The OG cam is 10 months old and out in a chicken coop. It worked flawlessly for 9 months, then about a month ago it began randomly going offline. Nothinng would fix it consistently, I tried unplugging, resetting, deleting it from my app, deleting the whole app, resetting the modem. In every case I’d eventually get it back online after nearly an hour. It would run for a day or so, then go offline again, back to spending an hour trying to get it back.
The only thing that has changed is that 4 months ago we switched to T-Mobile 5G internet, This however didn’t cause any problems all summer. I’ve researched it to death and can’t find a solution… One other fact: When I push the reset button it says “Ready to connect” but when I click next, it says “Network connected” but the app just spins on connecting to Wyze cloud" After a minute, it says “connection failed” then the app says Pairing failed.
UPDATE: Changed T Mobile router to 2.4ghz from “auto” and brought cam inside. deleted it and rediscovered it, ran fine. Took it back to the coop, plugged it in, worked fine. 1 HOUR later it is back “offline”.
If you keep it inside for a couple hours does it stay online? If so, you may be having wifi signal issues. Did you move your router? if not could be someone new in the area using the same channel as you, or a 40mhz channel, new bluetooth device, etc.
But I’d see if the camera is stable inside. If not, try a different power adapter with it. If it still does it, it may have gotten water inside. If still under warranty you can request a replacement, if not try leaving it in a bag of rice overnight.
No need to change your router to 2.4ghz, the camera will work fine with it on auto.
Thanks for your speedy reply. I will try the keeping it inside experiment.
No, I didn’t move the router since beginning of summer when we got the new T-Mobile 5G. No, it couldn’t get wet, it is in a very large waterproof coop. I took the insides out this AM to see if dust had gotten in, but it is a well-sealed camera and the internals were spotless. Nobody lives near me except one neighbor and she has not changed routers/providers in years. My wife has Bluetooth hearing aids and I have Bluetooth wireless earbuds, but we’ve had before this problem occurred.
As I mentioned, this has been an incredibly reliable camera for 10 months with no issues. It ran 24/7 for that whole time, and even with the current issue, it sometimes works for several days before going “offline” I’ve read a few folks say that they put their Wyze cameras on a wireless plug with a schedule to turn off/on every night at say 4AM and that helped. Well, I have several Wyze plugs, but I’m not using a $20 plug to fix a $30 camera problem!!!
I have my cams reboot once a week (no plug required, you can create a rule to do it). Obviously this only works if the cam is online. But I have not found it to be required, it is just a “better safe than sorry” thing. You could have it do that every night, but that assumes the cam can stay online for 24 hours.
If it stays online fine inside, then something in the wifi environment has changed (keep in mind routers are often set to “auto” for a lot of things and you don’t realize when they’ve decided to do something differently). But there are also lots of potential sources of interference.
May also want to try a different power adapter in case that is going bad.
Do you recall if you updated the firmware about a month ago when it started? They did release 1.0.82 back in the end of July. It improved the connection speed on my OGs, but it may need a better signal now due to that, so that’s another potential explanation. I did actually notice with the firmware prior to that (several months ago) that they seemed more sensitive to having a good wifi signal, so maybe this one also did that.
Moving your router higher up or closer to a window where the signal can get to the coop better would probably help if that is the case.
But it could just be the camera is dying. Maybe the chickens got sick of not sharing in the OnlyFans profits and sabotaged it? 
If it is within a year, they’ll replace it, if not, the OGs can be gotten for $20 or less frequently. I think a lot of Home Depots still have them on clearance.
I guess testing it indoors is the next step to see if it resolve the issue or not, which would help point to whether it is wifi signal or not.
Maybe the rowdy musicians decided they didn’t want any freeloaders streaming the jam session or just got too rambunctious and knocked it offline. 
I saw them on sale for <$20 earlier, and just now got a message about a “flash sale” that they’re $14.99 (until the 100 at that price are gone, I guess).
