigger “if camera ##### detects motion”, and it’s action " activate siren from #### camera." Like this:

Yes, I can do that. But let’s say I have created 2 Shortcuts – Away and Home. Then I create a Device Trigger to sound my garage camera’s siren for when I am not home. How do I attach this Device Trigger to the Away shortcut and not the Home shortcut?

Sorry for being so dense here.