Is Roku just selling wyze items with their name on it or are they using the same manufacturing company
They have a partnership with Wyze. But Roku Devices won’t work with Wyze and Wyze devices won’t work through Roku. We can’t even flash the firmware from one to the other. They’re totally separate, but Roku partnered with Wyze to make their entrance into Smart home easier since Wyze already had so much development done for it already.
Edit: To clarify, I mean that we can’t activate Wyze cams on the Roku platform/app to be run through Roku as if it is a Roku device, and Roku Devices can never be activated on the Wyze app as if they are a Wyze device (even a firmware flash won’t change that). However, Wyze cams could in theory be updated to be able to STREAM the camera onto a Roku TV the same way Wyze cams can stream to Google or Alexa, or maybe even making a Wyze app that could be pulled up on a Roky TV. Those things are POSSIBLE for Wyze to program, but at the moment none of that is implemented.
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I hear what you are saying. And I trust what you are saying. But does that not sound off? I don’t need anyone to prove its accurate. I accept that its not your doing. I believe you that its accurate, but makes me wonder what’s different in a Roku-Wyze camera that’s going to let it work with a Roku device driven TV screen. (It does work, does it not?)
Statement: Surely sounds like an odd tributary to lead off the Great Wyze River to allow to occur.
I can interpret what you say in 2 ways, so I will address them both because I think my first statement was unclear and could cause confusion:
First, about Wyze and Roku not being able to swap firmware to activate them under the other company’s platform: There are many ways this could be done, and it could be something as simple as the kernel not allowing it, or having even a very slight hardware change that makes the firmware incompatible with the other, or both of the firmwares only allowing certain MAC address ranges. There are several other possibilities, though I have been told that the hardware is slightly different and incompatible, and I have no reason to disbelieve that at the moment.
All I know is that Wyze said it is impossible to flash firmware between them, and regardless of that assurance, people have tried to do a firmware flash anyway and nobody has gotten it to work. So, whatever it sounds like or whatever the actual reason is, so far it’s not possible to do.
And the second way you might have been meaning to ask about: As for why Wyze doesn’t just stream to Roku TV (like it can through Alexa or Google), that’s a totally different story. It is simply that it hasn’t been programmed to be compatible with streaming to Roku yet, not that it can’t. I don’t know what this hasn’t been done, but as it stands right now, if you get Roku, then you can stream on Roku, but not Alexa or Google. If you get Wyze, then you can stream on Google/Alexa, but not Roku. Wyze could add Roku streaming support to Wyze’s cameras, but I would not hold my breath for this. From a business perspective, I think they’ll keep the Roku devices with Roku streaming, and the Wyze ones with Google/Alexa streaming. But I don’t speak for them, so you never know.
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Here is a news story from last fall.
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So what I find funny was they had wyze products right beside the Roku products and you could pretty easily see they were the same products. A friend of mine who doesn’t use any products of wyze and had never seen them was like aren’t these the same as those. I laughed and said why yes they’re the same design and everything.
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