Important message for people using device operating systems (OS) lower than Android 7.0 and iOS 12.0:

We are discussing this here: Wyze android app says it will stop working January 11, 2022

People with older devices need the ability to continue to use the app, even if there is not the same level of security.

If your phone/tablet is older than 4 years old,it’s most likely not going to work,

That is pretty bad. I can’t think of any good reason to base it on device age. Makes more sense to base it on age of last security update. (Pixel 3 is 3.5 years old and ended updates a couple months ago)

As long as a person has Android 8.0 and higher,which most people do you can by a Motorola or L.G trac phone cheap for $60.00 and use it just for your Wyze products

@kae4560 - I don’t think so! I mean, I will NOT buy a specific Android device to support Wyze.

It’s not based directly on Device age, it is based on security and features as “makes more sense” as was mentioned. :slight_smile: In theory, you can continue to use any device of any age, even something from a decade ago…IF your device manufacturer continued to support giving it updates all the way up to or past Android 7 and iOS 12.

I’ll elaborate on this a little for those who are interested and detail-oriented like me. I’m mostly just describing WHY there is an issue, not necessarily ideals of what SHOULD BE, etc.

The problem is that device manufacturers (not app creators) want you to buy a new device because it’s the only way they bring in more money, so they will refuse to provide support for those devices because they would have to pay someone to provide that support, but they would get little to nothing in return out of it, causing them to basically just lose money. In contrast, if they stop supporting it within a couple of years and don’t LET you get the newest OS versions, then you start losing compatibility and security, and are likely to go out and buy another one from them and they’ll make more money again. It is in their best interest to only provide OS updates for a couple of years. This planned obsolescence is their version of a subscription or residual income so their market doesn’t dry up.

As evidence that it is the manufacturers who are to blame, some people have even been able to “sideload” newer OS’s onto their old phones even though the manufacturer doesn’t “allow” it. When my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 refused to allow me to update past Android 9, I searched online for a walkthrough to figure out how to force it to allow me to use Android 10, and even Android 11. Samsung wouldn’t allow it because they want people to buy a new phone, but Android 10 and 11 work perfectly fine on this “OLD” device if they would allow it. Many people keep side-loading newer OS’s on their older phones. (Note, While this could possibly resolve some people’s issues, I can’t recommend anyone do this, particularly if you are not technically inclined, because of the intricacies involved…it’s complex and one needs to ensure the right drivers and such will be accounted for…let alone know how to manually install such updates, etc. I’m simply pointing out that it’s really not the AGE of the device that is the problem, it’s that phone manufacturers are trying to force people to buy new phones from them, it’s their version of a subscription model…planned obsolescence even if the device is still quite capable).

Some of them will provide certain “security updates” longer, but these are patching up certain flaws in the protocol and older code (solely to avoid minimum liability issues), and aren’t ACTUALLY giving you the NEW more improved security and related features found in the later OS versions that they won’t allow you to update to. That’s part of the difference. It’s not quite the same and not really as secure as newer ones.

That’s the problem here. Android 6 and below are severely lacking in many newer critical security and other improved critical features and support for certain protocols, and thus they become incompatible and less secure even when one has received an alleged “security update” we can only get updated security for the limited older OS and features and not the improved security that comes only with the latest OS’s which are not even on or supported by the older OS on those older devices.

It is very sad because in theory devices from 6+ years ago or some from even a decade ago COULD use the latest OS’s and run Wyze’s App, etc…In this case, the main problem is less about app developers (like Wyze) or the age of the device directly, and more about how device manufacturers would basically lose money and eventually go broke if they supported their devices forever. The device itself might keep functioning [offline] for decades to come but at some point it is not secure to use as a connected device anymore without the newer updates and protocols.

Connected app developers (as opposed to offline apps or those that are really simple or don’t need much security because their data risks are small) are faced with a Catch-22…a choice of supporting those old devices and getting yelled at for increased security leaks & problems, or making people upgrade to the new secure protocols and features and getting yelled at for not supporting the older devices. Either way they’re going to get bad publicity and anger a bunch of people.