I use my cam for only “live” viewing, I have no paid subscription nor do I want to record anything. I’m not sure why it has to “connect to Wyze Cloud.” That is where it always hangs up. I push reset, it says “Ready to connect, Connected, (then prompts for username/password for my WIFI) then says Connected to WiFI, then the spinner spins forever on the app saying Connecting to Wyze Cloud”, then times out, says failed, end of story. I just brought it inside, did a full factory reset, I have Firmware 1.0.82, and the latest app (Black with blue “W”). It connected right away, ran for 15 min, and now again is “Offline.” I guess that implies the cam is dying. I’d better check on the warranty…I bought it Oct. 10 last year! ’
Yeah, well that is the trouble with the world. People are conditioned to accept junk that doesn’t last a year, shrug their shoulders, and shell out another $20…Any electronic product that can’t last 3+ years is garbage. I’ve had this laptop I’m typing on for 7 years and it is going strong. (Asus). Throwing away electronics clogs our landfills, costs us money, and wastes precious metals and Rare Earth metals. If this fails in less than a year, I’ll change my Amazon 5-star review to 1 star… I have wondered if the Chickens and Rooster were tired of my voyeurism and sabatoged the wires somehow. 
I agree. I really don’t like sending useful things to landfills and try to avoid that as much as I can.
I agree with the suggestions @dave27 has given, and I think doing the testing indoors is a good idea. Whenever you can replicate your problem, I’d probably also submit a log through the app and then follow up by opening a Support ticket that includes the Log ID. Wyze Support will tell you that they can’t view the logs, but this will do at least two things for you:
- You’re documenting a product failure with information that Support can pass along to the engineers for possible future remediation via firmware update.
- You’re letting Wyze know that there’s a problem prior to the warranty expiration.
In my experience, Wyze has been pretty fair with warranty replacements. Just this week I got a notice that they’re replacing a Video Doorbell v2 that I bought last October, and they told me to keep the one I already have instead of sending it back, so now I’ll have another camera I can potentially place somewhere and continue to use instead of sending it to e-waste. I do have a couple of concerns about what you’ve posted, though:
That makes me wonder if you’ve already voided the warranty by opening the device.
That makes me wonder if you purchased through Amazon and, if so, if it was via Wyze Labs (which is covered by the warranty) or another third-party seller (which is not).
Stranger things have happened, I s’pose. Maybe you should form a club with @Wahbash:
Update on Update: I swapped out power block with one I had (1.0Amp) and it worked for 13 min. then the same problem. Yes, I took the adhesive frame off, unscrewed 3 screws and peeked inside. Totally clean so I put it together, I see no proof that it was ever opened so I doubt they will. Yes I bought it on Amazon from Wyze direct, I called Wyze, and they had me take pics of the bottom of the cam and Amazon receipt and are sending me a return label. They will replace it if I can put the claim in before the end of Oct. I’m glad they’re replacing it without hassle, but I’m still curious as to why it connects for only a few min. then offline.
I’m glad they’re able to do a replacement for you! I have only a single Cam OG (so far), and I’ve been really satisfied with what it offers, especially at its price, so I hope the new one works out better for you. Sometimes things just fail, unfortunately, and I’m glad they’re making this right and resolving it in your favor. I wish I had a better answer.
I wouldn’t judge based on a single camera failing. Wifi chipsets generate heat, heat wears things out, maybe it gets hot and humid inside the coop and it was just too much for it. Or maybe just a bad chipset with short lifespan. Some things fail sooner than expected.
I have several OGs recording 24x7 for around 15 months now, still going strong, and they’re outside in the sun, rain, snow, etc.
Ok, today I did a complete last-ditch overhaul. I factory reset my router/modem, I factory reset my Wyze OG cam, I deleted any Wyze apps, I deleted all traces of Wyze from my PC/Cell phone. I then reinstalled my modem/router, reinstalled the Wyze app., worked through all of the setups for the cam plus 3 Wyze smart plugs that I have, and after 1 1/2 hours of frustration, everything is back up and running. I don’t know where the problem was, but something screwed everything up.My smart plugs were “offline”. My Serled smart lightbulb wouldn’t work, my Kasa plugs were offline, and my Amazon Echodot was the only thing working but even Alexa couldn’t connect anything.After the complete cleaning, everything works. Wasn’t the camera hardware, but not sure what the problem was. For being “smart products” they are really stupid when it comes to telling us WHY they can’t connect…
Ah, thought it was only the cam having issues, definitely would have gone a different route if I knew it was a lot of different things. Given your description, my guess is the factory reset and reconfigure of the router is what fixed it.
