Clarity over saving/playing back recordings to base and outdoor cams

Cameras
#1

Over the last few days i’ve tried to work out with support on how exactly I get my 2 outdoor cams to backup to the base, and ultimately prove the data is there, by playing back, whats been saved TO the base.
Tickets: 2299965, 2299662, 2296610, 2294782

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion on what works and how.

Firstly, the sdcard in the base MUST not be anything but a 32GB.
Now although the site now sells a 128GB card and implies it WILL work, it simply doesn’t. Also, other sizes of cards “MAY” work… but haven’t. At least not with my rig.

Support seems to flip back and forth and really needs to have knowledge transfers on what should be told to the public and what shouldn’t.
In the above for example, we spent hours realizing that I cant use my 256GB card in the base and that i’d need 32GB. I then immediately went to their site to purchase it, when I saw that 128GB cards are now available. I asked about this to the tech and they confirmed the base now works with that!
So I bought it.

When that didn’t work the new tech said it doesn’t work with anything other than 32GB in the base.

Now I have a 32GB in the base, 128GB in one outdoor cam, and 256GB in the other.
All seem to recognize the existence of their respective cards and enabling backup to the base is now available and set on both cams.

Now after a day of capturing events I’d like to prove things are working as expected.

How do I verify data has been backed up to the base, and how do I view it?

As for the cameras, in order to view the backed up data, i’m assuming I would open that cam then choose More/Album and see the saved recordings. But theres nothing there. Just 4 empty placeholders for “photos”, “videos”, “time-lapse” and “scheduled recordings”

But then how do I play back what was recorded on the base?

I love the idea of these wireless cams, but if they aren’t backing up to the base, once someone walks away with the entire cam, they have a brick, but with possibly the only data that was recorded (if it was recorded there at all)

Any clarity on this process would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers
Ty

#2

Hey, sorry about your experience with support, and thanks for the ticket numbers!

So the Back Up To Base is NOT available when using Cam Plus. Cam Plus Lite is fine though. As for size, I think 32 is the only working one, though will have to confirm. You can only view recordings that were backed up by manually removing the sd card and inserting it into your computer.

For the card in the outdoor battery cams, not sure of the size, but since its a battery cam the SD card is only used for manually initiated time-lapses or scheduled recordings. These are found in the album page. Continuous recording is NOT available on the battery models.

However, with Cam Plus Lite (Free) you can get 12 seconds with 5 min cooldown cloud event videos that will be in your Events tab in the app. Those dont require an sd card. With Cam Plus (1.25 a month yearly) you can get 5 min cloud recordings with no cooldown. This also will be in the cloud safely, with no need for an SD card.

The base sd card backs up these cloud events locally if you want.

You can subscribe to cam plus or cam plus lite on services.wyze.com, and then apply the licenses in the Account > Services tab on the app.

#3

@Antonius Can you confirm the sd card size info? Dont use SD cards in mine.

#4

The SD cards in the Base and the WCO cameras must be in the FAT32 format, 64, 128, 256GB cards come formatted as exFAT and will only work in the V3 and maybe some other wired plug in cameras, Not the WCO. I used a 64GB card in a WCO formatted in FAT32 and it worked ok. Back up to the base is not compatible with Cam Plus but it does work with CP Lite. You have to remove the SD and view in a PC or device with a card reader. Since most video events backed up to the base are normally 1 to 1.5 MB or smaller a 32GB card works just fine, (1000 MB per GB), how many videos do you need. :grin:
If you do scheduled event recording to the WCO SD the files will appear in the cam album, you have to download to your device to save or view. I have CP lite and Scheduled event recording on some cams.

Base SD
Base SD750×1334 45.4 KB

SR
SR750×1334 227 KB

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#5

That’s what I thought, thanks for confirming :smiley:

#6

Thank you Antonius
Very informative

1 Like
#7

Thanks for the clarification, IEatBeans

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#8

Why have SD c!rds in the outdoor cameras at all, if all they are going to record is scheduled recordings? This insane limitation was not included in the sales info. These cameras are really useless without a subscription. If power goes out, you lose all surveillance, even though they are battery powered. Dumb!!!

#9

Dumb? If the power goes out of course the cam can not connect to the base and you can’t see the cam. I have not tried recording to the SD in the cam with the base disconnected but I have turned off cloud event recording on the cams while doing scheduled event recording and they will record events to the SD with Event recording off.

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