I’m really confused about how this device does or does not save videos to a micro SD card. The app seems to save video files in its album if I press the record button on the app. However, it doesn’t seem to save it to the SD card? The SD card only seems to save videos in the “record” folder of the SD card’s directory, and those videos seem to be motion activated only, NOT the videos where I have pressed the “record” button.
I feel like I’m losing my mind lol. What is going here exactly? And if it’s saving files to my Android in some folder, why do I even need an SD card?
It can definitely be confusing, let me explain how it works.
Cloud Events
Cloud events by default recording a thumbnail on motion with a 5 min cooldown. These thumbnails are visible in the “events” tab at the bottom of the app. With cam plus lite, a pay what you want (even $0) subscription you get those snapshots turned to 12s event videos, with a 5 min cooldown and person detection. With cam plus, you get unlimited length event videos with no cooldown, and other AI detections.
SD Card
SD card recordings are enabled when you go into the cams settings > advanced settings > micro sd card storage. These are viewable in the “playback” button at the bottom of the live stream. They don’t require any subscriptions, and are all saved to the micro sd card.
Phone Storage
Anytime you use the “Take Photo”, “Record” buttons, it’s saved straight to your devices photo album. The “Timelapse” is saved to the micro sd card, and viewable in the “Album”. Accessible from live view > … > album.
Hopefully that clears things up, it’s confusing at first!
New, but related question. Because I just cannot figure out how this thing works with the SD card.
Settings > Advanced Settings > Record to MicroSD is OFF
Settings > Event Records > Record motion events is OFF / Record sound events is OFF
SD card is empty
I turn the camera on with SD card in it, wait a few seconds, take the SD card out and sure enough it has recorded those few seconds despite #1 and #2 above
Must be ON to record anything to the microSD card. Should not record any footage if OFF.
When it is on, the cam records 1 minute mp4 files constantly. If Continuous is selected, it saves every 1 minute video file in indexed folders. If Events Only is selected, it will ONLY save the 1 minute video files that have motion in them. The 1 minute video files that have no motion aren’t saved.
These affect ONLY the Cloud Recordings listed in the Events Tab. NOT the SD Card Recordings. The two are completely seperate. This setting MUST be on to get any Events Tab Motion or AI tagged events which can be selected under that setting.
Because you turn on the cam and only leave it in for a few seconds, it may be going thru a startup routine that initializes the function. But, because you aren’t allowing it to finish the 1 minute record cycle to either save or discard the file, you may be seeing the remnants of the partial record before it can be dumped. I have not known my V3’s to record any footage with the Record to SD off. If you format the card after starting the cam, let it set for a bit (several minutes) and then check for video files on the SD, there shouldn’t be any there.
The Album files are saved to the Android device drive and will show in the device gallery.
When manually recording video from Live Stream or from SD Playback, the files are saved to the DCIM>WYZE>{cam model}>MANUAL folder.
When taking a photo from Live Stream or SD Playback, it saves the snapshot to the DCIM>WYZE>{cam model}>IMAGE>SNAPSHOT folder.
When downloading a Cloud Event Video from the Events Tab, it saves it to the DCIM>WYZE>EVENT folder.
If you are doing Time Lapse Video, these are actually a series of snapshots that are saved to the Timelapse folder on the SD. The video will show in the album, but won’t be downloaded to the device unless it is clicked. Then you will see the download process start making it into a video and saving it to your device so it will show in the gallery.
folder.