New OG Cam even More Useless than previous cams without a subscription

Cameras
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The new Wyze Cam OG is even more useless than it’s predecessors without a subscription :bangbang:

Really, Now the spotlight function has a “Cool-Down” period too … Pathetic :pensive:

Looks like when my V3’s all are bricks I won’t be replacing with a Wyze product.

It was a good run, but I’m out after the V3’s crap out or are obsoleted like the V1 was…

OG = Original Goal?
I think Not, nowhere near the Original Goal…

Edit: I do have CamPlus Unlimited but still think Wyze is just doing bad business…

Even with CamPlus if internet goes down camera won’t even record to SD :rage:

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Oh good, I was going to ask you to expand, but I see you are… :slight_smile:
image

What’s a spotlight cool-down?
(my edit: Oh, I get it (maybe) spotlight concurrent with motion detected Event)

On the flip side, how about the claims of improvement?

Stream loads quicker?
Notifications near instant?
Etc?

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Where did you get this?

Last time I checked on my cams, all cams continue to record to the SD card if the internet goes out.
(ex: Your camera was online just fine and then suddenly the internet goes out, but the camera had already previously authenticated, so it keeps recording even though there is no internet anymore).

People purposely do this all the time for things like a warehouse or cabin or something. They will connect the cam to a hotspot on their phone, turn it on to record all events, once it is running they’ll turn off their hotspot and leave. When they return they will turn the hotspot back on and review the recorded events on the SD card just fine as long as the power never went out.

I definitely agree that some of the older model cams are a better fit for some people’s use-cases. I have been running some of these new cams without Cam Plus on them and it hasn’t been too bad for me depending on what I want to use them for. I still get notifications and I can still view events, so I haven’t really missed cloud recordings. The 5-minute cooldown is no different from older models though, so while I would prefer no cooldown, I can’t say it’s a huge difference.

The main way I see the new cams as having a big flaw is when wanting to share the camera with someone like a spouse or other family member. If you don’t have cam plus, the other person will never be able to review events. That is a big negative for sharing. I brought this up in the recent AMA and one of the cofounders responded. Here’s my question and the answer:

Now that so many of the newer cams don’t support Cam Plus Lite and won’t have Cloud events without Cam Plus on them, that makes sharing the newer cams with a spouse or others barely usable because they can’t view the SD card playback on a shared cam and now there won’t be cloud events for the shared user to view, meaning they can only view the livestream but no events, ever. Will Wyze thus be making it a priority this year to fix being able to start sharing the SD card playback with shared accounts?

That’s what I see as the biggest issue with the new cams. If a person needs to share the camera and won’t have Cam Plus, then they should stick with a V3 instead. Same if they need free person detection, stick with a V3. If you’re not going to share, and person detection isn’t critical, or if you have cam plus unlimited already, then these newer cams are pretty awesome. So which version I recommend to people totally depends on what a person’s use case is.

I have never liked the 5-minute cooldown though, and I think it could be reduced now that they are only using a thumbnail instead of a full video upload. I hope they will eventually reconsider reducing that. I know the VP said he’s pushing for Wyze to move away from Cloud dependency and make things run more locally and have cloud as an option for extra features. This seems like a step in that direction (thumbnail notifications with all events stored on the SD card). Hopefully they further move in that direction, especially as the Matter standards are decided and Wyze works toward that. Hopefully Matter does something like require no cooldowns (or very limited). :slight_smile: Maybe someone can put in that suggestion to the people considering it. I would back that up.

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The notifications are functionally identical to those received if CamPlus subscribed?

And they also arrive significantly faster than they did?

But you only get general motion detection - not person and other objects, so useful for some applications, not for others?

The increased number, variety and complexity of cam choices and features kinda suggests a new ‘informed’ customer should seek a good live consultant before buying, no?

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You make a valid observation that the differences need to be made more clear to the average person. I know Wyze has been working on making comparison charts to help people, and they expressed the intent to try to have 3 categories of cameras going forward: Entry level, Medium and higher end/Pro lines of cameras. I think if they devise a good comparison chart outlining a lot of these differences it could help people figure out which camera is the best for them. I definitely like the idea of entry, medium, and high/pro because most people choose Wyze to try to get the most affordable option they can, and these OG’s and the Pan V3 help with that. They should definitely continue to have a line of the most affordable possible option, but I also like having cams on the higher end, with 2K, etc. So I am glad they aren’t just sticking with only as affordable as possible because 2K is what I am mostly switching to (though I still have some of each).

This feedback from everyone will all be very helpful to use in outlining a more clear chart or comparison of why different cams are better for different people. They should certainly incorporate several of the points here into the chart for things to consider.

