Network Flow

I have a general question about how the network flow works between phone and camera.
I have my Wyze cameras on a segmented WLAN at home. It is a different WLAN than what my phone is on. My home router does not allow communication between the two WLAN’s.
In the case when I view my Wyze cameras from my phone, what is the network path that the traffic is taking? Does it go from my phone, out to the internet, then back to my Wyze camera from a NAT’d external address?
If so, if I were to open access so the two WLAN’s could communicate between the two, would it still use this same network path, or would my phone be able to view the video stream directly from the Wyze camera?
Thank you all.

I have been told that you can view your cameras without an Internet connection if your phone and camera are on the same LAN or VLAN in your case.
I don’t think I’ve ever tried it but that would be the quickest way for you to find out. Disconnect from your ISP in the router.

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Hi @BTinNC and welcome back! @angus.black is correct.
The smart phone and camera need to be on the same IP subnet.

If they are on the same subnet, does that mean they communicate peer-to-peer? If they aren’t in the same subnet, what then?

peer-to-peer yes otherwise routed to Amazon Web Servers (AWS)
just as if you were at another location.