Is there a Wyze product that will alert me if my old burglar/smoke alarm goes off?

I have an old, but reliable, burglar alarm (and smoke detectors) that is not connected to central monitoring. However, the system has a very, very loud internal alarm horn.
Is there a Wyze product that will alert my phone if my old alarm is triggered?
I currently only have two V3 cams, one outside facing my back yard and one on my front porch facing my front walkway. I suspect the location of these cams is such that they might not pick up the burglar alarm horn - at least, not reliably.
I appreciate any replies.

A V2 fixed-view camera costs only $19.99 and can work.

Hopefully the location is quiet where the siren is, so you only get sound notifications on the siren. If not, it still might work since we will turn the sound detection sensitivity down.

Install the V2 near the siren, with the camera taped over and pointing at the wall if you just want to use it for siren detections.

Then

Name the camera ā€œBurglar/Smoke Alarmā€.
Settings > Detection Settings > Sound Detection Sensitivity > Very low, maybe even 1
Settings > Event Recording > Detects Sound > On
Settings > Notifications > Detects Sound > On
Settings > Alarm Settings > Smoke Alarm and CO Alarm > On

Turning on the CO and Smoke Alarm settings will help it give you a more specific notification IF your old alarm conforms to modern alarm sounds for smoke or CO.

If not, you will still get a sound detection notification from ā€œBurglar/Smoke Alarmā€, and you can play that Event to hear whether the sound was the old Burglar Alarm if you have Cam Plus Lite (can sign up for $0 if you want). :slight_smile:

P.S. ā€“ Donā€™t share the cam with anyone, as it is a live microphone in your home.

As of today, White is currently listed as sold out, but Black has an email notification to tell you when it is back in stock. You can also buy these on eBay or equiv, or just use a V3:

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Wow, thanks for the detailed response. Sounds like a plan. Btw, the siren is extremely loud and is located in a second floor hall, which is very quiet.
Btw, do you know if I can have the alert go to both my phone and my wifeā€™s phone. I think she currently gets notifications when the other cams detect motion, but I have to check that. I know only my phone can change certain settings and I am wondering if I should set up her phone so she logs into Wyze under my account instead of her account.
Thanks again.

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That would be the preferred method for trusted individuals living in the same household. A shared account, so both are owners of everything.

Since the camera is in a hallway, you probably still need to set the sound detection sensitivity very low. This is to make sure it doesnā€™t trip when you speak there. That may or may not filter you shouting at her downstairs, tho. :wink:

Just a further follow up. One thing I would probably do is simply turn off this cam while home. Thatā€™s because I do not need an alarm notification while home since I could hear the alarm directly. So I would only turn it on manually while away. (Of course, I would need to remember to do that so that is a potential flaw in the system.)

It would be nice if somehow Wyze would enable you to obtain repeat notifications in this instance. I often either do not see/hear Wyze notifications or I ignore them because there are too many - anything from leaves/branches blowing to rain/snow falling to shadow/light changes.

However, if the burglar/smoke alarm camera hears an event, I would like to get multiple notifications to be sure I actually get them in a timely manner. Also, it would be nice if Icould set up that notification to provide a different and louder sound. A low single ā€œblip-blipā€ doesnā€™t cut it for an alarm warning.

The other problem is I silence my notifications during the night because it would be extremely annoying to hear a blip-blip multiple times during the night for no good reason (rain fall, wind, etc.). However, if Iā€™m asleep in a hotel somewhere, I would want to hear a notification if the alarm cam is activated because it hears the burglar/smoke alarm.

You could schedule the camera to automatically turn off at whatever time you come home, or set a shortcut button to do that manually if you are home and see an alert come thru. Then, set a schedule to automatically turn the camera back on when you leave in the morning. You can also set a manual shortcut button for that if you like.

If you go on travel you would just disable those rules until you come back home. Again, a notification coming thru when you are home can be the reminder to turn the scheduled rules back on (and use your shortcut button to manually turn the camera off).