One thing I like about Wyze though, is that it’s not too big of a deal if you make a bad assumption or didn’t understand all the info right away. Whatever you buy, if it turns out not to be what you needed or expected, Wyze has a good 30-Day return policy, so it’s really not that big of a deal. The Home Depot is really good about returns of Wyze stuff (and anything else) too. So really, I don’t think anyone needs a live consultant first. If you buy something, set it up and find it doesn’t suit your needs, just return it. :man_shrugging: No big deal. Different people have different needs, and that’s okay and Wyze is really flexible with that. People rarely return stuff because in the end, Wyze is still the best deal in town. We all always want more, but in general they offer way more than most at way cheaper than most, and accept feedback WAY better than almost any others I’ve ever dealt with. I’ll still always advocate for improvements and changes, but as far as corporations go, they’re hard to beat overall…at least for the things I most care about. I totally respect that others have different needs and priorities. No judgement here, in fact I WANT lots of other people to have other preferences so there continues to be competition and need for innovation and looking for ways to improve. If Wyze held like 90% of the market share, I’d probably start moving most of my stuff elsewhere. I don’t want anyone to have a monopoly as that leads to stagnation and control issues. But as long as there is good competition, Wyze continues to be my primary preference by a large margin. And I’ve recently been seeing social media posts by other people who say things about how they tried to leave Wyze, including going to places like Nest and Ring, Arlo, Eufy, and many others…only to find the place they went to had even more problems and they regretted trying to leave Wyze, realizing they were much better than they thought, and came back again, telling people the grass was definitely not greener, but it was more expensive for less. :joy: That’s been my experience too. I have dabbled with several other companies (I like to have redundancy set up), and so far nobody has impressed me as being anywhere close to the things I like about Wyze. They’re not perfect, and they’re still a corporation, but most of their differences from the others are strengths overall.

Plus I love most of the Wyze community. :slight_smile: I have checked out other communities, and Wyze is my favorite, though there are a lot of things I like about Home Assistant too. :slight_smile:

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The notifications arrive so fast - most of the time, the person, car, etc. causing the motion is not in the still frame and the video (don’t press the play button?!? Takes several minutes to be available from the SD Card. Uggg…

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So… sub-optimal? :wink:

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Wait a minute, all the marketing I have watched and read raves about how much faster the new OG cams load playback from uSD. Do you mean to tell me that all of the marketing does not reflect reality?

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What cams are you running right now, @Known1 . Are you considering some OG? :slight_smile:

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I own more than I use. The outdoor v1’s that I own have been retired to paperweights for about a year now. I run one v2 (because I use the bridge for a couple v1 sensors) and have 3 in storage. I use all seven of my v3 cams and have a 4-cam subscription to cam-plus which was renewed in December.

No, I am not considering any additional WYZE cams until they support WPA3 wifi security.

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Good experience with the SD card functions? Mine has been OK, overall. Not stellar, but usable. v2s only.

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Not terrible, nor perfect, nor bad…so I guess good? Quirky would probably be the best way to put it. I have hung my cams up viewing playback to the point that they are “offline”, but when I later look at the uSD card playback for the offline period, the playback is 2x or maybe 4x to the the point that I had power cycled the camera to bring it online again. In any case, I do not buy expensive uSD cards but what I do buy are 100% on par with the WYZE branded 32GB units.

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Same. :slight_smile:

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Very true the industry is going that way most wyze customers have cam +

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after a week of playing with the OG (and OG telephoto)… i’m more unhappy than happy. (short) positives:

  1. 256GB SD card… i’m using 64GB
  2. original cost entry point
  3. … that’s about it

will cover the non-subscription items here (will reply elsewhere with rest that aren’t tied to the use or non subscription use). w/o subscription, you get the single photo snapshot while there’ll be a matching local video clip. prior detection lag/timing problems still in play. aka. slight (and inconsistent) record lag, notification lag. wyze kept the cool down for both the still photo AND local record (in event detect mode). it would not be unreasonable to be more generous on the cool down. expect local mode will only be tolerable with either time-lapse or continuous record mode.

the split still photo vs local record UI decision just sucks. local playback UI also got changed. the new scroll navigating to clips along the timeline design is just broken. period. you can’t zoom widen the timeline either.

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Copy i here you we now have over 26 of the new OG,and 6 of the Telephoto all cams have SD cards and on cam +,theres a few minor issues,like the lenses starlight needs to light up a bit,when saveing a few boxes and you go back,and the bcae empty,we also bought a few V3 enclosers,and removed the stand from OG model and used some 3M dobble sided sticker and put it on the bottom of the Cam, and now we can remove the old wyze cam and use the stand mount and we are back in sevice,and our service technicians like the idea to see real RSSI instead of the bars…i sure hope Wyze does some re-tooling so that Wyze with a mount like on the V3,V3-PRO…and fix the color pallet, going to live mode is alot faster and much more…So for $20.00 it’s a must have.

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All I got to say is the color night vision on the OG sucks. Compared to the v3s. Better off sticking with the V3 I see no reason to buy any more OG’s

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Screenshot_20230201_201300_Wyze
Screenshot_20230201_201300_Wyze1440×3088 236 KB

The top image is OG The bottom images are v3s

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The OG Telephoto just installed isn’t recording to SD card when offline, appears to be a known bug – don’t have this issue with prior models.

Have tried reformat, reboot, sync etc, no joy. Firmware is latest.

When wifi is active SD recording is normal. Just when no active connectivity. Defeats purpose of background SD storage capability, obviously.

Reported to Wyze technical support this week.

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Similar results.

The OG Telephoto just installed isn’t recording to SD card when offline, appears to be a known bug – don’t have this issue with prior models.

Have tried reformat, reboot, sync etc, no joy. Firmware is latest.

When wifi is active SD recording is normal. Just when no active connectivity. Defeats purpose of background SD storage capability, obviously.

Reported to Wyze technical support this week.