I voted Cam v3 above. I have five v3 cameras and started buying them in January 2022. I bought another seven v3 cameras to give to my family members as gifts because I liked them so much.
January 2022 was also around when Cam Plus Lite was introduced. I have learned being slow to update firmware and App versions is what works best for me.
V3 cameras still meet my needs for a security hobby. In the 3 years I have been using v3 cameras, I have Not had a camera, power cord, power brick or SD card fail (SanDisk High Endurance cards are all I use). All of my cameras are inside looking out, so they are out of the elements.
I voted V3 as well. I bought my first one as an impulse buy at Home Depot on June 22, 2022. Three days later I bought another four. The sixth one I bought on September 29. 2024. All six are outside and five are under the eaves. Theyâve been going strong since day one.
I donât have one. My oldest is a Cam Pan v3 that I still use. After its initial problems maintaining a Wi-Fi connection were solved with some firmware updates months later, itâs been a good kid. My other Cam Pan v3 is the problem child.
I keep thinking I should get a Cam v3 just to play with and get some hands-on experience so I can support it, because that still seems like the real workhorse model, and I know that itâs had some hardware revisions and gets firmware updates. I just havenât made that a priority.
If Cam v3 is indeed still the most numerous (?) and given that they donât make much on hardware sales ($ub$cription$!!) could it be that the many variations are actually a drag on profitability and a drain on the programming resources that could otherwise be used to achieve firmware and app stability and uniformity thus increasing customer satisfaction referrals and future revenue?
There are probably several reasons why it could be the main camera.
it was the first outdoor rated camera for Wyze.
there werenât a lot of alternative models available for sale at the time, so if anybody wanted a cheap camera they were definitely getting the V3.
for a long time it only cost $19.99. which is a crazy good deal for an outdoor camera, especially at that time.
there wasnât as much great competition for an affordable price back then
it had free cloud events
it had an rtsp firmware Branch
it doesnât have secure boot, so itâs possible and easy to modify for hobbyists
it continued to be available and sold for a lot longer than most all of the other models
it was made available from a lot more sources, while other models were not made available to every source
itâs the only camera from Wyze that is a decent baby monitoring camera, because itâs the only one that has ever used invisible near IR instead of the creepy red glowing visible far IR that scares some babies/toddlers (including mine)
it was one of the first cameras in the industry with a starlight sensor that could see color in low light conditions, so a lot of people came to wyze for that, but now those are everywhere with lots of different options.
Probably a bunch of other reasons too. But some of the above reasons will make it hard to duplicate how widely used the V3 is.
I find it interesting that Iâm disinclined to forego the Color Night Vision for the IR Night Vision (B&W) even though Iâm pretty sure Person Detection under IR Night Vision is more effective.
Another example of my emotional nature and tolerance for ârough mathâ, I guessâŚ
Here is a funny story. A friend of mine was a high school wood shop teacher. He told some students to get a piece of wood that is 3 feet long then cut it in half.
He came back a bit later and asked why they did not cut the 3 foot board in half. The students replied they were trying figure out what half of 3 feet was.
The teacher asked them what is half of 3 dollars. The student replied is it 75 cents? He told the student to get a calculator and divide 300 Pennies by 2. Next the said the 3 foot board is 36 inches long so now divide 36 by 2.
He never missed a moment to teach students something they should have learned in another class.
I expected the âfunnyâ part to be a result with two 3Ⲡboards ½ the original width because the original board had been cut in half lengthwise. This turned into a disappointingly sad story.
Iâm glad your friend had the willingness to teach life lessons âoutside his laneâ. I hope his students appreciated that.
Just to clarify, not funny ha ha, but funny the extra mile the faculty at that school had to go through because they wanted students to learn.
The Auto shop teacher would sit in on his studentâs English and Math classes because those teachers said his students were not paying attention in their academic classes.
There was really a great amount of collaboration of the teaching staff at that school.