How is it possible to get live stream from V3 cameras, when internet is down?

Comcast (Xfinity) had an outage in my area tonight, yet my 2 V3 cameras were streaming live. How is this possible? Specifically, I have a Windows 11 computer with android emulations (Bluestack) running the Wyze cam app. Although I could not access the internet via a web browser on this computer, my two instances of the Wyze cam app were streaming video live. How would this be possible? Both cameras have Cam+.

When streaming a cam while on the same network, it is a P2P stream that is maintained within the same network. It usually requires the use of the internet and the TUTK servers to initiate that P2P stream, however there have been other reports of users being able to maintain the stream once established and the internet connection dropped. Others, like you, have also reported being able to initiate a stream without the internet. How is still a mystery. Count yourself lucky though. It is definitely the exception rather than the rule. There are many users who have wanted that capability for a very long time. I have tested my cams under multiple conditions and I loose the stream the instant the internet is dropped.

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He or she did not say they started the streams AFTER losing Internet. In fact it sounds like the opposite, that is, the P2P setup working as it usually does.

It’s possible because Wyze app live video streams never go through the Internet via Wyze servers. They are always direct connections between your device and the cameras. When your device and the cameras are on the same local network, no Internet is needed to maintain an existing stream.

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Yes, but as @SlabSlayer said, Wyze has historically required that before the P2P connection is authorized, TUTK validates that they are allowed to connect. So historically, even if you are on the same network as the camera, if the network doesn’t have internet, then TUTK is unable to verify/authorize the connection.

It sounds like Wyze may have made an update to the old model wherein the 2 devices can do the full authorization locally now, without having to verify that authorization through TUTK on the internet first. That would be so awesome! I know the VP said they were trying to make more and more changes to make it so Wyze devices would not be cloud-dependent, but could do more things purely locally. This could be one of those things. It didn’t used to be possible.

Like you said, the video has always been p2p (stays local if both devices are local), but the initial connection had always required internet to establish authorization to connect p2p. This sounds like something new or abnormal to me.

There could be another explanation such as maybe that not all internet access was down or something. IDK.

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Reading through the OPs post, I don’t see enough to substantiate that this has occurred yet. I had the same thought as @Customer that based on the OPs post we can’t tell when their outage occured and if their two instances of the Wyze app were already streaming before the outage happened. I can’t tell based on the specifics if the two instances were started before, or during the outage?

My first impression was that the two instances were started and the streaming began, then the outage occurred and the stream kept going (because the tutk validation has already occurred before the outage) and the user was trying to multitask and also browse the web during this outage but also seeing the streams continue. Yes I had to fill in some blanks to come to this conclusion But through my forum experience over the years and having to fill in the blanks a lot of times during troubleshooting I think this is my best guess as to the situation.

I think we need some specifics from @Elliott32224 as to when they started their instances of the app in BlueStacks and when the outage occurred so we don’t have to do our best guesses here. :slight_smile:

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Thanks, all. Sorry that I was not more specific. The two instances of Bluestack with the two cameras streaming live were running, before the outage with Comcast occurred. The live streaming continued during the outage and one of the cameras that is the V3 Pan could be controlled in terms of its position from my touchscreen on this Windows 11 PC.

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I haven’t tested this in a long time, but I think they will keep streaming so long as you don’t touch your monitoring device? If you exit the group or cameras, or even call one up independently, I think it requires authorization, and everything unravels. There may be an exception if you call up the cameras using a cell-connected phone, I don’t know. But I don’t think it is a stable ‘always-on’ situation.

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Thanks. It is correct that I could not bring up another camera, when the internet was down, but the ones already connected and being monitored before the outage continued to work fine.

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So I just did a cool test, though it was with a V3 Pro instead of a V3. I used my router to block all internet to and from my Wyze cam. Then I verified it had no internet at all by trying to view the live stream through mobile data, and of course it couldn’t connect because the camera had no internet.

I then connected the phone to the same router the Camera was on, and tried to start the live stream again, and it actually streamed this time even though it was still totally blocked from the internet (and the block was put in place and verified to be blocked before I initiated the live stream)! That’s so cool! I swear Wyze cams didn’t use to be able to initiate a new live stream if there was no internet since they needed to authenticate through TUTK through the internet before approving the live stream connection each time. Consider me impressed.

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:smile:

I’m not sure, but I don’t think the camera gets the authorization. I think the app does. Maybe try the same thing but with your whole Internet connection unplugged? Or maybe your cell data turned off and your phone blocked?

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You mentioned this before and, while I think it’s still somewhere in their P2P arsenal, my understanding is that most of the time these days Wyze will be using a WebRTC derivative instead of TUTK and WebRTC is quite friendly to local network discovery.

I may be off here.

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Yeah, I knew they updated to using WebRTC for Google and Alexa, so it makes sense they’d just have everything use WebRTC now, but I didn’t realize that meant this kind of benefit now. I’m liking it though.

I do know that some devices still sometimes use TUTK for something because every so often I will see on my router a Wyze device connecting to TUTK, presumably still for authentication purposes. Maybe that’s just at boot-up now though? IDK.

I will have to get around to trying Newshound’s suggestion by using a phone with no mobile data, and blocking its access to the internet through the router too. Maybe just unplug the whole router from the modem for a minute.

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Is it possible that even when the internet (and/or modem) is down/disconnected, then the local Wifi is still available for communications between the Wyze app and the cam (both on local wifi) but not for a Wyze app that needs the internet or cell data to communicate?

Update 2/3/23 - test case to confirm the answer to my question:
(1) Modem is unplugged (no internet); keep router plugged-in (it provides the local wifi network)
(2) Cell phone placed in Airplane Mode (no cell service)
(3) Confirm that wifi service exists for local network and that Wyze app on cell phone and Wyze cam are connected to the local wifi network
(4) Select livestream on cam and observe livestream
**Note: In step (4), since that is no internet, then cam cannot livestream to Wyze Cam Lite or Cam Plus for that time period of the livestream, but will record to a MicroSD card if available. Also, when “Events” are selected in the Wyze app, no previous events will be found since there is no internet connection to the Wyze server to see the previously recorded events. BTW, the Wyze cam v3 Pro is designed to provide “person” detection notifications without Cam Lite or Cam Plus, so this should work with just wifi.

So, the answer to the original question is: Via the local wifi network as confirmed by the above test case which others can duplicate.

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Yes, that is what I am confident is happening here.

Agree.

See my 2/3/23 update for confirmation and answer to your original question.

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