Hi All! Happy WyzeCam v3 user here. I’m focused on recording video only to the XD card and not via WiFi, because I’ve got active hacking going on in my local area. I’ve already had video clips deleted from my cameras while using them with WiFi active.
I’d like to be able to completely and totally shut off WiFi on the v3 camera. My thinking is that the camera could simply record only to the XD card and I could retrieve that video later, either by turning WiFi back on (via the switch) or by pulling the XD card, reading the data and putting it back in the cam.
Does anyone know if a tiny switch could be installed that would power off the WiFi chip only and let the camera just sit there recording to the XD card? Thanks for any comments or feedback!
The V3 is a cloud camera designed to communicate with the Wyze servers. They need an internet connection at power-up or they won’t record anything. From my reading, once started you can disconnect the internet and they continue to record until/if they lose power. Not sure about installing a switch, but anything is possible. Even then, you’d still need an internet connection at power-up.
Hey WildBill - I see you are a retired IT engineer. That’s excellent, so you’re a pretty bright feller. I know they need comms at power up. You can see from the manual, that if you shut down your WiFi system to the camera (the camera loses WiFi signal), it’ll continuously record motion-sensed video to the XD card until it fills up. The problem with this scenario is that the camera will still respond to a WiFi signal, “thinking” it’s WiFi node is back so it’ll connect right up. What’s bad here is that the hacker can duplicate my WiFi node and the camera will happily connect. Hacker happily deleted two days worth of video from EVERY ONE of my cameras.
I have buddies who run the v2 and v3 cams “detached” and they say they make AWESOME game cams, far better quality than your usual game cam, far better response time and image quality. But those guys don’t have some POS connecting to their cams and deleting data.
If I had a way to disable WiFi after having powered up and connected, then disconnected, that would prevent the bad actor from deleting my video. THen I could just hit the switch, reconnect to WiFi and upload the video, where it would be far more difficult to delete.
BTW, WildBill. What I REALLY need with these cameras is for them to work “wired only”. But people have been begging for that for ages and are getting no luv from the Wyze cam folks. The idea of turning WiFi off is kind of a stopgap, something that maybe could make it impossible for the video to be deleted before I can get it off the camera. I’m to the point where I’m shopping MUCH more expensive wired cams where I’d really rather keep using my Wyze cams. Heck: If Wyze would design and sell a wired-only cam based on the WiFi Wyzecam, (at a comparable price point and quality) I’d buy a TON of those! I’ve even gotten to the point where I’ve pondered the possibility of trying to hack the cam to communmicate wired-only myself…
Oh man. I think how cool a “Wyze cam v4 ethernet POE” cam would be - similar size and quality. That will work with most recording software or NVR’s or even if there were a Wyze app on a server, with NO NEED to connect to the cloud. That would be fantastic.
Not sure how you run the V2 and V3 without power…no battery. What makes you think someone deleted videos? If on the SD Card, they’d have to format the card.
Suggest you change SSID & password, set SSID Broadcast to OFF, your neighbors won’t see it. If you have an old WiFi, set to broadcast original SSID but don’t connect to your router.
What makes you certain this is what happened? How did the hacker know your password so that the cameras would connect? How do you know another node was setup? Also, where were the videos stored that were deleted? SDCard? Cloud? Either way, someone would need your Wyze account and password since there isn’t any direct way to connect to the cameras without the app, at least as far as I know.