I havenā€™t tried sound notifications with Cam Plus, but it may flood you with notifications, which would get your attention for sure. But without Cam Plus you will get a repeat every 5 minutes until the sound stops.

Without Cam Plus or Cam Plus Lite you will need an SD card to playback the sound. Then it is just a matter of touching the ā€˜Playbackā€™ button on your cloud notification (it will then play from the SD card, which you can do from anywhere in the world).

I just got notified today by my V3 when I tested my smoke alarmsā€¦

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I have now installed a Cam V3 with SD card and set it to detect sound and notify me. I did not add this Cam to CamPlus or CamLite. I was under the impression that the SD card would record an event. I then set off the burglar alarm and received a notification (i.e., one blip-blip). Good news so far. But when I clicked on events, nothing was there. Not even a 5 second recording. I thought the SD card is supposed to record 12 seconds.
I guess I will sign up this camera for CamLite to see if that helps.
Also, I am wondering if I can get a better notification using IFTAA (or whatever that is)? I donā€™t know the first thing about how to get it or use it.

The SD card method should work fine, but you will need to be sure that the SD card is set to record:

Camera Settings > Advanced Settings > Record to MicroSD Card ON, Continuous Recording.

When you triggered an event and went to the Events tab and saw no event, it was probably because your app was running when you triggered the event. In that case just pull down to refresh the event list and it should appear.

Without Cam Plus or Cam Plus Lite the cloud event on the Events tab will just be a still picture. Cam Plus Lite gives you the old 12-second capture, and Cam Plus records until the event is over or 5 minutes, whichever comes first. If a Cam Plus event lasts more than 5 minutes it starts a new recording.

In all cases, pressing the ā€˜Playbackā€™ button at the bottom of the event will show you the event using the SD card. That playback is not limited by any time if you have the SD card set to continuously record.

You can add the V3 to Cam Plus Lite for as low as $0 if you want. Iā€™d do that too. Gets you the 12-second cloud recordings and person detection back.

Iā€™m guessing your ā€˜IFTAAā€™ should be ā€˜IFTTTā€™ (ā€œIf This, Then Thatā€). No, your notifications are better natively, not using IFTTT. IFTTT adds a delay and a possible miss. It is really for having dissimilar manufacturers talk to one another (like having someone elseā€™s motion sensor trigger a Wyze camera to record a clip).

Thanks for the clarification.
First, I had the SD card set to record events, not continuous, so I see why nothing but a snap there. Second, I did, in fact, subsequently add a subscription to CamPlusLite, and added the new Cam to it, but I havenā€™t tested it yet. Presumably, that will give me a 12 sec recording so that when the burglar alarm is triggered, that will be a recordable event, and after receiving the notification I should be able to play back the recording and hear the alarm blaring.
This will be a great solution assuming it all works as expected (and Iā€™m pretty sure it will).
It would be a perfect solution if it were possible to make the notification more robust, e.g. a text message that keeps notifying you until you open it. Thatā€™s why I had asked about IFTTT as a possible workaround. If your smoke detector or burglar alarm goes off, youā€™d like to receive a robust notification, not just a blip-blip that gets buried among all the other useless notifications.
Thanks again.

The snapshot on the event and the SD card are totally unrelated. The event is in the cloud, and is affected by Cam Plus & Lite, etc. The SD card is only available thru the ā€˜Playbackā€™ button. So yes, you can have a snapshot and infinite playback from the SD card. But you need to be set to continuous recording.

Yes, it will give you a 12-second cloud recording, but the SD card when set to continuous would have given you as long a recording as you wanted, just thru the Playback button.

With or without Cam Plus or Lite the system should capture a sound event every 5 minutes so long as the sound continues. So you should get a reminder every 5 minutes until the sound stops.

