I have a “shop” which is 30 feet by 40 feet and normal height. It’s made from all metal – steel frame and metal roof and wall panels. It’s got two double-wide garage doors and four windows. I have a V4 camera mounted on the outside of the front wall pointing away from the building and a V4 camera mounted on the outside of the rear wall pointing away from the building. Both cameras work fine.
I have a V3 camera and a V4 camera inside my metal building. The cameras usually show that they are both offline, although one occasionally shows online. But not often. When they show offline, they still detect motion and record, but they don’t notify me. I have moved both cameras to many, many different locations inside the shop, trying to get them to work properly. And I have switched cables and power supplies and electrical outlets. I can open one of the garage doors and set one of the cameras just outside the opened door and it works OK. Bring it inside and I have the same issues. This has been going on for a very long time.
My wifi was extended from my house to my shop, which is about 80 feet from my house with my router being on the other end of the house. Someone did this for me and I don’t know what they used. I know they put some sort of receiver inside my metal building to support my cameras. The two cameras mounted outside work fine. Inside – not so much.
I don’t believe it’s a camera problem. It looks like the problem is caused by the cameras being inside a metal building. Has anyone seen this camera behavior before?
The metal building should actually give you excellent wifi assuming there is an access point inside, which it sounds like there is, but maybe not. RF can be fickle so there is always that edge case where some perfect reflection of signal could actually be causing interference, but it’s very rare.
So to clarify, you have a router in the house, but from there what is the link to the shop like, is there anything on the house pointed toward the shop, anything on the shop pointed toward the house, and anything inside the shop?
Do other wifi devices like your phone work ok in the shop or does it switch over to cellular?
The question is, how did they “extend” it? Assuming you have a router in the main house, and another router within the shop, how does the shop router connect to the main house router? A long network cable? Wireless? If wireless, did they use a special focused transmitter pair?
Thanks for the reply. Yes there is something in the attic of my house (closest point to the shop) that I’m guessing is pointed at the shop and something in the shop (at the closest point to the house) that I’m guessing is pointed at the house. I will take a picture of what was put in the shop tomorrow and post it. I haven’t checked to see if my phone switches to cellular. I’ll also check it tomorrow. But please keep in mind that all 4 cameras work off that remote receiver inside the shop and the 2 outside ones always stay connected. But not the 2 inside ones.
I’m sorry, but I don’t know much about routers and extenders and such. That’s why I had someone else extend my wifi to the shop. It is wireless. I will try to post a picture of the shop part tomorrow.
From your description, I think you have some sort of mesh network. It’s a kind of network arrangement where both of your routers are logically working as one main router. With such a setup, however, sometimes devices attempt to connect to the router, which is farther away. That explains why your inside-the-shop cameras are sometimes offline.
You’d need to talk to the person who extended your network, to bind the misbehaving cameras to the shop router.
The two outside cams are likely connected to your home router or maybe the extender in the attic.
Does the wifi in the shop use a diffferent network name than the house, maybe they’re connected to the wrong one, then when you close it up, they can’t get a signal.
The ideal setup for your situation, which I’ve done for many people, is a dedicated point to point wifi link between house and shop (which may be what you have), then the “receiver” on the outside of the shop is cabled to the access point inside the shop. But a lot of people try to do this using standard access points or range extenders which can create a lot of conflicts in the wifi network, and still won’t penetrate the metal walls, that portion has to be cabled.
If your shop is on the same electrical circuit as your house, your may be able to use powerline Ethernet to get internet from your house to the shop more reliably.
As a quick check, take your phone in your house and check for WIFI signal/connections. You may already know this info. Then do the same in your shop with doors closed and perhaps near a non connecting camera.
Compare signal strength and make sure both are reasonably strong signals and that ,yes, you can connect to the Internet. Both MUST be on the same WIFI name and passwords.
If you can get Internet on your phone but the network ID and/or password are different, you need to reconfigure those inside shop cams to that other network.
If both house and shop are on the same SSIDs (network name) and passwords, welcome to the mystery WYZE non-connectivity club. We’ve been on 3 different Internet providers, 4 different router and extender systems and all our V3 cam connections have progressively become worse, even with multiple bars of signal strength.
