So we had a city-wide internet outage that lasted a couple days due to a fiber cut. No internet, no cellphone, no telephone, no netflix, no wyze, no nothing!
Out of curiosity, I attempted to look at my camera feeds to see if I could watch for looters and other neerdowells, since my Wi-Fi access point should still handle local traffic just fine, but I was unable to connect to any of my cameras.
What gives? Why isn’t local playback a thing? Is this why live feed and SD card playback are so choppy and garbled because it has to leave the network, travel around the internet, before returning to my local network, when the cameras are only 25 feet away from me?
In most cases the connection will still stay local, but the internet is still required because wyze servers are used for authentication. Basically, the app talks to the wyze servers, they help organize the connection between your app and the camera, make sure you have access, etc, and then hand it off to the camera to actually transmit the data directly to and from your app. This is not a perfect explanation, but that’s basically how it works.
We have been wanting a fully local ecosystem for a while now, but with all the modern AI and automation features, as well as security and balancing it out with ease of use, it’s just not really feasible. I do hope wyze adds some kind of offline mode to allow basic functionality.
Most cameras will still record to the SD card as long as there is internet when the camera boots up, you just can’t view that footage until they come back online.
We had an ice storm that knocked out our internet lines… power went out for about 2 hours but came back… still no internet for the foreseeable future though. I never knew having no internet would render the wyze eco system completely useless.
It’s really unfortunate that I cannot view my cameras even though the LAN is still up. I think very basic functionality (to see the feed to the cameras) needs to be implemented ASAP. Because of this, I will have to start looking for another set of cameras that have at least some basic functionality without internet.
1 Like
Really? It’s not feasible to to provide a method to view cameras connected to your own LAN, seriously? Wyze does know how gullible we have to be to put up with the lack of basic reliability for years and years, but… really? Our own network with wifi cameras connected…
Wyze just can’t figure out how wifi printers connect securely, too. Right?
I don’t expect Wyze to envision a use case where it users’ don’t want or need an internet connection. So… there will be a small sliver of time where some anomaly will prevent their stuff from wyrking. If that is too much for you, I imagine Wyze will allow you to walk.
I have TMobile home wireless internet. But, I have no energy #punintended to make all the stuff work if the power happens to goes out… like during the great Texas Freeze of 2021. During that, I remember flushing the toliets EVERY hour to try to prevent my water pipes from freezing.
This topic is rather ridiculous when you consider that solar panels and USB battery banks are recommended to ensure the cameras continue to work during a Zombie Apocalypse – when you may need them the most – but bluetooth and local area network access is only permitted when installing new cameras? After that, all traffic has to be routed through AWS and/or China? Let’s get real.
I am going to need my cameras to work when society collapses, which is fairly often, and increasing in frequency.
On a side note, I also need direct access to the raw files. I have been told by my local DA (district attorney) that they will only accept raw security camera footage as evidence, the original files off the SD cards. Presently, this requires me to pull out a ladder and decommission several cameras every time I catch somebody shoplifting or assaulting an employee. I ain’t got no time fo dat. I’m going to have to insist upon remote file FTP/SCP/SSH access so that I can meet my legal obligations to the State – as required by law.
1 Like