How to Keep Your Cloud Video Recordings Free with Cam Plus Lite

[peepeep]

• I would guess no more than 10% who choose Cam Plus Lite will opt to pay $0. My first thought was 20% but I think that’s too high.

• I would guess Wyze would prefer no more than 5% ‘freeloaders.’

• I was surprised how many objected to the ‘guilting’ one is required to endure to opt $0.

• I wish I had screenshots of the exact sequence and phrasing.

• I’m guessing they’re ‘guilting’ because it’s effective, ie, it worked in the Legacy PD Pilot.

 
Here’s a sequence from the big Cam Plus Lite announcement thread I think is worth highlighting.

Click to expand

@Homeautomator

I think it’s a bit disingenuous to frame this as you “giving person detection” when you are in fact taking away 12 second cloud storage, a major selling point to your cameras and forcing users to opt in and get a hard sale to pay for to get it back. This is an extra bitter pill to swallow because the first cameras I bought from you guys also came with person detection and again, you took that away and wanted me to again, opt back in and get a sales pitch to contribute. What is this, a charity?

I get it, cloud storage costs you guys money, but that was your business model! I didn’t pick it, you guys did If I wanted to pay a subscription, I would have gone with Ring or Nest. I’m sorry, their products may cost more (although they have come down a lot in the last year), but they are established and work. I chose you because I don’t want to pay for a subscription and I like local storage and am ok with tinkering. Now I’m not sure if it’s safe to buy anymore cameras if they won’t come with cloud storage without paying.

If I may make a couple of suggestions, your SD card reader has just been terrible. I’m glad it’s getting an update but I don’t think it’s enough. It’s impossible to find anything on there without using the cloud storage as a rough guide. Also, people you share a camera with don’t have access to it and we can’t share an account so this will essentially leave all the shared users in the dark. All they get is a live view now. That is a deal-breaker for families where the primary holder shares the account with the rest of the family. At least with 12 seconds, it was something.

I really hope that instead of keep bringing new features, you work on existing ones. If you fix the SD card problems, then not having cloud recording will be a viable solution.

@pete454ss

You can opt to pay $0.00

@Homeautomator

Yes, but for how long? I bought into this system so I could keep building on it when I had the time and the funds. Now who knows when they’ll stop this “opt in” or when they’ll revoke it. Also, the whole opting in and naming your own price thing is undignified and humiliating because they will tell you what THEY think you should pay first and if you pick $0, they’ll try to guilt you into paying. To quote Ritchie from the Sopranos, “What’s already mine is not yours to give me”.

@peepeep

@Homeautomator

he whole opting in and naming your own price thing is undignified and humiliating because they will tell you what THEY think you should pay first and if you pick $0, they’ll try to guilt you into paying.

I paid $0 in their Legacy Person Detection trial (their “name-your-price experiment”) and they didn’t guilt me.

At all.

@Homeautomator

Have you seen the new one? After you pick zero, they ask if you’re sure and go on a thing about how cloud storage is expensive and if you’re sure you want to do it.

@rtabox

I’m with you. Yes cloud storage is expensive. But it was their model. The worst thing a company can do is break a contract with their customers. They should continue to support their legacy promises. If necessary, the expense should be paid out of operating funds. They have now shown that their promises aren’t worth much. Believe me, current and future customers will notice…

@peepeep

No, I haven’t seen the new one. I know I’m not susceptible to that stuff and if they had said it after telling me $0 was a valid option I would just brush it off and continue.

I take them at their word that the offer of $0 is genuine.

@Customer

@intellisig

need to see the events in the “Events” section. I don’t want to have to go the playback section for each camera. I have 10 cameras. I need to see all cameras together chronologically.

I’d like that too but how would it work? Either the app would have to poll ALL your cameras’ SD cards every time you use it and built a local table, or else Wyze would need to build and maintain an index of each SD card’s contents on their servers in a table similar to the current cloud Event format. Neither is a trivial undertaking, and the first option sounds way too slow and unwieldy.

@Homeautomator

They really would have to overhaul the SD playback in order to get this to work.In it’s current incarnation, Even locally there is no way to see previews of the recorded events. They have them for the cloud version but not the SD card version. I Don’t think that they have to scan the SD card, just do what they’re doing now and instead of the video, just have an image which is stored on the cloud, and then use that time stamp to search locally

@intellisig

I need to see the events in the “Events” section. I don’t want to have to go the playback section for each camera. I have 10 cameras. I need to see all cameras together chronologically.

