Device Settings on Camera vs. Rules - Which Wins?

Hi!

I am using a Wyze Cam V2 with latest firmware and app on a Samsung S7 using Android 8.0.0.

Let me first describe what I am trying to do and then I will describe my questions. We have a somewhat irregular schedule at home, My wife watches our kids during the day 3 days a week (plus we are home on the weekends) and the house is empty the other 2 days during the workday. So, I want the app to alert me to both record movement and notify me of movement from 8am to 4 pm on the days when we are not home and on all other days (including the days my wife is home and the weekends) both record movement and notify me of movement from 11pm to 6am.

So, in the device settings, I see event recording which has a schedule option but only times for all days and the detects motion toggle. Under notifications I see a send notifications toggle and a person toggle and a all motion toggle. Then under rules, I see a rule for turning motion detection off at a start time and end time and days of week, so I thought this would allow me to for example turn off motion detection from 6am to 11pm on only the days we are home and that would in turn disable the recording of the movement and thus there would be no notifications (assuming I had event recording toggle on in camera settings and notifications for persons and movement toggles on also in camera settings). That hasn’t worked as expected and I’m still getting notifications all day when someone walks by. Is there a bug or am I doing something wrong?

Also, more generally, in the cases of camera settings vs. rules, which setting “win” or which settings override one another?

Thank you in advance for your help!!!

This is the type of questions that a user group can’t really answer. It depends on how the app is coded. We can all speculate but it’s all guesswork until you see the sources. You’re better off asking Wyze support.

The rules should override things because they basically just change what your previous setting was.

So, if I start with my notifications turned ON in the camera’s settings, then I set a schedule rule to turn the notifications OFF at 6pm, I’ll be able to go back into the camera’s settings after 6pm and see that the settings now say that the camera notifications are OFF. So it’s not so much that rules “override” settings, per se – it’s that the rules SET the settings. Does that make sense?

By the way, if the rule is to turn something on or off, I’d probably do that as two separate rules rather than one rule with a “duration”. So, a rule to turn it off at 6pm and a rule to turn it on at 11am. The logic is a little weird/unpredictable otherwise. For example, what happens if you manually decide to turn notifications on when they’re supposed to be off? Will it retain your new setting until the duration is over? Will it immediately switch it back off, since that’s what the schedule says? Will it stay on until it decides to randomly check in with the server, at which point the server realizes it’s supposed to be off? Will it change it if the camera or app restarts? (I actually don’t know. I haven’t tested all these scenarios in Wyze, but since it’s a weird way to write logic, I wouldn’t be surprised if any of these scenarios were true)

It’s just a weird way to write logic to me. (Durations for on/off behavior) If it’s two rules – one that turns something on at a specific time, one that turns something off at a specific time, it’s much easier to follow logically and predict the behavior.

The “duration” rules are more useful for behaviors that should be triggered every time they occur during certain timeframes but not others, for example.

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Thank you very much and for the background on how the rules/settings! I’ve setup the alerts as you described with two separate rules rather then one rule with duration and will let you know how it goes! Thanks again for your help!

I wouldn’t expect alerts during the day if you have a rule set to turn off motion detection from 6A-11P on the days you are home. I agree with breaking them down into two separate rules (‘off’ at 6AM and ‘on’ at 11PM) because the start/stop times are new and there may be a bug.

If you find breaking them down into two separate rules fixes your problem, please report the bug to support.

To answer your question about camera settings vs. rules, who wins:

An event recording schedule will override a positive “detects motion” setting (camera will not record motion if outside the schedule’s hours, even if detects motion is on.)

Conversely, a negative “detects motion” setting will override the schedule (detects motion can turn off recording during scheduled hours).

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