Huge bandwidth usage with Wyze Cam V3 (X3)

Cameras
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I have 3 Wyze Cam V3 cameras. Two of them are currently being used essentially as baby monitors. The third is positioned in our garage for security. None of the three have any event recording or notifications turned on. They are “Live Stream Only”, in effect. We basically never view the garage camera currently. It is really only used when we leave town for more than a couple days, when we WILL turn event recording and notifications on. The other two are used to watch our baby when she takes naps or while she sleeps when we get ready for work in the morning. On most days there aren’t more than about 2 hours of streaming which is all done from the same network the cameras are on. I paid my internet bill a couple days ago and was shocked to see that I was charged an extra $30 on a normally $70 bill for a total of $100. When I started to dig into why this happened, it became clear that our Wyze cams are using a HUGE amount of data through our ISP. Many days are above 20GB with some days in excess of 70GB! Is this normal for a couple hours of streaming with no event recording??? How in the hell do I reduce this usage while still being able to use these cameras? Is there any way to stream these cameras across our local network ONLY without having to use our ISP bandwidth? I know I can reduce the quality but I really like being able to see every detail while our baby sleeps so I would like to avoid that wherever possible. Has anyone found a way to reduce data usage with these cams?

EDIT: In continuing to do research, it looks like for my intended use the cameras are already setup to operate in a P2P fashion. That is, they do NOT route their traffic through my ISP when on the same network. If this is the case then I’m not sure why they are using so much data. Followup question: Some of the devices used to view the live stream may be connected to the 5GHz band of my WiFi router while the cameras are obviously connected to the 2.4GHz band. Does that constitute a “different LAN” as far as Wyze in concerned?

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Just an update for anyone who stumbles across this thread with the same issue. After finding out that the Wyze cams are supposed to connect using P2P to any devices on the same LAN, I started digging to find out why mine weren’t. I logged into my Motorola Surfboard modem/router and began to review settings. I could see all the cams on the same network as well as the mobile devices used to connect to them. After reviewing nearly every setting I could find, one thing caught my eye. It was “AP Isolation”. AP Isolation prevents any one device on the network from communicating directly with any other device on the network for safety purposes. This is turned on by default on Surfboard modems. With 2 clicks I was able to turn this feature off and after a couple of days of use since then, I can confidently say that my data use has dropped from about 20GB per day on average with spikes in the 60’s and 70’s down to a pretty steady 4 to 6GB per day. Different modems and routers will likely have different names for their AP Isolation feature but it is worth looking into. Even if you’re not having issues it is worth saving the network traffic and strain on your ISP for no reason!

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This is great information to post! You may even want to author a new topic in the Tips & Tricks category for Motorola Surfboard Router Settings w\ Wyze cams. Will probably help someone.

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Done!

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