Here’s the deal: I think Wyze is lying. They say they want to do what’s best for users and they love their customers, but they regularly make decisions to push us toward a subscription service. I do not want a subscription service. I bought Wyze because of the “no fee” claim.

Every few days I see an advertisement in the app to get me to buy the subscription. How is displaying this advertisement so often in my best interests? It’s not.

I’m done with Wyze. I don’t trust the Chinese back-end software they use. They seem to do a “rug pull” every couple of years by taking away functionality while claiming it’s an improvement.

Why don’t you just add RTSP to the stock firmware and then I’ll Agent DVR or Blue IRIS to manage my cameras the way I want?

John

@Homeautomator

This is kind of their own doing because they haven’t done anything to improve SD playback since the beginning. It’s ridiculous to have them in two completed different parts of the app.

@joe1

This is the way open-source software works and quite frankly not supporting Wyze is a sure way to end up having to buy Ring products, or similar. The prices for both the devices and the required subscriptions are ridiculously high.

I don’t know you or your financial situation and hope you are doing well. I have chosen to support Wyze and try to help them stay in business. They are effectively giving you free software, or whatever you choose to pay and do not understand why you would complain. I see nothing sneaky here, instead I see a company being transparent before they go bankrupt. I have boxes full of devices and gadgets from great companies that no longer function just because the companies could not compete against the big guys. I am happy to help protect the future functionality of my devices, as well as help Wyze stay in business.

Either way, have a great day.

Best Regards,
Joe

@Homeautomator

The flaw in your argument is that they are NOT open source. They are a for- profit company and God bless them for that;however, they cannot act like a patreon /open source company with their hats in their hands one day and act like a startup seeking to disrupt the industry the next with a questionable business model.

They sold a product with no uncertain terms that said you got 12 second clips of cloud storage and even person detection in the xnor days. Then they took those away and want to frame it as them giving it to us and then making us feel like beggers by having to go through the process of saying we don’t want to pay them again.

If they want to go the open source route then go that route and accept the rules of that path. If they want to be a closed for profit business then honor the terms you set to start with. It is in fact deceptive to do so otherwise.

@Customer

@Homeautomator

however, they cannot act like a patreon /open source company with their hats in their hands one day and act like a startup seeking to disrupt the industry the next with a questionable business model.

Sure they can. Why not? Tons of Patreon supported people ALSO have tons of paid commercials on their podcasts or streams. Tons of open source based companies charge tons of money for support and for services. Heard of IBM / Redhat? Open source companies may also CHARGE for software. I mean, you may not approve (and I agree it’s incongruous and the upselling is sketchy) but it’s hardly a *binary" thing. Hell even PBS has blatant ads now in addition to fundraising and pledge drives.

@Homeautomator

My biggest issue with this whole thing, going back to taking away the XNOR person detection is that I am straight shooter. Tell me upfront about what you want to charge and what I’ll get from that and I’ll make my decision accordingly, but don’t change the terms after the fact.

It doesn’t mean that I’m a cheapskate or want something for nothing the way the pay what you want screens imply. I had already installed pricey DVR and then NVR systems which cost around $2K and were giant pains with the port forwarding and such. I had also installed Ring and Nest cameras before finding out about WYZE and knew the going rate.

If WYZE would have come out and said “Our V2 camera is $40 and we’ll give you 6 months of 12 second clips after which you can stick with just SD card or subscribe to us at about what the other guys charge” that would have been an honest offer because they would make an actual profit from it, and it would let me compare it with the other 2 and decide whether it was worth it to pay a little more to go with the big boys or a little less and help a startup company go up against the big boys.

Instead, WYZE came out with this illogical idea to offer dirt cheap cameras with lifetime 12 second storage. It wouldn’t take an MBA to figure out that at some point, the scales in the cost graph would tip, but hey, that was the sales pitch! Who was I to argue with people smarter than myself who had figured out how to monetize the footage. I mean google was never charging customers for google’s search the android system either so perhaps these guys knew something nobody else knew. At any rate, I took them up on their offer.