Anyway, that’s an over-simplification…but in the end BerMM is totally correct that the decision is not based on device age, it is based on capability and security support level, which, in this case means a minimum of Android 7 or iOS 12 so that they will support critical features and security. Since Android 7 was released summer 2016, and iOS in Fall of 2018, any devices created after that should be compatible with minimum security, protocol and feature standards. Anything earlier than that will completely depend on whether the individual manufacturer ALLOWED a person to update to the newer OS’s or if the phone brand stopped allowing further OS updates. Some allow updates longer than others. Some phones NEVER allow you to ever upgrade to a newer OS than the one it shipped with, and will only give security patches for a short time. While others like Google are now promising security patches for 5 years for the Pixel 6…the longest of any Android-based manufacturer, and 3 years of software updates. All others do less than Google. Hence, saying if you have an android phone that is X years old or longer is a safe guess that it wouldn’t be supported because no other manufacturers provide updates. So if it’s a manufacturer that doesn’t do software updates, then if you bought the phone before Summer 2016 (5.5yrs ago), then your phone probably has Android 6 and your phone manufacturer burned you. If your phone manufacturer provides 1-2 years of software updates (some do this), then You would need a device made prior to summer 2014-2015. If you have a phone older than 2014-2016, it may be a great, capable piece of hardware, but if your manufacturer isn’t allowing you to upgrade to newer software, it’s become insecure and risky to use as a connected device…not because it’s not capable, but because nobody is supporting it to be secure anymore and it is missing all the latest security and other features needed to keep up in the industry. That’s the problem. It should still work well for making calls, texting through SMS (which is also not secure) instead of RCS, and using some offline or less data-critical connected apps…it might meet the limited needs for MANY people…but it’s missing too much for a lot of the really important and secure stuff.

Best way to know, isn’t by age of device, it’s to go into settings and selecting the “ABOUT” information and see what OS the device has on it.

Hope that helps some people’s understanding of the catch-22 data-critical online app developers are stuck deciding. Wyze and other app companies would LOVE for phones from a decade ago to still work and get the latest OS to still be compatible. They don’t get any money out of us having to buy a newer phone…but the phone manufacturers want money and they have no incentive to keep supporting old phones that they are no longer making any money from, so they’re trying to force us to buy a new one. And since they ALL do the same thing, we can’t really punish one by buying from another because the new one we buy from will do the exact same thing to us too. They have no incentive to continue supporting old devices when nobody else does and they don’t get an ongoing income stream from it, so we’re stuck in this planned obsolescence cycle that forces everyone to buy new devices because the hardware manufacturers also want an ongoing income stream. If we somehow FORCED them to provide support and updates for longer, then they would raise costs to compensate for having to pay employees to continue doing work on those devices, so we might not have to buy new phones as often, but we’d force the initial cost of devices to sky-rocket, so either way we’d have to pay for it. Wyze gets nothing out of any of that, in a way they (and customers) are also collateral damage regardless of which choice they make.

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I never said that I’m just saying there so cheap…and wyze is not the only vendor doing security upgrades its just like the old saying if you want to play then you must pay

I like that response. Makes total sense, Without third party firmware devices as young as 2017 (Amazon Fire) won’t work, while some as old as 2014 (Google Nexus) will work.

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Yep! You get it :+1:

Your initial assumption was correct too. It’s not really about the age of the device as much as it is about when they last got the necessary updates allowed onto them. Like I said, I have side-loaded OS updates onto my devices before even though they weren’t “Allowed” to have them. Age of devices isn’t really the issue as you suspected.

I just thought I’d help it make sense for some other people who might be confused as well, but your instincts were on the right track here.

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Thanks @carverofchoice , clear, helpful and timely info. :+1:

I’d only add: It’s not that the device companies can’t earn enough to be profitable and going concerns without imposing false obsolescence or large price increaes on their customers.

It’s that they can’t be as profitable as investors demand in a market addicted to the impossibility of rapid growth to infinity.

Why can’t Wyze change finance capitalism? :slight_smile:

You make a fair point.

Device manufacturers could certainly continue to be profitable without doing planned obsolescence. We have ample evidence through history of this. For Decades people were able to keep their same Radios, TV’s, or VHS players (though these manufacturers often expanded and innovated with a wide selection instead of a narrow focus), and I’m sure we could discuss many other electronics that were fine lasting more than 2-3 years, and the companies that made them were profitable for a long time still.

You make a good insight pointing out that critical nature of the relationships between investors/loan debts vs Asset base.

As long as the interest rate is lower than the growth rate of the business’s assets, they can further fuel the machine and have expanded growth. but if the company’s debt load every exceeds the value of their assets, then investors and creditors will demand their money back and the company’s entire existence and investments in them will immediately disappear from reality.

