Disappointed in duo cam doorbell

Great story. :grinning:

Ah, okay, so then…

…isn’t entirely accurate, because…

:wink:

This is where I’d want to grab my multimeter and start investigating, but I’m fairly curious and very stubborn. :grin:

2 Likes

If it’s missing the doorbell and the chime, it’s probably missing the transformer also? I’d check that also. And look at the breakers to see if that circuit is off.

That’s a good point. It’s a simple, basic thing, but I can imagine myself overlooking that.

1 Like

In this case, @seanryanjones may(should?) want to have the breaker off anyway since they are working with exposed wires and especially if they don’t know the status of all the wiring. Transformer missing maybe? Wires shorted at the chime location maybe?

1 Like

Yeah, that’s when I’d want to crank up the ol’ Mystery Machine Multimeter and try to solve the case, Scoob! :grin:

If the wiring is present, then even an inexpensive meter can help figure out if the wires are intact and which runs lead where. It’s a good thing to have as a first step for carefully testing exposed wire ends when trying to determine what breaker to throw, too. I picked one up once thinking that maybe I’d use it for testing batteries, and over time it’s become an essential tool for me when working on projects like this.

2 Likes

This situation reminds me of the Richard Pryor movie where he is moving into a house and everything was ripped out, including the pool.

The other curious statement. This situation hasn’t changed since 2009?

1 Like

And I’m disappointed in this thing for a completely different reason. I just hooked it up via “hard wired” and now I’m finding out it wont ring my in house chime unless I buy a chime dongle??? And oh nooooo, its not that simple, you cant just buy a $10 chime dongle, you have to buy a whole V2 doorbell to get one? Please, am I missing something? I might just send this thing back cause right now when the doorbell rings every single wyze device starts freaking out, the tv gets a popup saying loading wyze but its never successful. I’m still looking into this, it might be an alexa thing but my wife (god forbid) I interupt her tv show on right now.

I feel it’s pretty clear now (post-release) that they only intended to support customers that want to upgrade to this new cam and already have a V2 chime dongle. Doing so (supporting an upgrade path) makes sense. What makes absolutely no sense is assuming that no NEW customers will want this functionality and actually stating in a support article that you have to buy a different version of the product to obtain a necessary “$5” accessory.

The fact that they didn’t make this clear nor speak to if/when they will be available is pretty standard Wyze. A company that, IMO, has long been in a desperate need of an internal “customer advocate czar” type position that has the authority and focus on ensuring all product releases are thoroughly tested, released with all necessary components/accessories available, and responding quickly to new product issues as a priority.

Case in point with the same product. When will additional Wi-Fi Chimes be available? “Oh, maybe in December if everything goes to plan.” (Years of experience with Wyze tells us nothing ever goes to Wyze’s “plans”…) :face_exhaling:

By the way, if you have the Alexa integration enabled for your Wyze account, the doorbell announcements start working automatically when you setup the device in the Wyze App. Go to the Alexa App, select Devices, select the Wyze doorbell, select Settings. Then turn off “Doorbell Press Announcements”.

Does it not ring the chime when it’s hard wired? The chime controller is for the v2 doorbell, not the duo.

Hardwired instructions:

No breaker issues. I’ll try to find the transformer!

1 Like

Ha!!! Well from 2009 until last year, i had a chrap wireless doorbell from Amazon. Last year bought a mubview video doorbell. I have a bunch of wyze cameras, and when i saw this offered continuous recording, i went for it.

1 Like

Yeah, exactly, thats what I was expecting being hard wired… nope, nothing on the in house chime and I told it hard wired during setup. I just found this from wyze confirming I need one but I only found it cause I was looking for it which I wasn’t looking for it before I owned it.

Ill probably just send it back. Too much hassle.

Despite what the FAQ says, I don’t believe that’s entirely accurate. If you poke around in the Forum, you’ll find reports of Video Doorbell v2 users successfully using their products without the Chime Controller (usually out of frustration after attempts at several wiring schemes with it), and now there’s at least one report of a new Duo Cam Doorbell user having the product installed and working without the Chime Controller:

Given this information, it appears that the Chime Controller isn’t strictly necessary for the new doorbell, either. :man_shrugging:

Yeah, that part of the release is ridiculous and demonstrates a lack of planning, especially if they had the verbiage ready to go in the new product installation FAQ. It’s something I commented on with my first post in the announcement topic:

Although Duo Cam Doorbell is reported to work without the Chime Controller, I suspect this kind of installation is likely not recommended or supported by Wyze for the same reason they recommend installing the Chime Controller for Video Doorbell v2 even if the in-house chime is broken. That’s just speculation on my part, though.

Just an update, I sent mine back. Not only was there the chime issue, but my doorbell kept saying package detected and there was nothing there. I removed the welcome mat on the porch and the detections stopped. Not dealing with that.

I have a Duo that I’m still testing, mainly to determine how long I can expect the battery to last. It’s within 3 feet of the router.

Today it suddenly disconnected. Resetting from the app didn’t work. Nor trying to reboot. Curiously, pressing the button still activates the WiFi chime, but there’s no picture.

The only way to make it work again is to remove the battery. Not looking good.

Edit -

After running out of ideas, I rebooted all the routers, and that seemed to fix this problem.

I have a mesh and I manually assigned cameras closer to the nearest nodes. I have been doing this regularly for sometime and it works in my case. But for some reason, it messed up the router’s DHCP table and if affected this Duo.

2 Likes

There’s seven feet to the WiFi node at my home and I think when the battery gets less than 50% it will randomly show being disconnected.
2 batteries should come standard on these, as they don’t last long, can’t be charged quickly and reducing the identification/notifications hasn’t helped. Having an extra battery already charged means you can swap and get going quickly, but if I go away for vacation for a week, I don’t think this will last until I return.
My street gets plenty of foot and auto traffic. Maybe it’s still operating/acting in some way even though I turned off those notifications.
It’s colder now with winter temperatures, and maybe that is contributing, but the smaller cameras haven’t had this short-life issue, even in the winter.
I would love to know how this is supposed to be setup so it can last on battery.
So far, I haven’t found a settings mix that gets this to last a week +.
I want package notifications but having to swap batteries and charge constantly is not making this seem convenient or very helpful.

There has been a new firmware released after my post. The Duo seems to be working. I have no issues since then.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 90 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.