:doorbell_v2: "Cameras as Chime"! Now even buggier in the v3.0 app!

My “gateway drug” was a couple of 2-packs of Wyze Plug back in 2019 to help my parents automate control of Christmas lights. The latest things I’ve picked up were Cam v4s, and I got those a couple of months ago only because at the time they were just $1 (US) more than the Cam OGs. Both were on sale, and the Cam OGs would’ve been just fine for my application, but Cam v4’s marketing made it appear that it had on-board Person Detection that didn’t require a subscription to use, but this is apparently not the case.[1][2][3] I don’t have any experience with the battery-powered cameras.

That’s excellent, and I don’t know that I would’ve considered doing it that way! Good thinking! :+1:


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I finally updated to v3.0.5.558 and can confirm what @ronl4625 reported elsewhere:

I had another ticket open with Wyze Support, so I added a note about that to my reply (referencing my previous ticket specific to this issue), and hopefully that will be passed along to the appropriate developers.

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It feels like they either have no clue how to fix it or just don’t care to. Fix it WYZE!

I often get the sense that Wyze has a habit of biting off more than it can chew.

Just updated to b560. Cameras as chimes is still broken.

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This doesn’t surprise me, and I appreciate the update, especially since I’m sticking with production releases for now.

My camera as chime works now. My phone did a systems update. I can’t turn mechanical chime off though. I’m going to try disconnecting the mechanical chime later and see if I can still use the cams. Now that they’re working I’m suddenly left wanting more and desiring different chimes like our phones offer different ringtones. Lol.

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That’s so weird. I just navigated into the doorbell settings and can confirm that I can hit the Cameras as Chime item without seeing the Fail message (:+1:), and it actually allows me to select cameras to use as accessory chimes. I haven’t yet tested to see if they actually sound, though, and after deselecting all cameras the app continues to demonstrate the bug in the video in my initial post (:-1:). I’ll have to do some testing to see if this new development allows me to turn off the chime feature for a Cam Pan v3 where it’s been stuck on for months (even though the app doesn’t indicate that it’s enabled).
Thanks for the tip!

What happens if you enable Do Not Disturb? I haven’t played with that enough to know if it disables only the physical chime attached to the Chime Controller or if it also disables the “virtual” chimes when cameras are selected for that feature.

Holy it worked. I hit do not disturb and just my cam v3 rang. Awesome cause its not as loud as the mechanical chime which is just how I want it.

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Scratch that. I tried switching from V3 to OG and it doesn’t work that way. I switched back to V3 with do not disturb on and it didn’t work this time. Glitchy.

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Production Release 558
Android 14
Samsung S21 Ultra

Confirmed. As of last night it was still “fail”. Now I see all my eligible cameras. No recent updates.

Will test tomorrow, 9-3, in detail. Family will take away my phone if I keep ringing the doorbell😁.

Promising. Someone at Wyze is working on Labor day.

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@andreporter2, I didn’t know if that’d work or not, but I’m not surprised to learn that it’s glitchy. I appreciate the testing and reporting.

@ronl4625, yeah, I thought about including the app information but neglected to do that earlier. I’m also no longer seeing the “Fail” message in production app v3.0.5.558 on a Motorola moto g7 running Android 10.

I still have to do some testing, because my mechanical chime recently stopped working after months of functioning just fine following the original “normal” Chime Controller installation. Now it’s wired following the “alternate” instructions, and it’s working again…but for how long? :man_shrugging:

I’ve been able to do some more testing while I work through my mechanical chime issue with Wyze, and the testing also involves the “Cameras as Chime” feature. Spoiler: The problems I reported in my initial post continue to be issues. :roll_eyes:

I finally updated my Video Doorbell v2 firmware to 4.51.2.0578 a few days ago (I was able to do a direct update from 4.51.1.8444 to 4.51.2.0379 first; it skipped two updates but required me to get to 4.51.2.0379 before the app offered me 4.51.2.0578), since I’m throwing everything else I can think of at this thing in order to try to get it working normally again. This was after trying other solutions with limited success (and eventual failure) and finally resorting to the alternate wiring method. I figured finally getting the firmware “current” shouldn’t hurt anything and might be only temporary anyway.

Incidentally, the mechanical chime sometimes makes new noises with a doorbell button press, often a “ding-dong” accompanied by a rattle/hum sound from the chime box. Wyze Support said this about it in my ticket:

Please know that the buzzing/clicking sound on the chime is normal when an alternative wiring method is used.

That doesn’t seem “normal” to me, but then I don’t understand why this thing would work with the “normal” wiring for months and then fail, and then changing the wiring to the “alternate” scheme makes it work again (but not in a consistently “normal” way). :man_shrugging:

Anyway, I also updated my problematic (the one I described in my initial post that still chimes twice even though I’ve deselected that camera as an accessory chime) Cam Pan v3’s firmware from 4.50.4.9222 to 4.50.5.0587. I rebooted the camera (even after the automatic restart) and then did some testing:

  1. Confirmed in the Video Doorbell v2’s settings that no cameras were selected for Cameras as Chime.
  2. Selected the problem child Cam Pan v3 as a chime.
  3. Cameras as Chime showed “1 camera” selected. :white_check_mark:
  4. Backed out to main Settings screen to Restart Video Doorbell v2.
  5. Also did Restart of Cam Pan v3 from its Settings.
  6. Confirmed after restarts that Cameras as Chime still showed “1 camera” selected. :white_check_mark:
  7. Went to Customize Cam Pan v3’s Cameras as Chime settings and selected Remove as Chime.
  8. Resulting Cameras as Chime screen showed “No cameras added.” message. :white_check_mark:
  9. Backing out to main Chime settings screen, Cameras as Chime still showed “1 camera” selected. :negative_squared_cross_mark:
  10. Confirmed that it’s still necessary to back out one more screen to the main Settings and then tap back into Chime in order to see Cameras as Chime with a “Not setup” message. :negative_squared_cross_mark:
  11. Performed Restart on Video Doorbell v2 and Cam Pan v3 and again confirmed that Cameras as Chime is “Not setup”. :white_check_mark:
  12. Once I saw that Cameras as Chime was correctly (?) displaying the “Not setup” message, I pressed the doorbell button. After a delay, the Cam Pan v3 made the chime sound. Twice. :negative_squared_cross_mark::negative_squared_cross_mark:

:roll_eyes:

It’s not the end of the world, but this thing—this feature—still isn’t working consistently in the way that I expect as a user: I should be able to reliably turn it off if I can turn it on.

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