I have the same issue. I bought Wyze plugs and put them on the camera plugs. That allows me to power off the camera and power it back on via the Wyze app.
Back when I started using a handful of Wyze Cams on a rinky dink K-Mart WiFi router, I also went the Smart Plug route (non-Wyze) because I needed something that would power cycle the cams on a schedule. It helped… until I doubled my IoT load.
Then I upgraded to my first Mesh Router with a Mesh Extender and the offline problems that were then only occasional went away completely. I was still power cycling on a daily schedule.
Then I upgraded to my second Mesh Network, this time a 3 router Mesh, all on wireless. Still experienced no offline downtime of any of my 20+ cams. But, I was still power cycling daily.
Then I shut down all schedules and routines to power cycle. I haven’t power cycled my cams or restarted any of them in many months. No offline cams yet. 100% uptime.
So what changed? My cams or my network? This has been a discussion in the Forum for as long as I have been here. Not all routers treat IoT the same way. Not all routers treat Wyze IoT, or other ecosystems for that matter, the same way.
But, I agree with @K6CCC. Even if it is offline, if it is still powered, I would rather it keep recording to the SD Card instead of try to reboot to a possible dead router \ ISP Modem and loose SD Recording.
With the recent evidence that Wyze is actively testing Offline Cam Push Notifications, it appears they are working to at least come up with a way to make offline events immediately visible. With so many brands and models of blameless routers that can’t possibly be the cause, I don’t think we can ever expect the cam vs router camps to come to a consensus.
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Did firmware update for all cameras. Now 1 of V3’s will not connect to router. Other V3’s are ok. Called support & told many are experiencing problems after latest firmware update. Last week 1 of my Pan V2 stopped working and cannot be used b/c unable to do a complete reset. It is useless. It only lasted a year. Wyze offered a ridiculous $5 gift card as compensation. Such poor support . Can not trust these products.
Is there a way to contact someone in corporate office to help? Only can talk to support from Philippines, which is worthless.
I know we can use Wyze Plugs to do a power restart and I even one on one of my cameras. But, this is another expense and item that draws power,
I have a Nest Thermostat that has never been restarted in over 4 years and it’s worked fine. It connects to the internet daily to get weather data and such. I rarely ever turn off to restart my MacBook Pro and it I use it to connect to the Internet daily as well. Just seems like reboots shouldn’t be necesseary with products anymore, they should just work.
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I was just gonna suggest that. I have windows scheduler checking to see, hourly, if Netcam Studio is running and, if not, restart it.
Over the year I’ve picked up a few Kasa Smart outlets at Goodwill for a few bucks each. When I have trouble with the cams staying alive, I’ll use them to remotely restart the cams.
I’ve had this issue also, but it is my network that is at fault, if it happens again look at the playback for that time, did it still record? if it did it’s not the camera at fault but the network, maybe invest is a mesh router to expand your WiFi or figure out why your WiFi may be dropping the signal.
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Definitely not my network, as I don’t have this issue with all the other devices in my home that use it. And looking at the signal strength of each of my camera’s via the app, they always show full strength.
I do have Google mesh router. Have also tried connecting directly to the ATT fiber router also. Both get error message that cannot connect to local network. I have several other Wyze cameras that are working fine,
Only 1 camera is not able to connect. Occurred after notification to update firmware on all cameras.
Per Wyze, they are having a major issue with same connectivity problem with many other Wyze customers. They are actively working on a fix. Told me to keep trying later to sign on.
Same issue as you.
Replaced/Upgraded router……all fixed
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I have several V3’s, V2’s and a V3 pan. The mix is at two locations, with two different internet providers (Cox and Comcast) and with two different mesh router systems (the location served by Cox has a Google Nest 2 pod mesh, the location with Comcast has a 2 pod Netgear Orbi system). Both are on 1gigabit service. Both systems have cameras both inside and outside.
I rarely ever have a camera go offline. As in almost never. I have had one older V2 go offline every once in a while, and I haven’t figured exactly why. It is in the location served by Cox and the Google mesh system, and the only thing I can come up with is that based on its physical location, It may be seeing both pods on the mesh, and connecting to the more distant one, and not the one slightly closer and with the better signal.
I agree with others that this is likely more of a connection issue than a hardware issue.
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It’s a connection issue alright, due to Wyze’s Camera’s! I even had a Wyze camera sitting right next to my Netgear gaming router and eventually it lost the connection requiring me to reboot it several times.
Yes, just lost connection on my Pan v2 cam after updating the firmware. Looks like it’s the 3rd Wyze camera that this has occurred after doing the latest firmware update. I have a total 9 Wyze cameras. Other cameras seem to be ok. Most of time I can reset connection by unplugging camera and Re plugging camera. But, now I have 2 that I can’t seem to reconnect. Now, this 3rd one is having problem.
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Wifi signal has been the reason I was having the cameras go off line.
I added a wifi extender to solve the problem.
I’m not a network person but I do believe there is some merit in the “better router = better connection” argument.
Although signal is certainly an issue, another thing that “advanced” router can do better is how to splice up available data bandwidth among all the devices asking for it.
Before I upgraded my router my laptop’s connection would drop whenever the rest of my household was also on zoom. My laptop signal was not optimal but would never drop connection at other times. So the old router was able to handle all the data requests until some devices consume larger amounts of data.
