In day or nighttime picture is choppy and splotchy. With motion, a vehicle or people it goes blurry. Day and night has a slight lag and large pixel-y chunks. Night time looks like something alive wiggling all over the screen. It’s been going on for a while & started just after one of the updates. I contacted support. Went through all their suggested procedures. Nothing worked so they sent me a new replacement as it was still under warranty. Received & installed 2 days ago and the new one is doing the same thing as the other did. Contact support again, they ask if I did all the steps as previously (Yes I did) and suggested I “reposition the camera”. It is a window mount.
I moved it to 2 other locations Inside the house, 3 different outside. All had same results.
They want to replace it or money card/refund. Thinking this will be useless as the newer camera will do the same as the other new & old camera. They offer nothing more and/don’t know what the problem is. Hoping someone can help me before I’m forced to start all over & purchase something other then Wyze. Thanks in advance.
It is a Wyze v3,
How 'bout posting a recorded video to illustrate what you are describing? That may help you get some answers.
Posting Pics. thnx.
Wow, that does look, not great. My v3 cams all have audio issues, but the picture is better than that. Do you have the quality set to HD?
It honestly looks like 360P quality. I think the camera might automatically go to that setting if it has a hard time processing higher quality video over the network. How far is your camera from your wifi router?
If you move the camera closer to the router, does the quality improve at all? If not, are there too many wifi signals in your area? There’s not really a good fix for it, but having too many access points (networks) in the same area, can cause interference that decreases the quality of each network.
It’s set on SD. I did try moving it to other places inside & out but no improvement. What I didn’t consider and you mention is maybe too many wifi signals. Router is in back of the house. I have many things on wifi (TV, Alexa, 3 devices,Wyze, plus a couple smart plugs) AT&T has an app where I can pause any/all devices so I think I’ll try that and see. Honestly think you’re on to something there! I’ll let you know how it goes. Thank You so much. Very grateful & fingers crossed.
I didn’t actually mean your own Wi-Fi equipment, I meant potentially Wi-Fi interference from neighbors’ networks. Certainly your own Wi-Fi devices can interfere with some reception, but it’s not reasonable to think that you have to limit the number of devices on your network to less than a dozen in order to get decent quality on your camera. That being said, it will make a difference if you’re viewing your cameras locally or remotely. Local viewing should have very high quality most of the time. Remote viewing will depend on several Network nodes between you and your camera, so quality May reduce under those circumstances. I will say, my wyze cam v3s suffer more than any other Wi-Fi equipment I have from low Wi-Fi quality. They are the first device I’ve ever had to adjust my network to improve their quality. And that shouldn’t be necessary, they should just work with any standard Wi-Fi router. Since they do seem to have trouble with Wi-Fi, and it could be a boon for the rest of your network anyway, you might consider investing in a higher quality router. Again, you shouldn’t have to do that, but I’m sure it would benefit not just the wise cams, but everything on your network. if you’re already using a high quality router, I’m not sure what else might be interfering with your image quality. I will ask, did you take off the protective plastic covering from the lens when you took it out of the box?
Yes, I removed the plastic over the lens. I agree that I shouldn’t need to limit devices for better quality. I have 10 total devices on wifi, 3 are constant activity (no gaming) on a 2.4GHz/5 GHz Gateway router. I view locally. My idea yesterday to pause devices was pretty much experiment as it was one I didn’t try. However, it has now turned into another situation. Going to refer the old camera as #1. The replacement I received 3 days ago #2. I installed #2 without removing #1 in app. In order to use “services” #1 has to be deleted. Though #2 is connected I have to “add” it and do basic reinstall to recognize. All of this I’m sure you’re aware. When adding #2 it has no power. Stays on approximately 15 seconds AND there is no “restart” button on the bottom. Nothing there but a dark hole. Defective replacement. I filed another ticket with support to return it and hope they send another replacement as everything I purchased is still under warranty. I’ve not heard back yet. Not happy about it as I’ve spent to many hours trying to resolve this and still don’t have answers or even a clue. Not to mention the time I will need to research a different solution/camera. (Heavy Sigh)
Any recommendations or ideas on where to start?
Heavy Sigh indeed. dealing with Wyze support is kind of a nightmare. They’re polite and pretend to be empathetic well enough, but the outcome… well, I guess I haven’t see my outcome yet. If you are still within the 30 day purchase window, I would ask for a refund. My replacement cam(s) is/are on their way. It’s really hard to tell if they’re replacing all of the cameras I sent them a ticket about, or just sending 1 unit to try to run out the clock on my return window. I sent them very detailed information for all of my cameras including footage of the trouble I was having, and in their warranty response, they’re saying “unit” singular, so idk.
Anyway, back to your situation, I don’t think you should have to do this, but if you have a sim card ejector for a phone, you can try poking that in the hole and see if it will restart the camera for you, but if it’s cutting out after 15 seconds, I don’t really think resetting it will fix the issue. It’s weird that they don’t ever seem to ask for the defective units back so they can refurbish them. It’s like they’re so cheaply / poorly made they would rather just pump out more than repair anything that’s broken. On the other hand, it sounds like the replacement you got was probably refurbished rather than new, so… idk More questions than answers.