One last dumb question, Are you on the free WYZE account or paying a monthly subscription?
I have 14 cameras in use, 10 around the house and 4 in/around the shop. I have always been satisfied with my cameras, and I’m still satisfied. I don’t believe this is a camera problem or even a Wyze connectivity problem. The wifi in the shop uses the same name and password as the wifi in the house as far as I can tell. When I’m in the shop and I bring up wifi on my phone, I just see the one network. My Alexa echo dot seems to work fine in the shop, but I rarely use it out there so I can’t be sure. And my Wyze smart plug seems to work out there too. I’m on Cam Plus Unlimited.
My iPhone shows a strong wifi signal while I’m inside my garage and while I’m walking out to the shop and at the signal receiving device inside the shop and (mostly) while I’m walking around inside the shop. A couple of times, it switched to 5G, only for a couple of seconds, and then switched back to wifi.
My router is provided by my internet provider. It works well inside the house and is on the north end of my house and the garage is on the south end. The shop is about 100 feet south of the garage. There is a cable going from my router up into the attic and over the garage. It is connected to a device with a U on it. In the shop, there are a couple of devices that I assume are the things the U device talks to. One is a Trendnet device. I can’t tell what the other one is. This setup was done several years ago and I have had the problem for at least the last year or two, maybe longer. And by the way, both cameras just recorded me walking around in the shop testing the wifi signal while both cameras are showing as Offline (in red) on my list of devices in the app.
Please note that I don’t consider this a huge problem. It just finally popped up as the next thing I need to work on. I read this Wyze forum every day and I’m truly amazed at the depth of knowledge of so many forum contributors. I’m happy to try anything you suggest and to answer any questions you might have.
I don’t know enough to change to/from anything. It’s set to whatever the guy set it to when he set it up years ago. I have changed my internet password, but that’s all.
The two “U” devices are a Ubiquiti point to point wireless link, which is good. The issue is the remote one (second U in your 3rd picture) in the shop is sitting behind a metal wall and not mounted outside or even up high. I’m not sure if it fell off something or what, but that’s definitely not where it should be. It needs to be where it can get pretty clear line of sight to the first U device in your attic.
Those U devices are directional, not super focused but the faces need to be pointing at each other without metal in between them. They can work through a window or wood (not ideal but should be fine) but only if you can get them pointed at each other through those things. It looks like that would be hard to do unless the window next to the regular door in the shop has a view to where the first device is in your attic.
That’s going to be your issue, when devices in the garage are connected to the Trendnet access point, they think they have a very strong signal, but in reality that trendnet has a very poor connection back to the house, maybe enough to operate a smart plug, but probably not enough for a video stream or anything like that.
If you can get that device somewhere that it has a better signal back to the house (has a signal meter right on the back) then you’ll probably eliminate all your issues in the shop.
To put it another way, think of those two U devices as a virtual cable between the trendnet shop wifi and your ISP router. Right now that cable has been cut almost completely in the middle, but luckily fixing it is relatively easy.
The U device in the shop did not fall, it was screwed in place. Here’s what I see. Another small U device is plugged into an outlet. It has 2 (ethernet?) ports on it. A yellow ethernet wire goes between the U device that should be outside and this small U device. And a white ethernet wire goes between the Trendnet device and this small U device. These devices are just inside the shop, on the left side of the garage door. I could fairly easily disconnect the U device that should be outside and mount it on the outside wall just left of the garage door, and run the 2 wires (ethernet and power) thru the metal wall and connect them to where they are plugged in right now.
You said my current setup “has a very poor connection back to the house, maybe enough to operate a smart plug, but probably not enough for a video stream or anything like that.” That makes sense. I have 4 cameras in/around the shop, 2 inside and 2 outside. Do you believe the camera that is located on the outside front of the shop is getting it’s wifi signal from the house or from the shop? It is about 75 feet from the router to the garage and another 100 feet from the garage to the front of the shop where the camera is mounted. That seems real far. And the camera that is behind the shop is another 75 feet from the front of the shop. Both of these cameras work fine and stay connected. They both seem to be too far from the router to get a good signal, and yet both stream video and stay connected.
