An outdoor cam is incredible and all but isn’t a dumb phone to smartphone gamechanger like the original iPhone. Imagine that Wyze eventually introduces a 4K solar-powered Outdoor Cam with support for 5Ghz, WPA3 security with protected management frames, IPv6 and 802.11be support, and compatibility with Apple HomeKit. It’ll still just be an awesome (relatively inexpensive?) camera like the iPhone 22 Pro Max will be just an impressive, relatively expensive smartphone. Why? Because we experience the iPhone 21, 20, 19, and below with full assumption that they’re coming…one day.
No, to be groundbreaking, you come up wth something so unexpected that it’s not considered impossible; it’s just not considered at all. “A phone that is a computer with color and a touchscreen?” So I think Wyze’s biggest product announcement since ??? should be an inexpensive Wi-Fi Mesh Network System. It would either expand wifi across all Wyze and other devices or integrate with the introduction of a new range of Wyze cameras that communicate via wifi mesh. These new Wyze mesh cameras would bring improved stability and speed that is not dependent on their proximity to the router, only to any closest Wyze cam. If I had to really think about it, I’d say this was a gamechanger because it would effectively render most of the forum reported problems obsolete. That’s a small joke, but you get my drift.
I know this technically falls under a “wishlist” category. But I do not impatiently wish for it now as a practical, inexpensive possibility, at least now. It’s a distant hope at best. I’m more so thinking out loud about why new iPhones are so ho-hum these days regardless of how great the actual phones are themselves. I think it’s because Wyze has already changed the world by reimagining overly expensive products into affordable ones. That’s a gamechanger. I just hope one day in the next five (or ten? sigh) years that they break some ground again. But truth be told, I’m quite happy just watching them disrupt one category after another.
Interesting idea. However, IPhone was only a slight tweaking of the Pilots/Treos and color touch sensitive Windows smartphones that long preceded it. The latter were great. IPhones abandoned both the stylus and the ability to run 3rd party apps and took a while to catch up (and of course improve). The only groundbreaking part was polish.
Also, personally I don’t see “good cheap mesh networking”, while a fine product idea that I might want to buy, as something that will turn on the masses.
While the general population can at least appreciate your technologically-niche remembrance of the pre-iPhone era, we historically recognize the practical modern age of smartphones by the advent of the iPhone. In the same sense, outside of niche contexts, the functional modern age of smart bulbs is immediately associated with Philips Hue rather than say the annual tradition of showcasing any generic brand of blinking LED Christmas Lights.
However, you are correct about one thing: “good cheap mesh networking," is a fine product idea that many would want to buy in pursuit of an ideal wireless experience. (The hundreds of poor-quality ZOOM and WEBEX meetings from even the homes of celebrities are unsurprisingly revealing.) So I agree wholeheartedly with you. The iPad, Wyze cam, Philips Hue lights, and heck, even two-form authentication, were groundbreaking before consumers could ever fathom them: “A full-featured 1080p cam for a coupla bucks? What?” So yes, the iPhone did not turn on the masses until Apple birthed it. In the same way, good cheap mesh networking will not turn on the masses either until leaders lead and bring something new like it to them.
It’s unwise to inform Google that Yahoo existed first, to dissuade Wyze because other companies have already made small square-shaped cams that look precisely like it, or to point out to Apple that everyone already has a dumbphone.
Okay, the things you have bought and liked are the groundbreaking products, just as your own post is marked as Solution. Your idea still has merit (not that there aren’t all manner of WiFi offerings).
This is a true story and I don’t have many others like it. The first day/minute Yahoo launched their search engine I was on it, searching. Feedback was being solicited (dont’ remember how) and the people/techs/founders on the other end were impatient/agitated. It was like their stress stunk through the wires. I didn’t stay very long. It was stinky.
Your idea still has merit (not that there aren’t all manner of WiFi offerings).