Official word from Wyze on v1 not working any more?

Yes, FIRMWARE_66OR_F.BIN,
I know this is basic, but to be absolutely succinct, download the file named FIRMWARE_660R_F_3.9.4.35.bin.zip
then copy to ExFat card, and rename
FIRMWARE_660R_F.BIN…but as I say, it asks if I want to change the extension from zip to BIN which I do, and no result after trying to load to camera…so frustrating…after doing it successfully a few months ago…thx for any advice.

You need to extract the file that resides within the ZIP file and give that the proper name on the uSD card. Copying and renaming the ZIP file itself to the uSD is not going to work.

1 Like

@WyzeJasonJ: Ask your tech team to look into SSL and CA certs, expiration and other similar areas; that’s what it sounds like to me at least where the same software/fw just “up and quits” almost overnight and reverting backward seems to leave room for functionality.

For example, firmware from today could have a number of CA servers removed from its verified list which to Wyze could be intentional as they’re no longer supported or being used. Since the problem exists in an APP (which gets updated and NOT likely able to be back-dated or down-graded) the APP likely still has servers in the list which the old firmware uses.

This is just an educated guess, mind you. I bought a v3 when they first were released and it’s finally being taken out of the box today so I can monitor a/v content to see whether or not it’s leaving the home network. All of our v2s were Dafang’ed for the same reason and we’re hoping Wyze tended to all of the security and internet/cloud issues from that era as we have a large number of v2s out there, some of which could benefit from v3 features.

Appreciate your taking the time to respond, but am confused as attached are the Wyze directions when using a Mac.
Says to Extract in windows, but don’t see that for Mac……where the heck am I going wrong?

They wrote those directions poorly. They should have put “for Mac just drag and drop folder” separately from the directive to rename the extracted file to FIRMWARE_660R_F.BIN.

I upgraded the firmware manually and both cameras connected. I was not enrolled with any Cam Plus or Cam Plus Lite.
I set up the motion and sound detection on both cameras, The motion event has triggered and notification was pushed. I waited few hours to see if any more events get triggered. But they did not! It detected thing only one time per cam:

So then I tried enrolling one camera with Cam Plus Lite.
Now the motion/sound detection worked on it, but notifications are not pushed to the phone.

I then enrolled second cam with the CPL.
It now looks like this:

The second camera didn’t trigger any events. That is until I restarted it. Then it worked but still no notifications pushed.

I toggled the notification settings in the app and double checked system settings:

I reset the app data. No notifications were issued so far.

That’s my experience so far.

Apparently there is another mega thread about that. Notifications suddently stopped working without any config changes - #424 by WyzeJimmy

Tried on Android 10 and notifications work. Android 13, nope.
Edit: I found a stupid workaround to Android 13 problem All of my samsung phone suddenly cant receive notification from wyze lock - #4 by rodneybjao

Can I ask if you updated to the xxxx.35 version Firmware and did you do it using Windows or Mac?
Have been having numerous issues trying thru Mac, and was wondering if using a SanDisk 32 Gb ImageMate card (10) A1 card could be a problem.
On one camera, after trying update, all I see is blinking blue light, the other cam only ends up with yellow blinking light……

Are you suggesting I not rename it when going thru the Mac, or any idea about what is happening when I copy the Firmware file to my MicroSD and when I go to rename it, am asked if I really want to changed the extension to BIN?
Thx.

Thx for all your input to date, but am still struggling and was wondering about any additional instructions when using Mac?
As I mentioned, when I download file, I immediately copy to to SD card and rename it as instructed, but again I think it’s odd that when I rename as instructed, I’m asked if I really want to change the file name extension as “BIN”.
Does this look or sound correct?

Doesn’t matter if it’s a Mac.

Unzip the file first. Then rename the unzipped file! Copy it to SD card.
Follow flashing Wyze v1 procedure (Hold the button for 12s or longer, then wait with solid yellow light, until after 5 minutes you here a click from the camera. There will be no indication the update happening until you here the click).

If didn’t work, make sure you SD card is formated with FAT32.

If you don’t understand what I said you can Google it. Those are some basic concepts.

The money grab continues Wyze has decided that all new camera products will no longer include cam plus lite. They just want it to go away. The new Wyze motto why give something for free when we can charge for it. So I’m sure cam plus lite will begin to have “problems” for other cameras besides the v1 and Wyze will work really hard to fix them but just be unable to allocate the resources.

1 Like

beemgee, why do you keep lambasting Wyze for being good capitalists? Should they continue to give away an add-on service that costs them money in server maintenance? Would you do that with your household funds, and be able to justify it to your family? I’m just trying to be logical here, and I can’t understand your rationale. Wyze never said CamPlus Lite would be free forever, did they?