Now they act all shocked that storage costs money and contracts with XNOR fell apart and are trying to guilt people who took them at their word into paying for a subscription after they’ve already invested in the system and helped them get off the ground. Yes, I know, I know, if one opts in, they won’t lose anything and even get person detection back, but that’s not the point. The point is, shouldn’t have to do that. Your word is your bond.

@MtnMan

Yes, I know, I know, if one opts in, they won’t lose anything and even get person detection back, but that’s not the point.

To me that is the point. They don’t get person detection back, they get person detection added. I guess I don’t shamed so easily.

@Homeautomator

@MtnMan

To me that is the point. They don’t get person detection back, they get person detection added. I guess I don’t shamed so easily.

Well when I first bought my cameras, person detection was built into the hardware, but somehow or another there was a contract dispute and we suffered. I decided not to opt in then because again, it was a “pay what you want” type of thing and it would make me feel like they were giving me something I didn’t deserve to have.

@MtnMan

it was a “pay what you want” type of thing and it would make me feel like they were giving me something I didn’t deserve to have

Well it appears you a good sensitive soul with moral conflicts burdening you. Me, I have no problem enjoying the gifts the universe offer me.

[Homeautomator]

@towelkingdom

Wyze said themselves that not charging for some of these services is making this unsustainable to continue.

That was THEIR original business plan and how they made a name for themselves! It’s on them, not the customer.

Before WYZE came along, Ring, Nest, and pretty much every other cloud based camera system charged a hefty price for the camera and then another $2 per device or $120 a year for “unlimited” devices. Then the scrappy startup from the Seattle area came along and said they were there to disrupt the market and show the world how overpriced those other guys were and how they were super smart and could not only sell a cheaper camera but also give away 12 seconds of free storage (5 min cool-down). There wasn’t even a paid storage option then!

Those of us who follow tech media were super skeptical from the start. It doesn’t take a fancy big city MBA to figure out that in order for a company to offer a $25 camera and lifetime free storage and not go bankrupt, at least one the following had to be true:

• The whole thing is a Ponzi scheme and the company would just go out of business in a year or two or however long it would take for people to catch on that the new cameras are paying for the old cameras and they’d take the investor money and run.

• The cameras are poorly built and would need replacing after a few months

• It’s a bait and switch- entice people to come over, keep buying and being invested in the system, and then change the terms. That’s kind of what happened here.

• The customer is the actual product- all the footage that is captured will be used to improve AI and they make their money off the knowledge they gained by that. I would respect that actually if they came out and said it.

• They know that this business model is completely unsustainable and they are just trying to get a big enough userbase of cheapskates so that a Google, Amazon, or Apple just buys them out and then with the millions of dollars in their pockets, they can go around bragging about how they once had a startup that “changed the security camera market”…

• They are completely incompetent in business and couldn’t build a simple graph that showed that at some point, the storage money overtakes the $25 people paid for the camera.

At any rate, none of that is the customer’s problem. The customer only has one job: Read the terms of the product they are purchasing and if they agree with it, pay the money for that. The customers did their part, already but now WYZE has come to change the terms and put the guilt trip on them while their fanboys come and call them freeloaders if they don’t pay. That’s the issue here.

From my point of view, I paid for a camera system that advertised 12 second recordings with built in person detection. I bought into that and paid for the cameras and even when person detection was taken away (details of why XNOR ended their agreement is irrelevant to the end user), bit my lip and didn’t sign up for free person detection online, but now with them coming out and making it seem like I’m getting something for nothing if I don’t pay is where I have the issue. And yes, I am labeled “freeloader” now, but from my point of view, I am not getting anything that they didn’t offer when I bought my first camera from them. I am a man of my words and am honoring what I signed up for.

[towelkingdom]

I follow tech news as well, have for years. I was skeptical of Wyze, but in my opinion, they haven’t changed anything. They recognized their mistake in not taking into account increases in cloud storage cost and made a claim that ended up not being sustainable. They STILL offered those plans for free. And they are now still allowing people to not pay for these things. There’s no bait and switch there.

Yes, they made a switch in how those free services are offered, and gave people the option to pay whatever price they want - including free- but to do that they went to a subscription model. It literally took me 5 minutes max to go through the steps to enable the free option on cam plus lite. It ain’t that deep, to be honest.

