I currently have both myself and my fiance setup in friendly faces, but I haven’t actually enabled it to record/notify either for either one of us in the app. I’m wondering if friendly faces still works in the background to reduce notifications or something like that? Because she was in the back yard a few minutes ago and despite the motion tracking lighting up and clearly recognizing she was there, the camera didn’t record or send any notifications at all. So I’m wondering if it maybe recognized it was her and therefore didn’t trigger a detection event?
No, that is extremely unlikely what happened. Friendly faces will not override your other notification settings. You would still have to purposely deselect the other notification options in the camera first to ensure that none of those trigger a notification. If your settings still have other things selected like “Person” then you should still get a notification whether a person’s face was recognized or not.
That’s concerning, and at this point it’s a pattern with these Wyze cameras. It seems like they routinely just stop detecting/recording/notifying me of events for whatever reason and require a restart in order to regain full functionality. It’s not the camera either because it’s been happening with multiple v4s now and a pan cam v3. It’s on the software side and is just a huge, glaring hole in the reliability of Wyze and their products. I know it’s not just me either, the forums and reddit make it clear I’m not the only one with these issues.
Your description of the events has me wondering about a couple of things:
- When you wrote “motion tracking lighting up”, did you actually mean the Motion Tracking feature of Cam Pan v3, or did you mean that you could see the green Motion Tagging boxes that appear on screen when the camera detects enough pixel changes in an area to interpret that as motion?
- How do you have your Detection, Event Recording, and Notifications (and, specifically, the Customize Recordings screen under those last two) set?
What you described in your initial post seems like it could be the normal and expected behavior for your camera, depending on how it’s configured.
Sorry for the lack of clarity on my part!
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The motion tagging box is what I was referring to. The camera clearly knew she was there was there.
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My notifications are on, event recording is set to smart detection only for people, pets, and packages.
The only way this would be “normal” behavior, I believe, is if friendly faces somehow works in the background to prevent notifications for people it knows. I thought maybe it was a feature rather than a bug to reduce notifications, but apparently not haha
No apology is necessary! I just wanted to get a better understanding of what you were experiencing.
Regarding #1, I wouldn’t say that the camera “knew she was there” but that the camera detected motion without specifying what that motion was. The green box can be around anything the camera detects as “movement” (i.e., sufficient pixel changes), and sometimes that’s just a change in light. I really had to dial in the sensitivity for my Video Doorbell v2 because of the way the camera interprets headlight reflections on an adjacent wall as “motion”.
Regarding #2, if you have both RECORD and NOTIFY enabled for the Smart Detection Events that you mentioned, then, like you, I would’ve expected to see a “Person Detected” notification if she was close enough to the camera for it to capture an image that the AI could interpret as a person. If, for instance, you have MOTION DETECTION SENSITIVITY set relatively high (so few pixels have to change before the camera says “motion!” and draws a green tagging box) but she was at a distance or in a position that it wasn’t clear to the camera’s/server’s AI that a person was in view, then that could be an explanation for what you experienced. I don’t think Friendly Faces has anything to do with it at all.
I’m speculating about some of this but trying to provide (what I think is) a reasonable explanation for what you’re describing. There are a lot of variables here, though, and I don’t know what the value of each is in your situation. Also, these cameras are nowhere near perfect. They often behave in ways I don’t expect.
Thanks for all of this, I genuinely appreciate it!
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That’s fair and accurate. The camera detected motion, which is what I meant, generally speaking, by saying it “knew she was there” but it didn’t respond to her presence in the way it should have.
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I have both of those enabled, and she walked right in front of the camera, within a couple of feet, and her face and body were all clearly in view. The camera has recognized her there both before and after, but in this instance she just said, “Nope!” - again my question on friendly faces was whether or not it was possible it doesn’t alert you to people you’ve tagged in the system in an effort to reduce notifications. A google AI response actually said that was the case when I asked, but it also said the opposite as well. And that’s how I ended up on these forums haha.
