Anyone experiencing this issue, could you update to the 2.41 app released yesterday and let me know if things have improved at all?
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LOLOL hell no. Location-based rules haven’t worked since… (checks date of my OP) … Mar 2022. Wow a year now.
Read thread above for many details.
In fact, for me the latest release made it worse than ever (YMMV). Whereas I used to get 80% compliance with the rules during a good week, atm I’m seeing more like 15-20%.
My location based rules just do not work, no one from customer service ever gets back to me as promised.
I am extremely frustrated.
I just Googled this issue to see if they’ve ever fixed this problem and found this thread. The location based rules never work for me… they did when I FIRST bought this “new & impoved” v3 camera a couple of years ago, then at some point the feature broke and has never worked properly since. I will never buy their product again, and I actively tell people to avoid Wyze altogether!
I can confirm the location-based rules do not work even partially. I have done all the suggested “fixes”, which are a pain and time-consuming, all for nothing. Even my brand new Floodlight cam pro has no luck. Very frustrating that they are still pushing this as a feature when it has not functioned properly for years.
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I was frustrated by this as well. I have been using IFTTT for my location services and it seems much more reliable. Using it to turn some cameras on/off when I leave home and come back. So far, 100% functionality.
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Is that through the Wyze app though? Or are you using something different to MAKE the Wyze app work?
IFTTT (if this then that) is another web based service. Like Alexa and Google, you grant access to your Wyze account so it can turn devices on and off or monitor sensors and the like. It is in addition to the Wyze app and not a replacement.
I can confirm that I have been using these features for a couple years and have very little issues. The biggest issue is always my phone and how it is handling background applications and whether they can run all the time.
It’s one of my favorite features since it turns on my porch light, brightens the garage lights, unlocks the front door, and turns the thermostat to the HOME profile.
I think it’s important to remember that broke for you is not broke for all. Not to say that you could be having a WYZE related issue… but for every post that says, “this NEVER works”… There are a lot more people who use it and it works just fine. You only hear of the negative in forums.
So, +1 for Location Based rules working as advertised. Pixel 5, Android 14 beta.
-Earl
Thanks Earl, good point!
I recently tried to set up some location-based rules and my first attempt failed miserably. I came here looking for solutions and found a lot of folks having similar issues to me - they just didn’t seem to work. I have two camera groups - inside and outside. I wanted to turn notifications for the inside group off when I came home and on when I left. Seemed simple enough. Created the two rules and next time I came home I was still getting notifications. Checked the log and noticed then every time I left it logged an arrival and departure at the same moment, essentially doing nothing…notifications stayed on no matter what.
Somewhere in my reading I saw someone say that rules that used camera groups didn’t work well. I deleted the rules for the groups and created separate rules for each camera. Voila - my location-based rules are now working perfectly so far for the last few days. I have my fence set to 500 feet because I occasionally drive by my development without actually going home, and this is far enough out from my house to keep from triggering the rules. They have performed as expected for me for a few days now.
I’m not here to bash the folks having problems or saying I don’t believe you - because I had the same initial experience. Just wanted to share a solution that worked for me. I only have three cameras in each group, so this wasn’t a huge burden (I created separate rules for each camera rather than trying to put multiple cameras in each rule - I may play with this a bit more to see if I can simplify it further). If you have many this may not be for you.
YMMV, but wanted to share what worked for me.
Thanks,
Gary
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Just as a follow up…I’m using iOS v16.1.1 on an iPhone 11. Wyze app v 2.45.5 (2) in case this helps anyone.
Thanks Gary! Good info.
I haven’t seen that but it seems to be a good catch. The rules that fail for me tend to be camera groups. Right now I have on/off rules setup for some indoor cameras (a group of plugs.) I’ll see if they work that way, If not, going to try rules for individual plugs.
Thanks for posting this.
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Speaking as the OP of this particular thread, I totally believe those who say it works for them. Why I myself have seen location triggers work flawlessly for as many as 8-10 days straight before returning to their normal status of “I’ll work when I say so and not when you say so.” FWIW I don’t use groups – merely trying to get the baseline feature to work reliably.
It’s clear that for the majority of Wyze Cam users, location triggers are flawed in ways that are not fixable. I’ve been lazy about it, but I intend to achieve real goals using ifttt going forward, as already suggested, and of course also getting a good camera system.
If you can honestly say that location triggers have worked, let’s say, 95% of the time for a period of 3 straight months, then I’m happy for you – buy more Wyze by all means. I’m done, and my advice stands: buyer beware of cheap hobby products.
I think it’s important to note that you are leaving out a MAJOR component to how this works… Phone Hardware and Phone OS’s all have different GPS characteristics and quirks. Have you ever seen Google Maps say that you aren’t where you say you are? Had to reboot your phone or kill the app?
The problem here is Wyze has to rely on the GPS information from the phone, and how it listens/queries it from the Operating System on the phone. Apple is at least consistent OS/Hardware. Android is like a Smurf village.
And then you have Wyze trying to write code to deal with the phones and their quirks.
I think certain phones handle this stuff better than others. Double-check all your application settings for the Wyze app to remain in the background and background access to your Location. That is key to how well it will work. Android 14 makes it real easy to see permissions, I assume Apple does the same these days (and probably did it better first).
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Check the thread. Been there done all that (iPhoneX), since I started this thing over a year ago (lots of time to explore). One of the first things I did was to make sure the phone knew exactly where I was. Apple in the old days was good at mislocating me. Like 5-10 years ago. These days the hardware can locate me accurately even without cell service to provide directions.
“Double-check all your application settings for the Wyze app to remain in the background and background access to your Location.” →read thread.
I’ve seen nothing new on this thread that I haven’t exhaustively tried, as have others I think. And, Wyze stopped corresponding with me very soon after I submitted the initial required tickets. It was clear they had nothing.
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Hi Gary. I have two rules that define a Location Trigger: one for Exit and on for Enter. Both are set similar to yours with a 500 ft fence around my home address. I am not using groups, rather, I I have an Action defined for each camera I want affected. IOW, my Exit location trigger lists six cameras separately with desired Action steps (i.e. turn on camera, turn on motion detection) and the Enter trigger has six cameras listed separately with appropriate Actions. A question I have is: are you creating a separate Rule / Trigger for each camera?
Thank you
You have a good point. In my case I am using is a Samsung Galaxy S23+ which should be considered a premier phone under the Android umbrella. Nothing jail broken and OS updates applied. My GPS seems to work fine for everything else. I would think that device with latest versions of Android would be one Wyze codes towards. I implemented every step Wyze recommended with no real success (triggers rarely work). After months and months of trying to work with Wyze support they conceded it is an issue they would fix it. That was a long, long time ago. I don’t think it is close to a priority to fix.
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It has never worked for me; currently on iPhone iOS 18 and I’ve enabled location sharing with Wyze app for “Always”. I have to use IFTTT to get the desired behavior and that always works properly.