I just got the Wyze Cam V3 and updated the firmware. I bought a new Sandisk 32GB microSD card. I bought this to record continuously overnight. I loaded the Wyze app, set up the camera properly, chose the settings I wanted, and started recording. I did successfully do some short continuous recordings.
However, if I leave the Wyze app screen while I am in the continuous recording mode (I don’t close it) and I do anything else (for example, even answer an incoming phone call), the recording stops. Is this normal? If so, the result is that I can’t do anything else on my phone if I want to do continuous recording. Is there a work around? I did not understand this limitation when I bought the camera. I thought if I bought the microSD card, I could do continuous recordings - set it up and it would start, go back in to the app and stop it when I wanted the recording to end. That’s why I bought this camera. Thanks.
I think you have a lack of understanding. It sounds like you are looking at a camera, and press the “Record” button. That is recording live to your phone - not to the uSD card. That will be result in the what you describe.
To record to the uSD card, select the gear in the upper right corner for settings, then select Advanced settings. At the top of that page, turn on the switch for “Record to MicroSD Card”. Below that is a setting for “Continuous” or “Events Only”.
Thank you for your reply. I had gone into the Settings (gear symbol at top of Live Stream screen) → Advanced Settings. There I have the following enabled:
Record to MicroSD card
Continuous recording is selected
Auto (night vision)
Camera Status Light - on
Show Timestamp - on
Show Wyze Logo - on
Record Sound - on
Then I backed out of that until I returned to the live stream window. The red light is on when I am back in the live stream window. However, no recording starts until I hit the Record button (I checked my playback videos in the Albums.
Is there another way to start the continuous recording so I can use some other functions on my phone? I must be missing it if there is. Thanks.
OK. So I see the playback window and the “ruler” underneath that I can move back and forth. However, the video does not seem to be stored in a file in the “Albums”.
You are still missing it. The “Record” button is a local recording TO YOUR PHONE. The fact that when you went back to the main camera page, the red light was on, tells us that you were in that record mode.
Recording to the uSD card and the local phone recording with the Record button are not related in any way, shape, or form.
Based on your settings and statement, you are set to continuous recording to the uSD card when you indicated that you could see the timeline and recorded video. uSD card recordings are viewed via the “View Playback” at the bottom of the cameras main page. You can also remove the uSD card so you can plug into a computer to either view or copy the video files. Lastly, you CAN while viewing playback start a local recording to your phone by selecting the record button - which will record the playback video to your phone in real time. That will give you a copy on your phone.
Are there any teal areas in the playback timeline? The teal area is marking whee continuous recording is available. Put the marker over the teal area and the recorded video at that time should play. This is where you view your continuously recorded video, this is stored in the SD card in the camera itself. If your in the “album” your in the wrong area to view your continuous SD card footage. The “album” is the right place to see your manually saved video and stills, which you stated you were using above with the manual record and manually take photo button on the live view page. And again, the manual record buttons are not the “continuous recording” function that your looking for.
With the “Record to MicroSD Card” enabled and set to Continuous, the cam will automatically record 24\7 to the SD Card. Even with the app minimized or closed, even with your phone off, even with your phone on another continent, even if the WiFi fails. So long as the cam has continuous power it will save video continuously to the SD Card.
The only way to access SD Card Video Footage in the app is to view it by pressing the View Playback bar at the bottom of the Live Stream or the Playback SD Card icon at the bottom of the Event Viewer screen. All video is read directly from the SD Card in the cam. It is not transfered to or saved on your phone.
The Album will only contain images and videos you manually save there when you press the “Record” button or the take a “Photo” snapshot button when viewing the SD Card Video in the app. It will also contain any video clips or snapshots you download from the Events Viewer (these come from the Wyze Cloud Server) and any Time Lapse Videos you program and complete. The Album videos and photos ARE saved in the default Media Gallery folder on your phone under a Wyze directory.
Everyone above has done a pretty good job of explaining the two different types of recording (which admittedly can be a bit confusing). But let me see if I can separate the two types for you:
Recording what you’re watching to your phone’s album:
(this is what you were doing originally) What does this record? This records only what you’re watching live on your phone. How do I set it up? Press the Record button while viewing video. Where does the recording go? It goes to your phone’s internal album. How do I view it? Press the Album button in the Wyze app, or go to your phone’s photo storage.
Record to the camera’s internal microSD card:
(this is what you are trying to do) What does this record? Records what the camera sees, whether your phone is on or not. How do I set it up? You set it up in the camera’s Advanced settings after microSD installed in camera. Where does the recording go? It is stored on the camera on the microSD card. How do I view it? You press the View Playback button at the bottom of the live stream page (with the phone in portrait orientation). You will see a timeline under the video that you can scroll through, with green areas indicating where video has been recorded.
I want to thank everyone for your knowledge and the time you took to explain things. Now I think I understand how things work. I did see the “teal” colored area on the one screen and moved around in the area to see the video. I admit that I didn’t understand what it was until it was explained to me here. I will play with this info tomorrow.
Two questions:
If I want to only record at night, can I have the camera set to continuous record but use the app to turn the camera on and off?
If I record several nights by turning the camera on and off, will all of the recordings be in one file on the uSD card or several files (I can test this tomorrow too)?
Yes, or you can set up a rule to turn the camera on or off automatically. You’ll want to set up a “scheduled rule” to do this
Continuous recording saves one minute clips to the SD card, in folders for each hour. If you watch them via the playback in the app they play one after another and you can’t tell it’s one minute clips playing back to back though.
I also use 32GB SD cards in my cameras. I never turn them off and get about 3 days of continuous recording videos before the cameras over-write the oldest SD card files. For me 3 days is enough for me to go back and grab what I want to save.
Also, with Cam Plus Or Lite you get cloud videos stored for 14 days in addition to what is on your SD cards.
The timeline will always show all 24 hours. It is a static timeline for every minute of the day.
If you turn the cams off during the day using the App buttons, the SD won’t record during the day. So what you will see on the timeline is teal coloring during the night hours when it did record and no coloring (white) during the daytime when it didn’t record. Every teal band represents recorded video on the SD Card.
And then when playing back from the app, if you’ve only recorded at night, you will see white (blank) areas on the timeline for the daytime hours with “no video at the selected time” displayed and you will see green on the playback timeline during the hours that you were recording.