All in all, I think the explanation is what you closed with. These cameras are nowhere near perfect and this one behaved in a way that was unexpected. Luckily, all in all, the v4s at least seem to be performing really well and stay pretty happy with an automated daily restart. The Pan Cam v3 though… I’m shocked so many people seem to love this camera, my experience has been rough.
Thanks. I try!
AI being imperfect and contradicting itself? Imagine! 
Wyze’s AI has its issues, as well, which you’ll find if you read about their new Descriptive Alerts[1][2][3]
You’ll find contradiction here, too, but I think we mostly try to be helpful and provide good information.
My first Wyze devices were original Plugs. My first Wyze camera was the Cam Pan v3 that I got a couple of years ago, and I still like it. (There were some hiccups in the beginning with Wi-Fi connectivity, but they eventually sorted those out with firmware updates.) A second Cam Pan v3 has been a little less reliable, and I still need to do some troubleshooting on a microSD card issue with that one. I still like it and my other Wyze Cam models, though, and I also use some non-Wyze cameras. 
Now I guess I need to set aside some time to play with Friendly Faces. I’ve been thinking about it but just haven’t done it yet.
The Pan Cam v3 seemed like it was working well for a week or so, but all of a sudden it started going offline and needing manual reboots which, for a camera intended to be hung from the eaves outside on my carport, is obviously a bit of an issue haha. It also had the same detection issues that I described here, just more often. I ended up taking the pan cam down a few days ago after we had a worker stop by, standing in the driveway feet away from the camera literally waving at it because he knows it alerts our alexa (we trust him) and it just never saw him. Can’t have that happening at one of two areas of the house I most need the cameras to work. Anywho, put a v4 up there and it hasn’t missed a bet since. Using the pan cam as an inside cam now to watch my animals pace around the house lol.
What actually interests me most about the above is that the pan cam v3 IS compatible with the HMS and the v4, most annoyingly, still isn’t. I really wish Wyze would provide some clarity on this. I feel like they may be saving v4 compatibility to sell Pro subscriptions since it mentions a “Emergency Dispatch coming soon” option, but they won’t say one way or the other. As a new customer, is it normal for them to take this long integrating new cameras with Noonlight?
You don’t have to keep answering my questions, especially since they’re getting off topic lol, but thank you for your help regardless!
I have no idea, as I have no direct experience with Wyze’s Home Monitoring and have been a non-subscriber until recently, so things like that just haven’t been on my radar.
That was my experience with my first Cam Pan v3, and it happened so frequently that I routed power through a smart Wi-Fi plug so I could more easily power cycle it. It would just go offline and refuse to reconnect. Firmware updates have seemed to resolve that, though, and I also have a Schedule Automation that restarts and resets the Cam Pan v3s’ positions as a work-around for the drift issue.
My Cam Pan v3s mostly track indoor cats.
You’re welcome! I hope it’s actually helpful!
It genuinely was helpful. I raised these same issues/concerns in another thread on this forum, and it was met with a handful of “regulars” on these forums first blaming my internet, and then when I assured them I was reasonably positive that wasn’t the case, things kinda devolved into a bit of childishness. I wasn’t thrilled, so your help here has restored my faith that coming here on occasion with a question isn’t a waste of time.
Thanks again!
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I’m glad to read that. Thank you.
I probably haven’t read that. I don’t even attempt to read everything. There’s sometimes a lack of maturity here, though, and often a lot of playfulness. Topic derailment happens frequently. (That may have happened in this topic! ) I did read this, though:
We seem to have at least one 
guy and at least one 
[1] guy who like to share videos in the Captured on Wyze category. That isn’t to say that we can’t use more! 
Oh, I spend plenty of time here. Whether or not it’s wasted is subjective. (Is it a waste to watch squirrel and raccoon videos?) 
You’re welcome!
Yes, I know this emoji is actually “chipmunk”; I didn’t see one for “squirrel”. ↩︎
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