Believe it or not, it could have been as simple as you got assigned a new IP address by your ISP when you did that. The IP they gave you could have gotten onto some blacklist somewhere (happens from time to time when some home user is hacking or attacking someone, then you end up with that IP). Many companies use those centralized blacklists so it can impact a lot of stuff. Just a guess though, could have also been some setting in your router that someone changed (now or in the past, and it just became a problem now, like a manual DNS server that no longer exists) or a corrupted automatic firmware update, etc.
Most devices do know what the problem is, but it is buried in logs, and with IOT devices, usually you don’t have access to those logs.
I didn’t know either…at first. See, we only use the smart plugs for our grow lights in the late winter when my wife starts garden seedlings inside. I only found out they too were “offline” when I began deleting things to reinstall. The strange thing is that when we switched to T Mobile 5G back in May, I thought it would be a pain to reconfigure things, but everything went smoothly. Maybe I tweaked something somewhere that conflicted with Alexa. SHE is the only common thread since the other products are from multiple manufacturers. I want to thank everyone who helped, too bad I can’t give a “smoking gun” solution as to what was wrong.
I don’t know if your T-Mobile modem router can modify the following settings:
Split the WiFi band SSID to 2.4GHz and 5GHz (if not done so already or possible).
2.4GHz Channel: 1, 6 or 11
2.4GHz channel bandwidth: Set 20MHz if possible for range and penetration
Transmission Power: 100%
You might want to take some screen capture of your modem router settings.
Would this be a necessary step? I understand the concept of channel overlap. I’m just thinking about @dwzeppspam’s particular situation, in which…
…so it sounds quite rural, and I wouldn’t imagine there’d be a great need to avoid interference. Maybe you’re suggesting this to avoid potential signal interference with the one neighbor?
Please note that I’m not criticizing or saying it’s bad advice. I’m just asking for my own curiosity and learning, because it’s not something I would’ve considered in this case (perhaps to my own ignorance).
Not “throwing shade” - just some insight from experience:
No need to do that. I’ve used the same SSID for decades, ever since 802.11a. The cams don’t know anything about the 5ghz band, and having your phone on 5ghz with the cams on 2.4 works fine as long as there isn’t some major design flaw in the router, it is basically just 2 ports on a switch. Of course people are welcome to split them into two SSIDs if they have a reason to want that, won’t hurt anything really, but roaming between the bands (like if you go outside while on a video call etc) can be much more interruptive, it has to disconnect one SSID, connect to the other, then renew its DHCP lease. And that’s assuming you’ve stored both networks in the device and can set a priority for them, many phones just hang on to the last network and will get stuck on the 2.4 one. You may have seen me recommend that when people do have a reason to split the bands, keep the main network as one, then add a guest network or second set of SSIDs with it split. Then you can have the best of both worlds and choose how you want each device to work.
The exception is “smart connect” features in many routers - 99% of the time they work fine, but there are some that are poorly implemented and can block 2.4ghz devices from connecting (by trying to force them to 5 even though they don’t support it). I haven’t seen that in a long time though. Basically all smart connect does is use the same SSID and also add Band Steering and some minimum signal strength (RSSI) thresholds to force them to roam more quickly. Usually works pretty well, at least on a decent router/AP.
This rule doesn’t apply to residential or saturated environments anymore. Yes, it is very hard to let go of it, I struggled with it too. But the reality is, an overlapping channel may very well have more RF bandwidth available than one of the 3 non-overlapping. N, and AX wifi have made coexistence on the 2.4ghz band far better than the old b/g days. Your neighbors aren’t choosing 1/6/11 anyway, the vast majority of routers by default scan and pick the channel with the most available bandwidth, even if it may overlap.
