Hello, I have a Wyze camera that is all set up that works well when connected to my home WiFi and it records to the SD card. I can view the videos from the sd card on my Amazon kindle fire (has a sd card slot). Waze support said that now I can unplug and bring the camera to my remote camp that has no WiFi plug it in and the camera will work without WiFi . This is not the case, the camera just blinks blue yellow when plugged in and won’t record anything on to the sd card. How do I get this thing to record on to the sd card at my camp without any internet or WiFi? Thanks! Ps all settings set correctly to record to the sd card and it works fine at home on WiFi. The Firm ware and app are up to date.
I believe the cam requires an initial Internet connection to the Wyze servers to authorize your use of the cam. Do you have a cell phone hotspot the cams could connect to long enough to start up? (Note some hotspots can have issues too, so definitely test at home before you leave)
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Addendum: I tested this, and it works. (Note: Because of variable success with hotspots in general, test this using your own hotspot before traveling!)
I just did a 9-hour test using my new ‘travel cam’, and I found if I had the cam connect to my iPhone hotspot to get the app connection up and running, then powered down the hotspot, the cam would continue to record to the cam’s SD card indefinitely (or for at least my 9 hour test, lol).
So I believe you require authorization from the Wyze servers to get a connection to the cam, after which the cam will record to the SD card no problem. I’m assuming they do this to lock down access to the cameras better.
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Wyze let me know they are working on a solution to this issue. They said a firmware upgrade in two weeks will allow remote recording to sd card without WiFi or hotspot. Just set the camera up at home with WiFi then plug it in in your remote location. The camera is supposed to record to the sd card without any WiFi if you’d configured it correctly earlier on wifi. Let’ hope they can fix the issue.
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Thank you for the updated info on using the Wyze cam offline. I, too, would like to move the Wyze cam from my home Wifi to an offsite without WiFi coverage periodically, and have it continue to record onto the SD card. However, I cannot seem to have it record once removed from the initial WiFi, — even if I created a new WiFi signal with a standalone WiFi router (without internet connections) at the remote location with the same SSID & password as the home WiFi.
Has Wyze released a fix/firmware upgrade yet? It has now been almost 4 weeks since your post about Wyze’s response. Thank you!
You don’t just need WiFi, you need an Internet connection so the cam can contact the Wyze servers to get authorization to run for you. After you get that initial authorization, as long as you don’t power down the cam you can drop the Internet connection.
So, if you don’t have Internet at the remote location, try using a hotspot to get the camera to start up. Definitely test that before you go, though. Hotspots often have their own set of issues.
As for what nekcoes indicated above, that was written on May 9th. On May 10th in another discussion, WyzeGwendolyn said the need to contact the servers is expected behavior, and they don’t expect to change that in the future.
So hotspot may be your best bet.
Thank you Newshound. Sounds like the key is keeping the Wyze cam powered up AFTER we drop the Wifi/internet connections. Moving the Wyze to a remote location entails me to unplug the power, so that implies recording to the SD card remotely
without WiFi will not work in my case.
I have already tried my mobile hotspot with no luck. Sigh…
Uhmm, perhaps I have battery operate the Wyze …
Yes, that would work. You may want to consider a pass-thru charging battery bank. A good battery bank can keep a cam up most of the day. The pass-thru charging will let you charge in the car and when you get there. As a bonus it will act as a UPS if you lose power at the remote location.
Without the special pass-thru charging, a battery bank can either charge or provide power, but not both. So it would never charge while it was running the cam.
What was the issue with your hotspot? For mine I had to activate my travel router in repeater mode to get the cam to initially recognize it. After that the travel router was never needed again.
Interesting, Newshound…
I tried using my Galaxy S9 Mobile Hotspot only once with the Wyze and it had trouble just trying to connect to it. I was trying to setup the hotspot to configure the Wyze cam completely (add, initialize and operate from the hotspot), but after scanning the QR code, it would pause and then claim it could not connect (or something like that…).
I also made sure it was a 2.4 GHz mobile hotspot band, and not the 5 GHz band.
I had my WiFi tablet act as the Wyze cam “monitor” and used it to configure the Wyze cam with the QR code. The tablet was using the same Galaxy S9 WiFi hotspot as the Wyze cam.
Any thoughts/suggestions? Thanks for your comments…
Your hotspot worked a lot like mine until I put my travel router in repeater mode. Don’t know why the cam in setup mode couldn’t see the network until then, since it ran fine without the router afterward.
If you get a choice, you need WPA or WPA2 encryption with a password.
What network the devices are on doesn’t matter so long as you type in the proper 2.4 GHz network name and password (case dependent) into the setup form.
OK… let’s see if I understand…
You had to get a separate piece of hardware (travel router operating in repeater mode) that repeated the WiFi signal from your smartphone’s mobile hotspot in order to get the Wyze cam to recognize & connect to the WiFi signal (apparently thru the router)?
Only then, after the Wyze cam connected to the repeater signal, you could remove the travel router (i.e., power down the router) and the Wyze cam would continue to record to the SD card by sensing the smartphone mobile hotspot signal alone??
Whew! What a circus… LOL
Yeah, new products are hard, lol. Actually the travel router was only necessary for setup. I’ve never powered it again, and the cam sees the hotspot no problem now.
Do Wyze support team members ever chime in here? Like to confirm whether or not they plan to allow the cams to operate without secondary server authorization(after set up)? Of course considering it needs to first be configured with wifi. I had the same issue as the OP. I too assumed it should have worked after initial set up, but found it only works until power it disconnected. I do have a hotspot on my phone which will work to RE-set up, but that’s not quite as convenient.
Wyze support never chimes in, they are too busy with support calls. However the program managers occasionally chime in at the request of Gwen (the only Wyze employee that frequents the boards on a semi-regular basis), or they pass information down thru them.
On the subject of allowing the cams to start up without Internet access, the managers passed down thru Gwen as recently as last month that the need for the cam to contact the servers at startup is expected behavior, and they don’t expect to change that in the future. I put that response in post #6 above.
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I didn’t have any idea Gwen is associated with Wyze.
The “Wyze Team” after her name when she posts is the indicator: WyzeGwendolyn - Wyze Team
Thanks, but you didn’t post that part. As for the Wyze in front of her name I assumed she merely chose a clever screen name.
Apologies, I shouldn’t have assumed people knew ‘Wyze Team’ following her name was a reserved title. The Wyze in front of her name is meaningless – it’s the title afterwards.
No worries my friend. I appreciate your willingness to help here.