Yes, I believe IFTTT can do a text notification, but many services have started restricting those and I havenā€™t played with IFTTT in a while. So let us know how that goes. :slight_smile:

Thanks again.
I added an IFTTT applet to send me an SMS when the Burglar Cam detects sound. I then tested once by turning on the camera and triggering the burglar alarm. I received both a Wyze notification and a text message indicating that the cam detected sound. I have my text messages set to repeat three times so presumably I would receive three notifications there, but I did not wait for a repeat. I checked the Wyze events and was able to playback the 12 second alarm recording. I donā€™t need more than 12 seconds because I only need to confirm that itā€™s actually the alarm that is going (as opposed to some random minor noise).
So this seems to provide a good workaround for alarm monitoring.
There is only one small fly in the ointment, so to speak. I have my phone set to Do Not Disturb during normal sleep hours. This is to prevent being awakened by idiotic notifications and messages during that time (e.g., when one of the cameras detects snow/rain falling or a cat or a carā€™s headlights). Of course, if Iā€™m home Iā€™ll hear the alarm if it goes off. But the whole point of this monitoring is to be informed when Iā€™m away - e.g., iā€™m traveling somewhere. If Iā€™m staying in a hotel, I donā€™t want to be awakened by the porch cam detecting a passing car, but I do want to be awakened by the burglar cam detecting the alarm sound. So, some additional tinkering may be required.

I tested again to see if the SMS message notification would repeat. It did not. So does iPhone treat SMS messages different from i-messages when it comes to notifications? That seems odd. I double checked that repeat notifications work for i-messages by having my wife text me from her phone.

I donā€™t offhand know a way to make the notification a critical notification on iOS. You might need to disable Do Not Disturb when you are away from home.

Thatā€™s interesting. I assume you waited the full 2 minutes. I guess I donā€™t know why SMS messages would be treated differently for this function. You may want to give it another try.

Maybe someone else has some ideas on these two questions.

Some additional info: I texted my neighbor who does not have an iphone, so her reply came SMS. The notification repeated as expected every two minutes.
So Iā€™m not sure what is going on with the IFTTT text message that comes from 415 (SanFran) area code. Also, there is another oddity. When I trigger the burglar alarm cam by yelling at it so it detects sound, I get an immediate Wyze notification - the usual one. But I donā€™t get an immediate text message per the IFTTT applet. In fact, it doesnā€™t provide a notification signal until I open the phone. Thatā€™s just weird. At first, I thought it was just because I didnā€™t wait long enough. But itā€™s happened several times. Itā€™s almost as though I need to do something on the phone for the text message to arrive. Thatā€™s strange. And again, the notification does not repeat.

Follow-up:
Perhaps this is a ā€œnevermind.ā€
I tested again this afternoon in a more real-like situation. I was out running errands and had set the house alarm and turned the alarm-cam on before leaving. When I returned, I intentionally triggered the house alarm and immediately received a Wyze notification because the alarm-cam detected sound. A second or two later I also received an IFTTT message that the alarm-cam detected sound. Good so far. Then surprisingly, at two minute intervals, I received repeat notifications of the text message. So thatā€™s exactly how I expected this to work. I donā€™t know if it makes a difference, but my phone was dormant/closed at the time of these notifications. In other words, I had not opened the phone when the notifications came. I will continue to monitor.
Iā€™m also going to try to set up the same type of text notification sent to my wifeā€™s phone, if thatā€™s possible.

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I added an IFTTT account to my wifeā€™s phone (under her email and pw), then set up an applet like in mine so it would send an SMS message to her iPhone when the alarm-cam detected sound. It worked. She got a text and the notification repeated. (Note: when setting up the applet on her phone, I directed IFTTT to login to my Wyze account.)

Iā€™ve also used IFTTT. The text always comes from the same number, so I did a custom ringtone to get my attention. The cam was set up inside a house under construction. It was very useful. The only downside is that you have a limited number of monthly texts on the free version of IFTTT.

Set your Do not disturb settings to allow notifications from the IFTTT number. Works really well!