I have 3 OG cams and 2 V4 cams that are connected via wifi. Router is 2.5 and 5 G. Several times per week the OG cams go offline but not the 4s. I have to reset both the modem and router and the OG automatically come back online. Firmware is current. Any ideas how to fix.
If resetting the router fixes it, it is likely some glitch or bug with the router. The cams use different chipsets and apparently some setting in your router isn’t playing nicely with one of them.
Things to check in your router
2.4ghz band set to 20mhz only, not 20/40 or 40.
Encryption type is WPA2 only, not WPA2/3
Band steering/smart connect/whatever your router calls it is disabled on at least the network the cams are on.
There are other possibilities but those are the 3 that tend to cause the most issues with IOT devices when they’re not implemented correctly in the router’s hardware or firmware.
Why would you blame the router if the v4’s stay connected?
Explained in my reply.
So you’re saying the OPs router has some sort of conflict with the chipset in the OGs? Is this well documented? I don’t know much about the OGs, other than they are the least expensive option available in the WYZE lineup.
OG is Wifi 4, v4 is Wifi 6. Even if they were both the same, different chips react different ways. Since rebooting the router solves the issue, it it some issue between the router and the wifi chips in the OG. Disabling those features can commonly fix those sort of issues.
Can you provide more details:
- Distance of cameras from router.
- Signal Strength on Camera Device Info screen - 1, 2 or 3 bars?
- Are the OGs the new version? - firmware version s/b 1.1.0.xx
- When the OGs go offline is the Signal Strength 0 bars?
- Have you tried ‘Restart Camera’ or power cycling the OGs?
- What type of Internet Service do you have - cable, fibre, 5G?
Thanks, I will log into router to check. Since all three die at same time, you may be right. I had a Spectrum router but my air printer kept not working despite connected via Wi-Fi. I bout my own router and had the printer issue but less offen. I then replaced the modem and problem with printer went away. I am hoping if I make your suggested changes that I don’t start with more printer issues. I will check router and post results.
Terry, since all 3 die at same time I suspect it is not what you are suggesting. 2 cams are 15-20 ft with 1 wall and with three bars. The other is in basement 40-50 ft with floor and 2 bars. They were installed 6/1/25 and current firmware 1.0.98. I have Spectrum cable with 600 mb down for speed FYI. I have tried to rest but nothing. I have not looked at bars when disconnected. See my reply to Dave.
The thing that makes no sense to me, if it is a problem with how the WiFi network is configured, why do the OG cams connect in the first place?
In my experience, if there is an issue with the way the SSID is configured, the cam will not connect to being with. Maybe there is something unique with the OGs that I am unaware of. My experience is with v2s, outdoor cam v1, v3s, v3pro (for a day), and v4s.
Please do keep us posted.
If you have mostly 20mhz devices then a 40mhz device tries to connect (or even if a neighbor’s network changes to 40) that can kick the cam off. 20 and 40 are supposed to be able to coexist but I’ve seen it cause lots of problems, especially with IOT devices.
If a WPA3 device tries to connect and it starts broadcasting the info associated with that, it can boot off an older device. Again, 2/3 transition mode is supposed to be able to have them coexist, but generally it doesn’t work right.
If the router randomly tries to “band steer” a 2.4 device to 5 (which they shouldn’t do, but often try to) it can get booted off and depending how forceful the router is trying to be, not be allowed to reconnect.
Not saying one of those 3 is definitely the case here, just the first 3 things I would try.
Could be something as simple as the OGs DHCP leases all expired around the same time due to having been rebooted around the same time, and the router’s DHCP server has frozen up (one of the first things that starts happening when a router is dying). In that case, given long enough, the v4s would have suffered the same issue after a while. How long depends on what the lease time is in the router. Most default to a day but I’ve seen more and less.
WYZE devices won’t connect to WiFi network using a 40MHz channel width. We can take that out of the equation. As mentioned, the fact that they all connect has me thinking it has nothing to do with the way the WiFi network is configured.
