I am adding a new camera and it defaults to channel 1 and moves all my existing cameras back one channel. The previous app set the channel number by moving the order up/down, but the new app doesn’t change the channel number when moving up/down. How do I change the channel number? It would be fine if new cameras were added to the end of the channels rather than the beginning. I don’t want to change the previous 9 camera names.
1 Like
Welcome to the Forum, @tornado_alley! 
Your post genuinely puzzles me, because I’m unaware of the use or definition of “channel” in the context of configuring Wyze cameras. If you could elaborate on the issue, describe what you’re trying to do in more detail, and post a screenshot of what’s happening, then that might help me (and possibly other community members) to understand the situation.
There aren’t any channels. Are you talking about the order they’re displayed in the app? If so, just go to the device list, long tap the one you want move, then drag it to where you want it in the list.
In tinycam under advanced settings is the channel number which identifies the camera and also sets its sequence.
In the previous Wyze android app I could set the sequence (channel number in tinycam) by pressing on a camera icon and sliding the camera positions up/down. I named camera 1 and slid it to the top and it shows up in tiny cam as channel 1, the second one in the android app shows up as channel 2, etc., In the new android app sliding the camera position up or down no longer has any effect on the channel number.
So the new camera by default is channel 1 and the original camera named Cam 1 was moved to channel 2 by default.
The new camera is Cam 10 and I am trying to change it to ID itself in tinycam as channel 10 and not channel 1.
It is a feature that is missing in the new android app.
If I delete the new camera the sequence that they show up returns to original and the original camera 1 changes from channel 2 back to channel 1.
Is there any way to get the old android app back?
Tinycam is not a Wyze app, it is a 3rd party. You’ll need to check with them on when they plan to update the app and/or how to do what you’re looking to do.
They are not supported by Wyze and Wyze does not develop their app with tinycam in mind. The idea of “channels” is a tinycam thing, nothing to do with Wyze. There probably still is some way to do what you’re looking for but they will need to advise you how.
If you update the title to mention tinycam, maybe someone else that uses it will come in and advise if they’ve found a workaround.
The only way to get the old android app back is to root your device and manually “sideload” the old APK file, then disable automatic updates. However there is no guarantee how long they will allow the old app to log in/work.
Sir, the issue I’m having is that your app changed and a feature that I have used multiple times is no longer present in the new app. If you have a solution to roll back to the previous app or can submit to have the feature added back in an update, it would be appreciated. Your response is a bit wormy and deflects from the original issue.
It is not my app. I’m a fellow user, not a Wyze employee. This is a user to user help forum.
“Channels” has never been a feature in the Wyze app. It is just how your 3rd party, non-wyze software interpreted the way the old version of the app listed the cams. The new version probably does things a bit differently and tinycam has not updated their app to understand that.
My answer is not wormy, I’m just explaining to you that this is not a “feature” of the Wyze app nor will Wyze support tinycam, since it is not their app. You need to reach out to tinycam support or check their forums to see if anyone has figured out a workaround or if they’re planning to update their app.
To put it another way, if you put an aftermarket radio in your car, you can’t take it to the dealer for support of that radio. You need to go to the manufacturer of the radio.
2 Likes
This is a tiny cam issue. As stated tiny cam is a third party software that pulls Wyze information to populate their app. I would make sure your tiny cam app is fully up.to date to see if they have adjusted to Wyze possibly changing their process when cameras are added already. If not, then contact the developer of tiny cam to see if they can possibly update their app.
Other tiny cam users here may be able to chime in here to their experience with the new v3 Wyze app and how they integrate tinycam now days.
2 Likes
I am having this same issue. Tiny cam pro allows you to add the wyze cams, but requires a channel to distinguish which camera you are using. So you can set up tiny cam pro to show your cameras in a certain order, how you wish to dispaly them. Issue with recent app is when a new device is added, that device is now added as channel 1, all previous devices shift down which messed up your views amd order set in tiny cam or other apps that let you view multiple wyze cameras. Before as pther user stated, you could go to device tab, and drag the device from the top down to bottom so your previous channel reverted back to what they were. Now that doesnt happen. As the previous poster wanted, there has to be something wyze is sending out with the devices to indicate an order or channel that isnt sending anymore. I dont think this is just a tiny cam pro issue, but something wyze isnt sending out the same way anymore. A shift in device order used to update that order number or “channel” that the other apps used. Would be nice to have fixed so you dont have to change evetything in tinycam when you add a device.
As indicated in other forums asking this same thing. Here is one persons explanation of the issue.
So lets say I setup wyze and tinycam the first time, and everything works
WYZE APP - First camera at top of list = CHANNEL 1 = Kitchen CAM = video of Kitchen
WYZE APP - Send camera below the 1st = CHANNEL 2 = Driveway CAM = video of Driveway
TINYCAM APP - CHANNEL 1 = Kitchen CAM = video of kitchen
TINYCAM APP - CHANNEL 2 = Driveway CAM = video of driveway
now if I sort the wyze cam app and switch order, it messes up tinycam app
WYZE APP - First camera at top of list = CHANNEL 1 = Driveway CAM = video of Driveway
WYZE APP - Send camera below the 1st = CHANNEL 2 = Kitchen CAM = video of Kitchen
TINYCAM APP - CHANNEL 1 = Kitchen CAM = video of driveway
TINYCAM APP - CHANNEL 2 = Driveway CAM = video of kitchen
But if i re-sort the order in the wyze cam app, it will fix the tinycam (after a restart of tinycam)
As mentioned earlier in the thread, you need to reach out to TinyCam about this, they are not in any way affiliated with Wyze.