If you control the entire environment and there are no neighboring wifi networks, 1/6/11 still comes into play but how often is that these days? Most of the time, allowing your router to choose the best channel is going to give you good results. I have an old Ubiquiti N150 AP that I don’t use anymore but it has great functionality for scanning actual RF utilization on each channel (unlike laptop programs like inSSIDer which just look at channels and how many SSIDs are on each one). I do have my router hardcoded to 8 as that had the most available bandwidth, and that generally makes other neighboring routers avoid that area, but auto also worked pretty well for me. The issue was once I added the Wyze cams, the analysis my router does when it boots up is not indicative of the areas where the cams are, and I found 8 was best in those areas. I recheck it every 6 months or so and adjust as needed, but last time I looked 8 and 9 were about tied for best, so left it. If all the routers used a flawless algorithm for channel selection, and nobody hardcoded or used 40mhz, then in theory having them all on auto will yield the best coexistence, but like I said, once you need to cover a large area with cams out front, out back, etc that can change things a bit. Your neighbors wifi may look very weak to your router inside, but to your cam it is really strong and interfering.
Completely agree, actually my #1 reason is to be a good neighbor (people around here that use their name as their wifi and have 40mhz get jokes from me about being bad RF neighbors. They don’t get the jokes, but I think its funny so that’s what matters). Second is that you’re now competing for double the bandwidth and dealing with double the interference on 40mhz, often it actually yields lower actual throughput (even if the link speed says double). A lot of routers default to “auto” which is supposed to only pick 40mhz if they see the spectrum is clear and a 40mhz client is present, but in my experience their definition of “clear” is way exaggerated. 40mhz NEVER should have been rolled out. Terrible idea unless you live in the middle of the woods and have no bluetooth, microwave ovens, cordless phones, etc. Even then, 40mhz is only useful at about the same range as 5ghz so what’s the point? But the manufacturers wanted to pump their numbers. I have a router that claims 1ghz on 802.11N 4 stream 2.4ghz. That is only possible if you have a 4 stream client (practically non-existent) and it supports whichever proprietary afterburner/throughput enhancement that router has implemented (broadcom’s in my case), which most clients do not. Just like internet speeds and them trying to tell you that you need a gig for a few people streaming video, it is all marketing to make money.
Usually the way to go unless you have multiple APs or a mesh system in which case you may need to dial it back some to reduce overlap. Or if you have a small area to cover, lower power levels result in better SNR, but generally people just leave it set to max. If everyone in an area got together and set their 2.4 power to exactly what they need, it would reduce some of the congestion issues, but we know that isn’t going to happen (nor is it as easy as it sounds without professional site survey equipment).
There are some good settings to tweak (mostly disable) but many ISP routers either don’t expose them to the user or lock them out (or simply don’t support them at all).
-Universal beamforming - almost always should be disabled. AC/AX (Explicit) beamforming can usually be left enabled but very few devices support this anyway.
-MU-MIMO - I typically disable it, the benefits are minimal, and some devices have issues with it, but generally not a big deal to leave it enabled, in some cases it will help if you have two or more clients drawing a lot of bandwidth.
-Airtime fairness. Unless you have dozens of devices competing for bandwidth, this actually usually hurts performance.
-Disable 802.11B. In reality disabling both B and G is good but I’ve found many routers will not actually do it correctly and G devices can still connect. But B is the big one to get rid of.,
-Disabling basic rates below 6mbit/sec on 2.4 and 12mbit/sec on 5ghz (basically all the old DSS rates plus the slower OFDM rates). However most home routers do not let you do this unless you can get into the CLI and are versed in Linux/Busybox OS. Using Minimum RSSI or smart connect (if your router has one or both) can have similar effect, dropping clients before they drop to really low rates.
Really long story short, the defaults in most routers are typically fine. Only when you’re dealing with a specific issue will some tweaks potentially help, but with ISP rouers, those tweaks are often locked down.
There is basically overlap no matter what these days. A channel is chosen based on available RF bandwidth and interference. Most routers do a decent job picking one when set to Auto, and it is rarely 1/6/11 anymore, especially with many routers grabbing a 40mhz channel.
Garden seedlings. Riiiiight. 
Is alexa happy again? She can get quite angry when things don’t go her way. May not have been anything you did, could have been a bad firmware update. Or maybe you were partaking in too many “garden products” and messed around with it Seriously, I’m from NH originally, even 40 years ago, if you had chickens and weren’t a farmer, guaranteed there were weed plants on the property 
Can relate. I may or may not write things in this very Forum for my own amusement. 