And let’s be honest here, Wyze services, even the paid model, is cheaper than any other system I’ve come across from Ring and other competitors. I have ring products as well, I’m well aware of what competitors charge.

If you want to complain about having to take a little bit of time to switch to the subscription model and get the service for free, go right ahead. But you cannot say it’s a bait and switch when they’re still honoring free services.

[mram]

This is all a shame to me, and I bought other items outside of the electronics as well.

But I also sold many of the cameras for Wyze, when they worked. Now fees. Most of the I things I bought I no longer use because of either battery life, disconnected when I really need them, or the worse, going to show someone or use them myself and I need to update (I know I can skip it, did it for years, but annoying to me and the person I’m showing). Fix the bugs…

The cloud was never my choice. I wanted MY CAMERAS to save to MY PERSONAL VIDEO to MY whatever (network drive or local drive). Now I have camera I can no longer use because of this cloud/marketing issue. Well maybe I can again, for now? If I did this over I would have never bought. My old system is still in place, many years, recording local, many software features. I am lucky there, I thought Wyze was bring it to the world.

The cloud was not a big deal 10 years ago either, and I will no longer go back to the days of rental software of the 90’s (subscriptions on something that is not reliable no less). Too many free or “openly” donatable programs. I am almost retired, I do not look to spend my last days handing out cash.

I feel I was cheated on a product. I misled family, friends and others. I bought because “it sounded too good to be true”.

Now I have to jump through hoops to get back what I thought I bought. Great. Maybe. Walk family and friends that call though it as well. How long this time. How much trouble next time. And if I am asked for a Credit card, DONE.

[ChemEngr]

While it’s obviously not 100% profit, it’s obviously some profit. Consider the millions of cams out there, say only 10MM, then say only 10% of those have a subscription, so 1MM. Now let’s guesstimate the average cam subscription brings in only $1/mo, so that’s $12MM per year in revenue that Wyze has structured to return a minimum profit. Multiply that by the actual number of subscriptions and you can see why it’s a priority for Wyze. Plus it’s a regular cash flow that they can rely on for paying the bills. It’s their cash cow

[peepeep]

@peepeep

Just some sourced facts for added perspective. Carry on.

Type	Count	Note	As of	Source
Wyze Users	6.3M+	5M+ plus 1.3M	10/06/21	Customer email
Cam Plus Subs	.3M+		01/21/22	Customer email *
Forum User Names	.1M+		02/09/22	Forum stats †

* Two emails with same stats: 11/8/21 & 1/21/22
† Available here: Wyze Forum

 

[ChemEngr]

fwiw, going on 2 weeks now, I still cannot signup for lite - it says I have it already, shows me my invoice from 2020 valid until 2069, but my cams no longer show me a PD event notification option - I have to toggle on motion notifications to keep getting the person notifications - at least PD and video remain functional but prior to the “lite improvement” I was able to toggle PD notifications on without the general motion notifications. Ya, I’m in a minority of users with this issue, but it has not been a simple 5 min exercise and has not made me any more apt to expand my wyze “arsenal” when/if I ever have a need.

[ChemEngr]

I stopped the emails after the scale, colored bulb, lamp, nightlight, etc stuff for which I had no interest in hearing about, while the routine begging to subscribe to cplus just got irksome. So I wag’ed at some numbers - guess the actuals, if real, make it clear why, as another said in a different thread, wyze has had to resort to guilting or tricking lite subscribers to pay something.

[EricKoehler]

SD card can not be used to record video as an event. You get a snapshot of the event with an ad for Cam Plus.
I’ve got all my cams on continuous record now. And that doesn’t allow notifications on motion detection.
I don’t buy Cam Plus, because frankly, the system isn’t good enough. When on record on motion, or on person etc. The system just wasn’t reliable. I would get a hundred notices a day for all kinds of stuff. Lights on and off, bugs, animals and on and on. It’s just not worth paying a monthly fee to record garbage.

[towelkingdom]

The events tab does not show you SD recordings. Never has. Those are where the cloud recordings go.

If you set your SD card settings to events only, then you can find those by clicking ‘view playback’ on the live view or by clicking to view the cloud event on the event page and then clicking view playback.