I glossed over this thread before because “channel number” didn’t register until now. I have tinycam pro for a long time but stopped because it’s too unstable for me.
Channel number is nothing but an index to the collection of cameras you have, as ordered in the Wyze system. So if you have 3 cameras, the first camera is in channel 1 and so on. But the weird thing about this is, it’s totally dependent on how Wyze has stored your cameras in its internal system. When the order is changed, so are the channel numbers. It doesn’t really matter what the value of channel is, it’s only used during tinycam setup; I imagine tinycam tags the camera with its mac address once it’s registered with tinycam.
But the good news is, you don’t have to worry about channel numbers anymore. The last time I tried tinycam, it dumped this system. During setup, the newer tinycam versions now show you a dropdown listing all your cameras in the system. So just make sure you’re using a recent tinycam version.
1 Like
Most of the users in this forum will be confused by discussion about Channel numbers because while Wyze DOES use channels and channel numbers, they keep it mostly hidden except when someone accesses the Wyze API, which most people don’t do. I am aware of it because I have accessed the Wyze API in many different ways.
I can conclusively say that what is being reported by @tornado_alley @davesmisc and others is totally correct and accurate. WYZE did stop allowing people to alter the channel number when they upgraded to App v3.0 because they changed how the device sorting works. These users are totally correct that it was Wyze who made the change in their GUI. Wyze still assigns and uses a “Channel number” for all their devices, but they no longer allow people to change a device to a different channel number by re-arranging them in the app GUI.
I could probably tell you a lot of things I’ve learned about how Wyze uses their Channel numbers and order, but it’s mostly pointless. For example, we were never able to [easily] change the channel number of the Outdoor Plug because Wyze doesn’t actually allow the device itself to show up on the GUI screen, only the sub-entities of each outlet on the Outdoor plug. So you could move around the Outlet entities, but the Channel number for the plug stayed in place, and the only way I could alter the channel number for it was to Delete a device and set it up again so the new device would bump up to be channel 1 and bump all the others, including the Outdoor Plug, down 1 channel.
The good news is that there are a few solutions to this issue.
- Tiny Cam Specific solution: Ignore channel numbers entirely. Add all your cameras using the UID instead (ie: Camera name, or MAC address). Now things won’t keep messing up every time you add a new camera because the UID never changes. Tiny Cam now sets up cameras this way by default. I highly recommend setting up your cameras again with this new update because it is WAY better to do it this way than with the Channel number which is too easy to keep changing and no longer easy to rearrange.
- You can just install (Sideload) the Wyze App V2.5 on an old phone or on an Android Emulator on a computer or something. Go to APK Mirror, search for the Wyze app. Find a Version that is less than 3.0 (ie: v2.5) and click to download and install that. Make sure you select the REAL download, not the ad spam trying to get you to click it instead (don’t click any that have an X in the top right indicating it’s a fake ad). Once you install that, you can change the order of your devices on the 2.5 app and it will change the channel number that Wyze assigns your device to (The device at the top of the home page is Channel 1, the next device will be channel 2, etc)
- As a sub-option to this, if you want to keep the 3.0 app and don’t have another spare phone or computer…if you have Android 15 your phone possibly has a built in “Private Space” now that is sandboxed from the the primary storage. This Private Space will allow you to install a second Wyze app there so you can run app v3 on the main phone and app v2.5 in the private space sandbox at the same time. Some other phone brands also have their own version of this, but Google just made it available in Android 15, so most people should be able to do this soon if not already.
- You could instead just delete all devices and reinstall all devices in reverse order of the way you want them to show up in channel order. So, whichever device you want to be Channel 1, you will need to setup on the Wyze app LAST. Then never buy and install another Wyze device because if you ever set up any device ever again after that, it will make the newest device channel 1 and the one that was channel 1 will now be channel 2 unless you delete it again and set it up go back above the newest device again to regain the channel 1 spot on Wyze’s server.
Obviously all of those options take a little bit of work, but they are functional workarounds for what is being requested here.
Again, apologies to everyone who felt misunderstood. I do understand what you are talking about and I have long talked to Wyze about how they implement their channel numbers. I have brought it up in AMA events over the years, and I even brought it up this summer in a wishlist request as soon as they launched the App version 3.0:
I thought they didn’t do a great job at converting people’s layout from the 2.5 app to the 3.0 app and suggested they should’ve copied the existing channel order so that people would maintain their same layout when they converted to the new app.
How this affects EVERYONE else right now:
- Channel order is also what decides the order of your cameras on the Web portal, though it seems like the app V3 isn’t always putting the newest camera as channel 1 anymore. I am having some ordered in weird ways now. I have asked Wyze to resolve the Webview order to be better organized and allow us to sort in other ways besides Channel order.
- Channel order is sometimes also used in filters and other lists of devices. This is why it can sometimes be hard to find what you’re looking for in a list of devices because they are sometimes sorted in different ways, such as channel number instead of alphabetically or the order you set them up on for your home page.
If Wyze isn’t going to make it possible to CHANGE the channel order, then they need to stop using it, but the fact is that they DO use it for various ways of sorting and other things and we can’t easily alter it, especially not since they launched the V3.0 app. I have pointed the channel issues out to them in probably a dozen different posts, but have mostly been brushed off.
Most people just aren’t aware of how it’s used, but yes, the above users DO have a point that it is WYZE who made the change and Wyze who uses the channel number, so it is a valid issue to bring up with Wyze, not just 3rd parties because Wyze uses channel number ordering for other things that is contributing the disorganization of their app layout when some things are still sorted by channel number.
Just saying. 
1 Like