Your being sarcastic right. Because Wyze did promise 12 second motion videos would be free for life. And Wyze is very aware of a bug that can cause cam plus lite cameras to no longer detect motion. Yet they refuse to address it because then they might have to fix it. I adopted Wyze very early on, and I believed the bs they claimed to be their corporate policy. We are family. And even though most of the promised features they were going to add never materialized I still believed. Wyze will never fix this problem because there is no money in it and that’s all they are about now. And I keep this thread alive so anyone considering Wyze will see what to expect.k They killed the v1 and then took almost a year to fix a problem that could be fixed in a week so that users would buy newer cameras.

2 Likes

Huh, where did you read this? So the v3 Pro and new v3 Pan do not support cam plus lite?

Edit:
Never mind, I just found the answer within an FAQ. “Cam Plus Lite is only available on cameras released before April 2022.”

I am with you 100%, WYZE is just another money hungry corporation that could give two craps less about what they said or promised in the past!

They announced this back when they first launched Cam Plus Lite. They were very clear that it wouldn’t apply to any future cameras.

Honestly, the newer cameras don’t need it if you have an SD card. You still get notifications and can link to the even location on the SD card and see the ENTIRE event, not just 12 seconds. Plus you can open the SD card timeline and they now show you exactly where events occurred, so you can just scroll to that position and watch it easily instead of hunting around for where there was movement or a person (which the V3Pro will still show you even without Cam Plus). With those updates in the UI for the new Cams, there is no longer any need for the 12 second clips IMO. I have one of my V3Pros without cam plus and it still works great without it.

3 Likes

Interesting and thanks for pointing out the fact that WYZE (apparently)had this in their master plan from the get go. Although their is no date tied to that FAQ and it looks as if it was posted last Friday. Maybe I’ll hit up the “way back machine” to see if they really did mention this when they forced everyone to cam-plus-lite.

As far as streaming from the SD card goes in the more modern cams…that is nice, but do the cams support SD cards that hold 2 weeks of data. I suppose if you were just recording motion events they might, which would be a more fair comparison to cam-plus-lite. As you know, the cam-plus-lite clips live in the cloud for 2-weeks.

The cam-plus-lite clips do not require your camera to be online or connected to view the clip. Also, SD cards go bad from time to time and without cam-plus-lite, your data is lost forever when your SD card bellies up. Last but not least, now people can rip off your cam and you’ll never have a clip in the cloud of the person that stole it. Just a couple of big differences off the top of my head. I still think it is a major money grab move and puts WYZE into the corporate greed category.

Edit:
The way back machine proves that when cam-plus-lite was announced, WYZE was planning to support future cameras. Clearly after additional internal evaluation it was decided to go the money grab route:

1 Like

They did mention CPLite would likely not apply to any cameras after last spring when CPLite launched. There are discussions about it in the forums from back then, I believe in the launch thread and elsewhere, at least several of us were sure it wouldn’t apply to future camera models, I was just too lazy to search for them. :slight_smile: Maybe I’ll go find them for you after I wake up (about to go to bed).

I have a 512GB card in one, and a 400GB card in another and several with 256GB, and they’re all working great, so I’m going to say “absolutely” to this… Much more than 2 weeks. A LOT more

Meh, this is not my experience. I have over 30 cams, many of them running for 3 years recording continuously 24/7 on the same SD cards with no problems. I think I’ve had 1 card that might’ve gone bad, I still haven’t scanned it to be sure, I just replaced it and have it sitting around waiting to scan it for bad sectors. All of my cards (until a few this year) have all been non-high endurance cards and they still all run like champs. I’m mostly using the cheapest SanDisk 128GB cards I could get in most of my cams.

I personally don’t see them as acting much differently than most camera companies. You can find exceptions, but overall taking away free cloud recordings doesn’t put then behind the overall industry.

I agree, they are now just like all of the other money grabbing corporations. They set out to be different…less than 5-years later they are the same as everyone else.

I mean, they didn’t register as a nonprofit. All corporations are supposed to earn a profit or they would’ve registered as something else.

BUT Wyze does adhere to single digit profit margins. Sometimes 3%. That alone is crazy worth me supporting Wyze. Look at this upgraded outdoor rated Pan cam price. That’s crazy good especially with the color nightvision, smooth quiet motor, full range pan and tilt. Their competitors aren’t even close IMO. They’re definitely better to me. I am not sure what established company charges less and gives more. I have devices from other companies and had some from others and tried even more, but in the end I always come back to Wyze as my primary because they are the most like what I want and want to support. I totally respect others who feel another suits their preferences better, but I’ve tried a lot of them and they either don’t offer much, have bigger problems I am more concerned about or are insanely overpriced. But I certainly agree that depending on what someone is looking for, other options may be better suited for them. Even for myself I purposely have redundancy with other brands that don’t use AWS so that when AWS has an outage, I still have backup notifications in critical areas.

2 Likes

Irreconcilable differences. Divorce pending? :grin:

1 Like