On the other hand my V2s have run faithfully for years without ever going offline on me, so there’s probably something in the camera itself causing the problem.
For those who get this offline issue very often, I would recommend observing for any pattern as to when it happens (Many simultaneous events? Someone uploading/downloading large amounts of data?), and report it to Wyze Support.
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Well, my Netgear XR500 gaming router is still a very fast and capable device. So I know it’s not a router issue for me because as I’ve said before, no other device in my home has connection issues with this router. Not my iPhone, not my MacBook Pro, not my iPad, not my two LG TV’s, Phillips smart bulbs, several Alexa’s, two Tivo’s or even my Tesla. Only my Wyze cameras have had connection issues.
I don’t know about the Tivo or smart bulbs, but everything else you listed is either absolutely or most likely connecting on 5 GHz. The Wyze cameras are 2.4 GHz only. so there could very well be an issue that only affects 2.4 GHz devices. At least some WiFi access points are VERY aggressive about trying to get connected devices to switch to either 5 GHz or dual band operation.
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Yeah, it really doesn’t matter what your other devices do. In fact, having other devices connected to your router could be causing the cameras to go offline, especially if they are 2.4ghz devices. Also, how far away from your router the other devices are compared to the Wyze cams is also a factor. But just because other devices don’t lose connection doesn’t mean that’s not the problem with the Wyze cams (or any other devices, for that matter)
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My Netgear Nighthawk served me well when I lived in a condo, but somehow when I moved to a house its range just wasn’t quite enough. Add to it all the pandemic zoom calls and the problem was magnified. To be fair, I didn’t upgrade the router because of Wyze, but doing so has reduced the V3 offline issue.
That is a common misconception. Yes, it is a fast and capable device… For 5GHz and possibly 6GHz if capable. Certainly programmed specifically for bandwith optimization on those bands. But gaming systems don’t use 2.4GHz so it is ignored, limited, and deprioritized in the network management protocols. I have yet to hear of a gaming router providing superior 2.4GHz network optimization and coverage. But, it is never the router at fault. The more expensive and fast they are, the better they work for every conceivable network topology.
Everyone is making GREAT points about how other devices working well on a router is mostly irrelevant. I love the insights.
- WiFi Band and congestion. These can make a HUGE difference as people mentioned above.
- Band and channel signal interference: there may be interference locally for your Wyze devices on the 2.4GHz band/channel that is not affecting other devices
- Signal obstruction: related to, but not directly the same as signal interference.
- Router device prioritization. This is particularly an issue with gaming routers. They will almost always give priority to Gaming consoles, Streaming devices (TVs, computers, Phones, tablets, TiVo, etc), often at the expense of other devices. If you have a Gaming router, that can actually be a huge negative, rather than a positive factor. A lot of routers will also deprioritize 2.4GHz, and sometimes they can issues trying to force them to try checking if they can switch to a different band. Often, routers will make sure some devices stay connected with a good experience and give memory and CPU time to those, and let others choke and stutter. People blame the choking/stuttering device/company when the issue happens to primarily be the router’s decision-making process when it has to choose which device to screw over when live processing resources are limited. So many other examples could be given with prioritization.
- QoS is related to prioritization, but it can cause some devices to have major connectivity issues since it can delay them from having an absolutely live, consistent connection. If you rely on IoT devices like cameras, I would turn off QoS. It is often a major culprit for connectivity issues.
- WMM (WiFi Multimedia) is another known setting culprit that causes some devices to work perfectly fine and others to have major problems. This is much more likely with a Gaming router and has been demonstrated to be the main problem for some people.
- Network/Router Overload is also related to prioritization and was sort of addressed above. Some routers have device limits, while ALL routers have RAM and CPU limits even if you don’t hit the device limitations. This is a big problem with streaming. The more RAM and CPU cores in the router, the better, and sometimes you can distribute the load through Mesh routers, but your modem and root router will still always have resource limits even if you’re not ever using your full bandwidth.
- Distance and -dBM strength. Do not go based on “bars” for signal strength. Bars literally mean NOTHING. There is no standard for how many bars something is, especially cross-band comparison, or cross-brand/device comparison, etc. You could have a device with fewer bars actually have a better signal and connection than another device with more bars. comparison of bars means nothing. A good general consideration is to keep ALL devices with a -dBM number with a lower value than -70dBM. (0 to -70) and the closer to 0, the better…but again, you can’t necessarily judge that number between bands, etc, and devices can be a little different in their needs.
There are SOOOO many reasons why some devices may work perfectly fine while others don’t, and the issue could still 100% be the fault of the router, or the environment, etc, not necessarily the fault of the Wyze devices not working right. The above are just a few examples that could be the reason.
If Wyze was 100% the problem, then there wouldn’t be so many people who rarely to never have issues with them at all (including myself ever since I changed ISP’s and Routers). That is something to consider carefully.
Regardless, I am glad Wyze does take responsibility upon themselves to try to improve this as much as possible, despite already objectively being ahead of the pack as far as connection rates benchmarks go. I know everyone does appreciate that they are working to make more improvements for those who are frustrated:
New Wyze response about connectivity:
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