Obvious thing to do to prevent angry customers

[MrEngineer]

I have seen the notices that newer firmwares will require newer versions of the wyze android app in order to work.

Well, I hope wyze developers are doing these obvious things to prevent a user from being locked-out of their cameras…

Being a hardware and software developer, I know exactly how they work together.

Two basic things need to be done:

1. Prevent users from installing a version of the app that will not run on their older android version. This is the most obvious thing that needs to be done. It is as easy as setting the minSDK version of the newer version of the wyze app to an API level higher then the user’s older android level. This will make it impossible for the user to accidentally install the newer wyze app version because the playstore will not even show the user the newer version and even if the user tries to manually download it from the playstore using a direct link - the play store will says “This app is not compatible with your device” and won’t display a download button.

2. This second thing that has to be done requires just a little common sense. Basically, since the wyze developers know exactly the next firmware version that will require the newer android app, lets say for an example this newer firmware version is “2.5”. And lets say the version of the firmware in the user’s camera is 2.1. When the user (running an older version of android and the wyze app) tries to install the newer 2.5 version, the app should display a notice saying “Firmware versions 2.5 and higher require a newer version of the Wyze app to run. However, the version of android you are running is not compatible with the newer Wyze app version. You need to upgrade the android version of your device to Android 7 or higher to install the newer version of the wyze app and firmwares”. And THIS PART IS IMPORTANT - the older wyse app should NOT allow the user to install the newer firmware.

So, basically, these two things will prevent the user from accidentally loosing access to their cameras.

Yes, if the user can not upgrade the version of android on their device, then they will no longer be able to receive any new features or bug fixes in newer versions of the wyze app and firmware, but at least they can keep using their camera’s as-is.

[rodger.werner]

Oh man, this is scary. You know what they say about hope in one hand?

Companies make mistakes … all of them … I certainly hope the users are paying attention to all of this and are going to be very careful with their ‘updating’ in the near future.