Here’s how I interpret the situation from a more personal responsibility perspective (which has really improved my life overall… Though I totally accept others having a different opinion or perspective):
My understanding is that when we link any smart devices to Alexa, it then gets access to nearly everything that device has the ability to communicate (because we approved for Alexa to do this) and Amazon is just taking advantage of that. I don’t think Wyze really had much to do with the email or they would’ve made sure to recommend the correct battery. Amazon is totally guessing based on history algorithms, not based on accurate information. Everything involved here indicates that the AWS issue probably contributed to a false battery level status issued by many of Wyze’s sensors. Since we gave Alexa permission to monitor all activity by our devices (by us linking our Wyze account to Amazon and agreeing to the Alexa terms and conditions agreement that they can monitor all our activity), when they saw a battery notification come in, Amazon decided to send us spam ostensibly as a “helpful notice” all on their own… And they screwed up… But it worked, lots of people ordered V1 batteries, other social media has people saying they believed Amazon’s recommendation.
If Wyze was getting a cut out of it or actively participated in this, I’d at least expect it to link to the correct battery or that they’d have it link to newly for sale batteries on their own site rather than a bunch of 3rd parties and wrong batteries. Wyze may have some responsibility here (protection against false notifications built into their code somehow), but I’d say most of the blame is on Amazon (for their AWS crash), then us (for actively agreeing to let Alexa data collect everything on our devices and the data, and some people trusting Amazon without checking the battery personally), then Amazon again for spamming us and giving false information, then lastly and least would be Wyze (they could’ve chosen a different partner or done it themselves or coded something to prevent false battery status… It only happened with V2’s, not V1s so there must be something that could’ve been done differently since it didn’t happen to V1 sensors).
So yes, Wyze has some accountability here, though so does everyone else, including us, ourselves. We wouldn’t have received those emails from Amazon if we hadn’t approved for Alexa to spy on us as they wish and do it. Our society does value blaming over taking responsibility though. Wyze is not perfect either, but as corporations go, Wyze has always been one of the most forthright in my experience. I don’t always agree with them, but I appreciate how much more communication and transparency we do get compared to most others.
I would expect Wyze to look for a fix to prevent future battery notification issues, Amazon to send a retraction and apology and offer returns, refunds, mailing labels, etc for the mistaken orders, and us to realize we approved Alexa access to spy on us and gave access to our Wyze data voluntarily… And us to realize we trusted Amazon over looking for ourselves or asking Wyze what the correct battery is (for those of us who screwed up).
That’s how I see it… But I’ve come to try taking personal responsibility counter to convention. I am totally accepting of anyone who has different opinions or interpretations of the situation… But taking in everything as a whole while including my own choices, allows me some peace and to feel that reasonable responses (as discussed in the previous paragraph) are totally acceptable. I can always stop using Alexa or Wyze if I feel they betray me, but so far I don’t think they’ve come close to crossing that line for me.
