Home Monitoring Sytem . . . a Bust?

[Merk]

I finally received my Home Monitoring System core kit after months of waiting. I was excited to set up. But last night I spent over 2 hours trying to get it going without success. It took me 8 tries to get the Wyze app to recognize the Hub, After updating the Hub firmware, I was unable to connect any sensors or the keypad. I have tried over and over, resetting every device multiple times, changing batteries and meticulously following all written guidance.

If anybody has suggestions before I get an email from support, the help is appreciated.

Having now read posts in the Community, I am seeing that this is a common problem. It’s frustrating and time-wasting and the lack of timely support is maddening. I had a SimpliSafe system that was a dream to install in minutes, so I have a frame of reference for how this should work. This is not a good experience.

[neoprimal]

I did not have problems setting up and it all works so far. The only issue that I have encountered is that it won’t disarm from the app after it’s been armed over a period of time. If I arm it now and wait for 10m then disarm from the app, fine. But if I wait hours, say I am at 12am and then disarm from the app at 8am, it won’t do it. It basically circles and then tells me it lost contact with the hub, then it magically says the hub is there again. Disarming from the keypad works 100% of the time. My hub is wirelessly connected, I will be ethernet connecting it and trying again tonight/tomorrow.

No issues with adding sensors so far.

[Merk]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I resolved my problem by deleting the Hub from the Wyze app and reinstalling it a total of three times. Each time, the app did not recognize the Hub until the 3rd or 4th try. So, in total, I spent about 3 hours of trial-and-error until it worked.

Now that it’s running, I’ve been testing it and discovered a few things I dislike:

1 - Unit will arm even if a door is OPEN. So you could leave your house with a door open by accident and not know it. So much for security.

2 - When set to arm with no PIN, the system will also disarm with no PIN (if no alarm even has intervened). This is simply unsafe and should not be possible, especially given #1 above.

3 - When arming, the hub beeps incessantly and there is no way to turn it off (as far as I can tell). This may be fine for Away mode but makes no sense for Home mode because the beeping will disturb someone on a call or who is sleeping.

Support is researching whether #1 and #2 are “features” or things that should be corrected. For me, these items may be dealbreakers, so I may not be long for the world of Wyze home security.

[lord.vesra]

I posted this in another thread here and thought I’d add it here for people to find easier.

“Hey folks, had the exact same issue with little help to go on and a lot of anger building inside of me.
However, I stumbled on a solution. Simply go to the main page of your Wyze app, then click/tap the + in the upper left of the screen, select add devices, select sensors and everything is listed there. Choose the Sense Hub to reconnect to it if you reset the connect on the hub. From there add all the devices you intend to add (keypad, entry and motion sensors). Can even add existing sensors to the hub here.
After this is all done, go back to the main app screen and the select Home Monitoring on the center bottom to finish setting it all up.”

[u2holic]

Yep…did this and no issues so far adding devices. New monitoring devices were not showing up in the initial monitoring setup process. Added keypad and the v2 motion sensor so far.

[Seapup]

@Merk

3 - When arming, the hub beeps incessantly and there is no way to turn it off (as far as I can tell). This may be fine for Away mode but makes no sense for Home mode because the beeping will disturb someone on a call or who is sleeping.

Your “incessant” time is defined in your settings. The chiming is the countdown to the system arming. Change Home exit delay to zero and arming will take effect immediately. The countdown is necessary for those who wish to arm Entry and Motion sensors in Home mode. When arming from the keypad where the keypad is in view of the motion sensor, x amount of time is needed to clear the area after pressing Home on the keypad and before the system arms. I don’t have this issue as I don’t arm motion for Home, only Entry sensors. But if I lived alone, I’d probably arm motion for Home also.

Wyze app Home > Monitoring > Home Monitoring Settings > Entry & Exit Delay > tap “Home” and set Exit Delay to “0 seconds”.

[Merk]

Thanks you for sharing your thoughts. If everyone is staying home (e.g., overnight), it’s a good workaround to set the Home exit delay to 0, so that there is no countdown and no beeping. Thanks for that suggestion.

However, sometimes I set Home when I’m leaving and others remain, so the 0 exit delay would not work. I’ve owned multiple alarm systems and every one had a way to silence the countdown-to-arming beep, especially for the Home setting. The arming delay is necessary, a continuous beep during the countdown is not.

[jbigler90]

I don’t understand some of the configurations. Why can’t I have notifications turned on for door sensors, motion, cameras etc for ONLY when in “Home” and “Away” armed states? I turn off the notifications because I dont want to know every time I open the patio door while I’m home, yet when I armed the system and open the door, no notification because they are turned off. I would like to see an update where the notification settings are for EACH armed stated independently.