I was reading up on how WYZE devices renew a DHCP address last week. (I assigned static IPs in the old what was the DHCP scope so did a bit of research prior to configuring things.) WYZE devices will attempt to renew at the halfway point of the lease. So if your lease is 24-hours, a WYZE device will try to renew after 12 hours.
With all cams on the same network and connected to same DHCP server, all camera leases would expire at the same time. Since only OGs are going offline, I think it is safe to say that it is not a DHCP renewal issue.
If it is anything with the WiFi network, which I do not believe it is, I would guess it may be the mixed mode issue. Run a pure WPA2 network or a pure WPA3 network (for the v4’s) is the best way to go. So many manufacturers (including WYZE years back) had and may still have serious issues with the way they implemented the WPA2/WPA3 mixed/transition mode WiFi security.
Not saying they will.
No, we can’t, the router operating at 40mhz often interferes with low end 20mhz devices
Modern wifi technologies change and adapt depending on what clients are connected (or even what neighboring networks/interference there is). It is not as simple as just being able to connect, in fact that’s the simplest part of the process and on many routers still uses decades old technology.
Yes, all DHCP clients do, that’s the standard.
Correct, unless your DHCP server is frozen and doesn’t respond, in which case they’ll continue trying to renew until the lease runs out, at which point they’ll disconnect.
No, each lease starts when the device comes online, they are not all in synch. If you reboot the router, in theory all devices should renew their leases, but sometimes they don’t, I’ve observed this on several devices including Wyze cams (before I changed them to static). PCs are pretty reliable, if they lose their network connection and regain it, it is very rare for them not to renew their lease. IOT devices are not as reliable on that.
Without any evidence (leases, logs, etc), it isn’t safe to say either way.
Then why would rebooting the router fix it? Agreed this is not a 100% smoking gun, but it definitely points to something either with the wifi or with the router itself.
Agree with you there. It was only intended as a temporary thing to allow a company (or a household) to migrate their devices over, then be disabled. Long term use wasn’t the goal and it plain doesn’t work well.
No sense in debating, if OP tries those 3 things and it doesn’t resolve it, at least 3 possibilities have been eliminated. Of course most of the rest of the things would be a fundamental deign flaw of the router or even that it is starting to fail, at which point just swap it out and go from there.
I agree, you’re entitled to your own wrong opinion.
2.4 is set to auto20mhz
Encryption is Wpa2
I have an asus and smart connect is “dual band smart connect”. Only other option is “disable”. Should this be set to disable?
Thanks Mike
Here is something to test. Can you swap Locations of a problem OG with a working v4? I would curious if the v4 goes Offline at the problem location.
I have five Wyze Cam v3 cameras. The v3 on a differenet floor from my router and furthest away is my camera that will go Offline more frequently for me.
Steven, I can try to swap them but I am getting 3 bars on 2 of the OG cams. Yes the V4 cams are closest and without a wall to penetrate but the OGs are maybe 15-20 feet away.
of course, now that I posted my question they have not acted up. The way it goes.
Well some would argue it should be turned off as that is the band steering feature. However, since WYZE devices only support 2.4GHz I see no point in setting it to disabled. With that said, if the cams start acting up again, you can go ahead and disable this setting to see if it has any impact.
Just know when you set it to disable, you may create additional work for yourself. Currently your 2.4 and 5GHz networks share the same name and password. When you set that to disable, they no longer will. The explanation below is from Uncle Google:
It shouldn’t be set to auto, set it to 20mhz only.
It can cause issues, usually only during the initial setup of the cam but I’ve seen many cases where a single band device will have an issue with it.
If you set it to “disable” then you can just go name both bands the same (and use the same password). In that configuration, the device itself can decide what band to connect to. Most modern devices are good at picking 5ghz when the signal is good, so the “smart connect” feature isn’t really needed. That way the router isn’t trying to force anything and potentially cause issues.
I do not know the model of the ASUS router the OP owns. However, I did find this screen shot elsewhere on the WYZE forum. Based on less than 5 minutes of research, the auto the OP is referencing has nothing to do with the channel width. If I am correct, he’s already locked in at 20MHz.
Source: Additional Asus router settings
Per Uncle Google:
