Okay, but what you are saying simply isn’t applicable:
Update:
After speaking with Wyze, they seemed to really have a hard time understanding my issue. We went in circles trying to explain that I am concerned with the HOTSPOT usage and since the cameras are the ONLY thing on the hotspot, they have to be the culprit of the data usage. After speaking for 1.5 hours and still not being sure they understood, here is what they did say:
- try doing a Factory Reset on the cameras (Tried this several times but it still had the same settings when I set it back up on the app. I wouldn’t think it would remember settings after being reset, if you know, let me know!)
- limit multiple devices. They said that since my total # of live view minutes was on 3 different device/accounts, that the data usage was tripled.
I’m not sure that I understand this as 1. I added the live view minutes up separately from each device (75 minutes from one, 15 from another, 30 from the third). Plus, even if I tripled the 240MB that should have been used, it still falls significantly short of the 1500MB that was actually used.
So I tried to reset the camera and took everyone non essential off of the cameras, although that is still 2 devices/accounts unfortunately.
Also, I have double checked and all recording and notifications are off as well as background usage on the app. We are also making sure that the cameras are turned off between viewing.
We will see if the minutes view starts matching the hotspot data usage a little closer. I think I will check it tomorrow afternoon!
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Hmm, I missed that.
I don’t see how it would be possible for 2 cameras to use 1.5G of data any other way though.
Do you have any way to actually monitor the data usage on the hotspot? Just trusting what verizion tells you might not be the best approach. I have a network monitor on my network, and my wyze cameras use on average about 30 MB a day, with cloud recording and notifications turned on.
Just because the cameras are the only thing you have connected to the hotspot doesn’t mean that they are the only thing using the hotspot. How secure is your wifi password, and how likely is it that a neighbor might have tried to access the hotspot?
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right?! I don’t understand how it is happening either and Wyze has been less than helpful
The hotspot is securely password protected and in a rural location (cattle barn in a pasture) with the closest neighbors being about a half mile away lol.
I’ve been just trusting Verizon as it’s hard to imagine them being wrong, but it is just so hard to believe those cameras could use so much when our viewing minutes don’t warrant it. Is there a way that I could monitor the data on the hotspot? Verizon only gives me a general, overall data usage update. They don’t provide any other information.
Sure, you could front-end the hotspot with your own device, such as a router with decent logging. The cameras could connect to that router instead of the hotspot itself. (If the hotspot doesn’t have an Ethernet port then you’d have to connect differently, maybe as a WiFi bridge.)
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I am having the same problem. With 2 Cam V2 on CAM PLUS plan going through sometime 6.5 GB a day. I can’t figure a setting which stops it. AS I have a separate modem/plan for the 2 cameras I know exactly what the usage is. and I am not even checking it online on a daily base.
I have Purchased 2 separate devices to monitor my network and devices. I used the Fingbox and Firewalla. Both has its pros and cons.
Firewalla is more full featured device and does a good job of monitoring and blocking, Fingbox is more of a monitoring device.
They are inexpensive and something you can try. I also believe Fing provides an app which is free. you can try that first, but you have more control with the actual Fing box.
Just a suggestion if you want to see where your bandwidth is being used. Firewalla will also tell you which countries your devices are reaching out to.
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These are the statistics from my Cellular Data Router (High-End Hotspot)
I have 12 cameras all on Cam-Plus
Today Yesterday This Week Last Week This Period Last Period
Rx Data : 606437 KB 891479 KB 4508723 KB 5637427 KB 15403342 KB 16505508 KB
Tx Data : 10496282 KB 16207784 KB 73076935 KB 52087437 KB 187993705 KB 172229613 KB
Cut and paste from modem above (Can’t get to format correctly)
Usage is all over the place depending on event triggers, Cameras are the only thing on this router.
Lucky to be on a “True” Unlimited plan - FirstNet (by AT&T)
Cam plus sends all data constantly to the cloud, so this is not unexpected. The solution is to not use cam plus.
Example: if you have a 70 KB/s stream running 24 hours a day, it will use 6.05 GB per day.
No, no it doesn’t? It only does it when it detects sound or motion and, only then, starts shipping clips up to the cloud for further analysis and storage. No motion or sound, the upload traffic should be minimal.
Depends on what your motion sensitivity is set to I suppose. I’d assume that an outdoor camera records all sorts of non-people events and sends them to the cloud to be analyzed. (cloud shadows, wind shaking the camera, trees moving, grass moving, etc…) Without cam plus, you are limited to one 12 second recording every 5 minutes going to the cloud. With it, you’re going to get a lot more nuisance recordings eating up data, and there is less incentive to set your sensitivity to a point where the trees and grass don’t trip it constantly…
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Great, so we’ve deduced a workaround for those afflicted with this bandwidth issue - mercilessly tune sensitivity, motion zones, and times of operation, and consider disabling CamPlus.
Update on this:
Before making the changes, the cameras used 1500MB with 120 minutes of watch time in SD. This comes to 12.5MB per minute.
Following the changes (reset cameras, unshared cameras from all devices except one, viewed all in 360p) the camera used 103MB in 11 minutes of watch time in 360p. This comes out to 9.36MB per minute.
Clearly something is still not going well but after several emails to Wyze, no replies.
I might have to check out the app!
@annaehal we have to go back to the beginning here. The entire premise of the thread is based on misinformation and I’m sorry I didn’t catch it sooner. What you were told is wrong. The cameras do NOT use that little!
In HD mode my V2s run about 130 KB/s. In SD mode they run about 60 KB/s. From the forum I know this is fairly typical and probably on the low side. (Even within a particular resolution setting the bitrates run as fast as the processor and network allow, so both can be higher still.) That translates to 7.8 MB per minute and 3.6 MB per minute. That’s not “1-2 MB per minute”!
I have to go down to 360p to even approach the 1-2 MB per minute range. And these are just realtime rates reported in the app before any other overhead (routing, retransmissions, encapsulation). You were misinformed. Your real world results are reasonable for what the cameras actually do.
We’ve wasted each other’s time I’m afraid.
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Really?! I swear I have spoken to Wyze 5+ times about this and every time they have reassured me that the cameras should be using 1-2MB per minute in SD. Although recently our cameras were using 9.36 MB per minute in 360p… I mean, I do think I’ve seen that range of KB/sec on the app so it must be right, but it just seems to high still.
If I was watching in 360p and it was still saying 40KB/sec, wouldn’t that still be 3.6MB per minute? That is higher than the 1-2 range that I was told several times by Wyze… but it is much much lower than the 9.36MB per minute that the cameras actually used following Wyze’s suggested changes. So I still feel like there is something going on . Right?
So is there any way to use less data? Do other camera brands use data the same?
Not quite. Don’t confuse the lower case bits / 8 with the measurements we are talking about now. The app expresses in Bytes per second already. So just multiply by 60 seconds. So your 40KB/s at 360p is 2.4 MB/minute. Still higher but a lot closer to what you were originally told.
As to why they would quote 1-2 MB per minute, I have no idea.
Honestly, for what we’re getting (live high quality video) these rates are not excessive to me. Think about Netflix and how many ISPs had to raise their caps to keep customers from screaming. Video bandwidth is high.
To conserve your bandwidth I’d consider just taking time lapse photos instead. One every 30 seconds might be fine for watching cows? Even one per second is going to be a lot less than what you’re doing now. I haven’t done any time lapse with Wyze but it requires a microSD card.