[Merk]

I hadn’t noticed this issue until you mentioned it. I agree that better notifications for when an alarm is triggered are needed. Makes you wonder if a user was consulted when these decisions were made.

[Seapup]

@Merk

sometimes I set Home when I’m leaving and others remain, so the 0 exit delay would not work

Until Wyze makes a change to allow us to better control the countdown chiming and notifications, we’re stuck with the noise or set exit delay to zero and arm Home mode when you’re out the door from your phone.

[Merk]

There are a lot of things Wyze could have done but didn’t, and it’s maddening.

For instance, I discovered that I can ‘share’ my devices with my wife, but she cannot access the home monitoring tab on the Wyze app unless she actually logs in as me. What’s going on there? Did Wyze not think that more than one person in a home might need full access to the monitoring system? Engineers, not users, seem to design their products. They are simply not as user friendly as they could be. Design utility does not seem to be an important aspect of their focus.

[u2holic]

I added several of my sensors I already had in place in my house to the WYZE Home Monitoring Hub. The contact sensors and motion sensors were added to the hub. Then later on the contact sensors and motions sensors were gone and not showing up on the WYZE hub. They did show up still in my sensor and motion sensor group. Only some of the sensors especially the ones closet to the hub still show up “attached” to the home monitoring hub. My house is not really large so connectivity should not be an issue. Is there a limit to the amount of sensors connected to the hub? I have the maximum 5 cameras connected and they have stayed connected so far.

[schultg]

I got mine last week. I opened the box and quickly realized that this was going to be another frustrating half working device connected to my house. Each sensor uses a battery which will need to be replaced periodically and when it goes down frustration. The monitoring could be an issue too if they call in the police on a false alarm. I just decided this was a bad decision and sent the whole dang thing back to Wyze. I also had similar issues with their thermostat. What a piece of junk that was. I hooked it up and used it for a few weeks and it was buggy as heck. I sold it online. You get what you pay for in this world…I like the Wyze cameras, and the scale works well for me but I don’t want a cheap device controlling my furnace or my home security.

[a3fb65ebb1afc7641c29]

Amazed how many people even consider Wyze for a security system or critical system controllers.

Their products are just not reliable enough for these purposes.

[Kal]

I’m confused, @schultg. It sounds to me like you don’t actually have any issues with the Wyze home monitoring system, you actually have a problem with ALL home monitoring systems.

I’ve had three different alarm systems over the years and every last one of them had components that use batteries. When you have a component like a door/window sensor or a motion sensor, they need power to work, so that power has to come from somewhere. The only options are a battery or hard wiring a system. Every one I’ve ever had has used batteries for some components. Did you expect Wyze’s system to use hard wired power?

As for the potential for the monitoring service itself to call the cops on a false alarm, they, like every other service I’ve used call YOU first before calling the cops. Any alarm system does require you and your family to take some responsibility when you decide to install such a system. There’s nothing unique to Wyze in any of these things you’ve brought up.

Let’s focus on specific things about the system that are unique to Wyze’s system and that they can address and fix.

[neoprimal]

I came back to say that I am enjoying my system. As mentioned, the only let down is how low the base station volume is. There’s no way you can hear it from anywhere but about 20 feet from it so the system does not work as a deterrent right now. If someone actually broke into my home, I doubt they’d hear it and if they did would not care. I would not hear it from the master bedroom of my home for sure.

Simple fix is an addon siren or allow 1 or several integrations (Echo or Nest) speakers to be used as a siren. I’m not going to huff and puff about it. What I care about is that if my family leaves my home and someone breaks in and we don’t notice SOMEHOW (with all our cams), that someone will have our back (monitoring!).

My only other request is that there be an option for the disarm/arming notification instead of that godawful tone. Maybe an option for voice alerting (the way it says “arming home, stay”, then make no noise, then within 10 seconds say that again or another noise/tone or choice of tones, instead of that bing, bing, bing noise - it tickles something bad in my brain, lol.

Anyway, so far so good. Fits my needs to the T.

[schultg]

So sorry that this is confusing to you Kal. So, put simply:

1. I don’t want to be forced to monitor a multitude of batteries to keep the system running
2. I don’t want to deal with a monitoring system, I just want to monitor it myself and get notices on my phone. (I can call the police myself).
3. I don’t think that buying the cheapest solution out there is a good plan if your trying to protect your home from thieves. I’d be more inclined to buy something high end and super reliable for such a task.
4. I liked the idea of using the Wyze cams in conjunction with an alarm system but that also means that your giving access to your cameras to an outside party ( at least I think you are).
5. Do you work for Wyze and are just trying to shoot down all negative comments and control this community board?