[mram]

Yes, and my credit card was stored on the net as well. Thanks for the info though. I will look into it or get more SD cards.

[mram]

By those number, it does not look like it went well. But, a “%” of some is better than “zero” percent of all.

Like said, I ignored emails as well. Maybe that is why the numbers are so low. But all the software updates, offers after previous purchases had problems, out of things when you go to order, etc.

Mind you I did like some of the offers. Just seemed like most did not do what I wanted. Heck I bought covid test (and do not believe in covid), temp probe for wife, masks a number of times (need them to go anywhere). And other stuff.

I also have MANY cams, sensors, lights, color lights, smart plugs, etc. All started with a great deal on a camera…

[mram]

Was about to give up again, but Towelkingdom’s post convinced me to try the SD card thing. Not putting a creditcard on this domain again, right now. I think it is probably already there…

BUT… The lights ON/OFF (and fans for me too) are random. I thought maybe if I signed up for cam plus it might fix that. But gave up before I did.

With the few times I go to look at cameras, there was always an update or a camera down. I know I can turn updates off, but I would think I would want working code. I quit spreading the word a long time ago.

I have been in electronics since the very late 70s. Have been a director and manager of R&D software and hardware. Now IT manager (getting old). I of course knew it was not me, but kept waiting for this to become stable.

If it would have let people record local, that would have taken the load off the servers and their IT group (my thoughts). Total control can sink you, and possibly add liability too. As they say, everyone can be replaced.

And not having a Window program/app (in a Windows world), and the need to load an Android emulator to see it on Windows. That hurts performance to the few that figured that out. Sort of like Win 11 will not run on most machines… With the prices through the roof and shortages, good luck to them too.

[peepeep]

How’s the Cam Plus Lite transition going on the Wyze Facebook Core Community.… anyone?

About the same as here, better, worse?

I have zero familiarity with FB but my impression from occasional comments here is that there is um, less tolerance for dissent, or to frame it sunny, greater solidarity of support for the Wyze mission. Generally.

And there’s little if any cross-linking from here to there. And no screenshots of conversations, etc.

An FB Community is probably (substantially) larger than the ~100K User Names registered here, and probably a marketer’s dream compared to the cat herding feel on this board. Eh?

[peepeep]

For reference, below I’m talking about this ‘tier’ on the table created by the esteemed @carverofchoice

If you choose NOT to sign up for Cam Plus Lite at all…

And you have an SD card installed with recording ON…

You get thumbnail pics in the app’s Events tab list…

And tapping a thumbnail takes you to the expanded still pic…

And tapping the Playback icon there takes you to the recorded SD card video footage on the Playback timeline for viewing?

And on the table ‘Text Notifications’ means Android or IOS notifications generated by the Wyze app (without a thumbnail preview incorporated)… not SMS text notifications…

Correct?

[ChemEngr]

The FB group blew up with problems and disgruntled users - got so bad they started to apply a very heavy handed censorship both for excessively abusive complaint behavior as well as the excessively abusive wyze acolytes. Have not seen much regarding the cam lite since. More aggravating is I have not heard of any definitive solution to my acct problem.

[Customer]

Hmm, no kidding? I guess Facebook users tend to be more, shall we say, average citizens, and the changes just aren’t that easy to follow, especially if you’re trying to dodge the guilt wall and get free service. So I suppose it’s not surprising that things are getting hairier there.

[peepeep]

@Customer

getting hairier there

@ChemEngr

Just stay on topic, @WyzeJimmy has not replied to my last PM, Wyze has not mentioned anything in anyplace I have checked about what they claim is a small number of customers who may experience account related glitches such as showing they already have cam lite, but no ability to select or un-select cams, or various lite options missing or “stuck” - apparently we are now the lost tribe of cam lite.

[Customer]

We’re Giving Wyze Person Detection to All Users at Whatever Price You Want - 1/11/22

Hi all! Please update your Wyze app to the newest version, 2.29.1, and it should fix the Android issue where Add Cameras disappeared. We’re continuing to research the “Camera bound with other service” error, but for now you can fix this with a complete camera factory reset and setup.

[wiisad]

I feel the exact same way. I no longer like my cams as much as I did before.it seems like Wyze is becoming more about having you pay to have the camera’s operate as you like.i just want to access my micro SD card via the app and pull my footage.