The following chart was an interesting one demonstrating how one that starts with as little as a 10% investment or loan against their assets starts out seeming reasonable, but after they spend that 10%, they still need to pay it back plus interest, so the next year they take out twice as much, pay off the previous credit and spend the other half in the second year, in the third year, companies often continue this cycle, and it ends up being a sort of worldwide acceptable ponzi scheme of debt, to the point where they are just treading above water and the wrong interest rate or downturn can utterly annihilate them:

If bad interest rates hurt them, or asset values fall, or a downturn hits or any number of things that cause their asset values to drop a little, creditors and investors come calling, some will pull out and the entity will die. A lot of this happened with countless businesses in 2020…musical chairs ended, and despite a valuation in the millions or billions, we got to see who was playing too high in some of these unsustainable debt games. They might be Multi Million and Billion dollar companies, but their debts and credits cause many to die off with the slightest sneeze because those billions are mostly owed elsewhere…they’ve often been playing a sort of legal debt-ponzi with other people’s money and exponentially bursting out big liabilities.

A current example = China’s Evergrande whose liabilities exceed $300bn…they failed to meet their interest payments to international investors by overplaying that debt game example in the chart above. They look like they are a huge $300bn company, but the truth is that their loan amount as a percentage of their asset base became unsustainable and they could not pay off the investors anymore so they’re collapsing…luckily they only had $20bn in US dollar bonds outstanding, but it could be enough to cause some painful waives in our economy too just because someone choked in the debt-ponzi bubble game…the same game nearly all mega corporations are playing exactly the same. This is a good example of them choking on that debt chart. High stakes, high risk, lots of collateral damage in the debt obsession games.

Similarly, manufacturers feel like they need to keep feeding the infinite money machine beast to keep all their investors happy and satisfy the investors as you said. They need to keep the interest rate on loans lower than the growth rate of assets to have their largest expansion/growth…but this debt and investment game can come with a lot of risk too.

I personally avoid the debt obsession ponzi-like game in my businesses…I prefer being debt free as a general standard…there is a lot more freedom in so many ways…you won’t become a dominant fortune 500 mega corp conquering the economic world without playing that snowballing debt and investor game that is so global, but, there are a lot of other benefits…


So yes, it is true these big manufacturers and corporations get a lot of pressure to find ways to increase profits like this, and if they don’t, the entity will basically be economically executed by the rich investors and creditors funding them (or at least get rid of the people in charge until they find someone else who WILL do what they want)…so I am not sure how easy it would be for some of them to stop the false obsolescence without also risking their existence.

Eventually, it becomes a balancing act and they start praying the economy doesn’t sneeze or that they can get some kind of bail-out when the music stops and they’re caught without a chair to sit in. But everyone wants to be a big player and conquer the world, and few can afford the time it takes to reach that level without playing the rich debts-ponzi games. :wink: Hard to get big fast without it, and it quickly becomes intoxicating.

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I gave you imageimage but it only accepted one. :slight_smile:

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I have the same issue. I got a message that the app isn’t compatible with my device. I have an S5 and 6 cameras and two bulbs. I deleted my old wyze app before I realized that I can’t reinstall it. Now I have all this wyze hardware and no way to use them ??

What operating system version do you have on your phone?

I think the last (and final) OS update for Galaxy S5 phones was Android 6.0.1.

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I wish I had a perfect solution to help…one thing I did check on though while you’re deciding where to go from here:

I have a phone with Android 6, and I went and found a copy of a compatible Wyze App from a mirror site that stores the history of past Wyze app versions.

I am currently using this version of the Wyze app on a phone with Android 6:

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/wyze-labs-inc/wyze/wyze-2-21-27-release/

It allows me to use the bulbs just fine, but the cameras only allow me to view cloud events (not view it live nor the SD card).

Unfortunately, to be able to view the camera live or the SD card recordings on a phone or tablet now, it would probably require getting a newer phone that can get up to at least Android 7 (or iOS 12).

Heck, I’m still using 1.5.82 on 6 of my 8 tablets because that’s the last version of the app that works with audio and video and doesn’t turn itself off every so often.

Wyze communication is undoubtedly the most confusing communication I’ve ever seen. The Wyze experience has deteriorated to the point is more a burden than a help.
I just want my cameras and app to work the way you told me they would when I purchased them. I understand I might not get all the latest bells and whistles. But they should continue to function as you sold them to me. And yes I understand that the hardwsre will fail , that’s not what I’m referring to.

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Well all of my cameras working just fine

I am still using 1.3.164b … it supports Plugs, Sensors, & Rules, but unfortunately cannot do video feeds anymore due to a Wyze Cam v2 firmware update.