As far as recommendations, It’s hard to say what’s good. It largely depends on what you need it for. If you want higher quality, but have to work withina WYZE budget, I’ve had good luck with SV3C. They’re not well known, their app isn’t as good as Wyze’s app, and they’re kind of a no-name, but they are pretty robust, and maybe a little more expensive. I got some of their cheaper ones, so the image quality isn’t as good as my WYZE cam, but based on your pictures above, the image quality is much better than that, and those were their cheaper ones. If you want to spend a little bit more for better image quality, I know they have some newer versions with higher resolution, and I’m almost tempted to buy them if I end up returning my wyze cams. V380 Is another cheap camera company, and their app is even worse than SV3C’s app, but the cameras are dirt cheap, and so far, more dependable than what I’ve experienced with Wyze. If you want, I can upload some screenshots or videos from those cameras so you can see what I’m talking about.
I was going to go with reolink. They are a reputable brand, like I thought wyze would be, but their app and setup is a bit on the annoying side. They’re also a bit more expensive. I bought them for my fiancee thinking it would be an upgade from my SV3C cameras because I didn’t want to cheap out on his birthday present / christmas / who remembers the occasion, but so far I haven’t loved them. To be fair a lot of why I do or don’t like a camera has to do with ease of setup in tinycam. Wyze cameras are insanely easy to set up, and they work well in tinycam, even remotely. If you just plan on using the manufacturer’s app, SV3C is probably my favorite, followed by reolink, then v380. For image quality, and product quality, I’d ranke them Reolink on top, SV3C second, and V380 3rd. If budget is the main thing, I’d go V380, then Sv3C, then Reolink. The best place to buy v380 is ebay, Amazon’s search results mix in a bunch of other cameras I’ve never tried, and it’s hard to weed through to v380 products. For SVC3, Amazon has most of their products, but I’d check out their official website to compare cameras and look for exactly what you want. For Reolink, I would just use the reolink website. DO NOT trust any website you don’t already use for V380 products. I don’t think they have an official web presence, I think they just sell through 3rd party sites, and the one site I found that looked official was hawking a bunch of random products from different brands, so it’s hard to know for sure what you’re buying, and they also wanted like twice what I paid for them on eBay.
Sorry, long post I hope at least some of the info is useful for you.
See what the quality looks like if you set it to HD
I’m curious, why have you returned your wc3’s? I have not heard back as of this morning and thinking I will not at all. Disappointing. Sent them a short 30 sec. clip of me plugging it in & powering off in 13 secs. I’m not going to do anything with the #2 cam until I’m certain I’m stuck with it. Then I may crack to open to have a lookie inside since its useless. Today I begin looking for something else. Have nothing hooked up at the moment. I need Surveillance mostly, as I’m online seller & merchandise on the property. Recording or cloud is a must.
I am so very grateful to you for not only responding here, (much appreciate the ear) But all the info you have with alternative cameras. It IS useful to me and gives me a very good foundation on what to look for now. Plus the time & frustration it will save in the process! Thank You, Thank You !
BTW, who isn’t on a “wyze cam budget”? 
Just an FYI as to the problem. Apparently “The most recent version of the Wyze app also breaks landscape orientation viewing: [App no longer works in landscape orientation on iPad]”. The Wyze app is on my iPad. So they are not going to honor the warranty on either products nor refund any portion of the year subscription for extra service I purchased 2 months ago. I can’t use ANY of the products & service I paid for.
All of my WCV3s have a terrible crackling, static noise on the audio. I don’t expect audiofile quality on a cheap camera like this, but it should at least be as free of static as my even cheaper v380 cameras.
“BTW, who isn’t on a “wyze cam budget”?” - Nobody I know, but you never know I certainly don’t mind spending a bit more for bettery quality… which is what I thought I was doing buying Wyze instead of V380 for my latest project, but I appear to have been wrong.
Given your poor experience with their customer service / returns, If the replacement they send me doesn’t fix the problem 100%, I will go ahead and request a refund since I’m still within 30 days of purchase. It’s pretty disheartening to hear your story.
This won’t work on your ipad, but if you have any android devices, look into the “tinycam” app. It’s the best app for kludging together a full security system with cheap cameras from different makers, but it does get considerably more difficult when you need to view remotely (not on the same wifi network). V380 isn’t fully supported on that app yet, but SV3C works really well, with some only mildly involved setup. Another reason I was changing to wyze is because adding wyze cameras to tinycam is DEAD SIMPLE, and I hadn’t seen any reviews showcasing the audio disaster that is WYZE cam V3.
If you’re deep in the Apple ecosystem, I probably won’t have a lot of recommendations for 3rd party apps to make your wyze cams work, since I use android almost exclusively. I really wish there were a tinycam version for iOS, but the developer said they weren’t going to make one so. whamp whamp for that.
That being said, if you use windows at all, you could request the RTSP firmware from WYZE and install that on your WYZE cameras, then use Blueiris (I haven’t used it yet, but it’s highly recommended by various ip cam communities and costs about 70 dollars) or ContaCam, which is freeware / donation ware. I’ve used it myself, and it’s pretty good, especially for free, but setup can be pretty involved and annoying if you’re new to working with network cameras outside of their own native apps. Again, with either of those, viewing outside of the local network will require some involved port-forwarding that I’m honestly not experienced / educated enough to guide anybody through. I don’t even have it set up for my own system yet because I keep running into difficulties understanding how to set up port forwarding properly.
Also, I’m going to retract my previous recommendation for reolink. I still think they’re very good quality for the money, but they are a pain to set up and get working right with 3rd party applications (I guess if you’re just using their app, I’d still recommend them) but I spent 3 hours this morning trying to configure my fiancee’s reolink camera with motion detection, and well the failure point could have been the cheap-ass android box I was using to make a make-shift NVR, But I didn’t have any of that trouble with SV3C. It just works with appropriate speed and quality, even on a remote network, on the cheap-ass android box. So if I had it to do over again, I would have bought him SV3C cameras instead of reolink.