[Kal]

1. So how do you want these items to get power, exactly?
2. Then why did you buy a product called “home monitoring system” if that’s not what you wanted? Seems you didn’t read about the product before you purchased it. Go buy the Wyze door and windows and motion sensors separately and you will get what you want or put the monitoring system in test mode and leave it that way. How is any of this Wyze’s fault or a problem with their product?
3. Having not yet had the system call me for a break in, I cannot say how well Noonlight will respond, However, I’ve had ADT and Alarm.com in the past and I can say the response times there were not particularly fast and definitely not worth what they charged. $60 a year got me to give an active alarm system another chance and I suspect the same will be true for others. Seems like a net win.
4. No, you’re not giving Wyze access to your cameras (at least no more than you already are with the free cloud recording product). If you are concerned about it (which I can understand), you don’t have to add any cameras to your monitoring service. It is entirely optional. Your cameras will remain exactly as functional and accessible as before you got the monitoring service.
5. I’m trying to get you to actually discuss real issues with the product Wyze actually provides, not air your personal gripes with monitoring services in general.

[neoprimal]

I don’t work for Wyze and I agree with Kal. Your comments and post don’t make a whole lot of sense.

There are only 2 types of contact sensor (door/window) and motion detector. Wired, and Wireless.
Only security companies will do wired sensors. I don’t think I know of any “do it yourself” wired security sensor package. These sensors typically run a wire to a big box that has a battery and gets it’s power from an outlet. So, in essence, these are “powered” sensors.

Within the “wireless” group, sensors are powered using batteries. There’s no getting around that. You may find a motion detector that can get direct power somehow, but that’s about it. All contact (door/window) sensors will use batteries if they are wireless. Within that sub group, there are about 3 types of wireless sensors that I can think of at the moment. Z-wave, Wifi and “wireless” running at 345Mhz or another ‘closed’ frequency. “Wireless” sensors tend to get the most battery life (3-5 years), especially when/if there’s no interference. Next Z-wave (1-5 years, depending on the sensor) and finally, Wifi (6m - 1y).

If you don’t want a “monitorED” system, then you’re basically looking for a Do It Yourself security system. There are a few of them out there which allow you to buy your own equipment and then “monitor” the home yourself, but again, they are all based on wireless sensors, so you’re always going to have to deal with that aspect.

From what I’d most to least recommend (based on what you seem to want) is Ring, you buy the sensors and hub and can monitor everything yourself. The package gets really cheap now and again. Before Wyze introduced their system I was dead set on getting Ring. Abode is also pretty good, you buy the sensors and hub and can monitor everything yourself. It’s more expensive but I think also a bit more advanced and more for people who are serious about their self monitoring. After this, anything you find is going to be charging you a fee, either for remote or app compatibility. I subscribed to Simplisafe for 3 years and it was really good but I got tired of paying the ~24 a month and going down to ~15 meant losing app access. You can use it without paying at all, but would be limited to using the keypad. You also can’t program your sensors at all if there’s a problem. These were the longest lasting wireless sensors I’ve ever used as I never had to change batteries in the 5 years I had the system installed.

It’s not really about buying cheapest or most expensive. Sometimes thes cheaper things work just as well as the expensive ones for people’s needs. Example, Kals’ case and also mine. As I mentioned, I live in a great neighborhood in a city with the lowest crime rate in the U.S. I also live between 2 police officer’s familys (that’s big deterrent in and of itself). I don’t think I need a system that I’m going to pay $60/mo or more for to monitor my home. I am/was a camera junky (I have 5 cameras in the front of my home, 2 on each side and 3 in the back and even more inside my home) which were mostly collected/purchased before I purchased my home here 4 years ago. I was going to get Ring because I wanted to have a security system installed…it’s coming to the end of this pandemic and me and my family are preparing to get back out there, travel, etc. and while security cameras have the home covered inside and out, I wanted something that is a bit more pro-active in case I’m not paying attention to my phone. Let’s say we’re at Disney or the movies and my phone is silenced or put away and something happens - THIS is when I need help and coverage but it’s so rare that I would feel like an idiot paying even 20/mo for it. That’s where Ring’s pricing attracted me. Then Wyze announced a solution and I figured, even if the worst case scenario is that it doesn’t work for me. I’m getting a year of Cam Plus as a part of the package so, why not?
Now, If I lived in an area prone to break ins, that doesn’t mean I’d pay ADT or Comcast or any of those big companies either. They are still using what I call their monopoly model. They have a tech come in and set everything up and you pay all this money and it still doesn’t work any better than Ring or Simplisafe anyway. Show me a system you consider “high end” or “super reliable” and I will easily be able to point you to forum(s) with customers who will disagree.

As Kal mentioned, Noonlight doesn’t have access to your cameras as far as I know. The feature turns your cameras on automatically (if they are off) and have them start to record when the alarm system is triggered afaik, I could be wrong on the details.

Good Luck in finding a system that works for you though.

[extio]

What merk said.