New user and new system that works great. Sorry to ask this but I did search a bit. What happens in a power outage at my home? I know the cams stop recording but what do I see on my phone app at work?
Will I get a notification if I’m away ?
Not at the moment. There isn’t any offline notification for the cameras.
That’s not very good, Until something is done I will have to open the app and see if the cameras are recording I guess? Thanks for your reply! Anything I can do to make sure Wyze sees this?
Welcome to the Wyze User Community Forum @campososolar!
Wyze isn’t going to be able to do much about the cams reporting in the app as offline when there is a power outage at the house. If the cam is unpowered, it can’t do anything until power comes back and it reboots.
Wyze has developed a “offline” notification to be sent to your phone when the HMS Security System looses network connectivity. This is currently only a feature on that single piece of Wyze Hardware. However, Wyze is currently working on a solution to add that feature to other devices. But, it is not an easy expansion given the millions of cams out there. I have linked the #wishlist request below that is asking for this feature. Follow the link, vote at the top, like some posts, and add your response post at the bottom.
One thing that I did to harden my system against power outages was to install an Uninterrupted Power Supply for my modem, router, and HMS Hub. That way, they remain operational and online in the event of a power outage. For cams though, they would also need to be plugged into a UPS for them to continue streaming.
Thanks for the reply
SlabSlayer
Can’t the the phone app just see that there is no camera anymore and notify me? My workaround is just to open the camera and see there is no video stream. Seems pretty easy to implement as in the Loss of Communication/Network Connection Notification & Log In Progress
Currently no. The phone app doesn’t communicate with the cam directly. The app communicates with the server and the server with the cam. There is currently no feature for the server to continuously “poll” the cam for an online status. All push notifications come from the server to the app. This is the feature they are working on in the #wishlist topic I linked. They have been able to implement it with the HMS, but that is all for right now.
It may be easy to implement since they already have the base code written for the HMS, however the server power and bandwith required to drive it would be astronomical right now. Tens of Millions of cams constantly pinging the server, the server monitoring every one for a loss, and many millions of push notifications being sent out simultaneously from offline events. The hurdle currently stopping progress is the overwhelming freequency at which cams go offline. I suspect that at the current rate, implementing this could increase notification freequency on the server exponentially. I don’t think it’s an issue of “can they do it?” but more “what happens if they do?”.
Wrong tool for the job. COULD server programming be done so you get a notification every time a camera goes off-line? Likely yes, but you would likely not be real happy with all the false reports - as SlabSlayer talked about.
The app I use to monitor my clients will text, email, or beep my phone if anyone of these people lose power. I would think that there is a way for Wyze to beep my phone if a camera or 2 of them go offline.
I also have monitoring for power or internet outages (often go hand in hand) via several different methods. As stated, your WiFi based Wyze cameras may not be a very good way to do it.
You might be right but I would think if Wyze had the cams at my place on-line all of the time and after hours of monitoring they both went away, they could beep my phone. Maybe the phone app could monitor itself and beep the phone.?
I do get that there are technical considerations above my pay grade. I just want to know my home is being monitored while I am driving or something besides staring at my phone. We did put men on the moon, ok, maybe we did not😉
Yea, and this is how Wyze does it on the home monitoring system. The server has to periodically check the cams, ask if they are online, and if they don’t get a response they can assume they are offline and send your phone a notification.
Unfortunately that means if you want accuracy within 5 minutes of the cam going offline, Wyze will have to make a network request every 5 minutes to every single Wyze cam in the world. That is a lot of bandwidth, and bandwidth costs money. That’s why most cheap smart devices don’t have this capability.
Wyze implemented it on the HMS system because that is definitely the most critical system, and users pay more for it.
Wyze would probably have to make offline notifications a cam plus feature.
I definitely would look forward to this, and it will come eventually.
I would be happy with 10 minutes. That is what my Schneider system does and it has the ability for me to real time monitor a site it if I enter the PW. Plus I get the site weather, Soc, and more charts and graphs than a human would want.
You are right that Wyze has alot of devices and the Schneider cloud monitor does not.
They should add it to Cam plus as I can’t see paying for this as it is now.
Appreciate all the responses!
Question for the sake of discussion:
Aren’t there programs that can be run on a local server or computer (Raspberry & the like) that can ping local IP devices on a set freequency and send alerts when the pings fail?
I realize that the ISP, Modem, Router, and server\computer would need to be on UPS and maintain internet connectivity during a power outage, but it would be a local solution to the Cam Offline Notification issue.
Yes, there are. I am currently doing exactly that with a script in my router. My cameras are pinged once an hour. In the event of a ping failure, I am sent an E-Mail.
Additionally I am using an external service that tests a bunch of things that are supposed to be internet reachable. Lastly, I have monitoring hardware that will report on alarm conditions for environmental conditions (temperatures, battery voltages, door alarms, AC power failures, etc). I have many hours of battery, and redundant internet services, so it takes something pretty serious to lose it all…
Thanks, Jim!
Does this require the devices have a static IP or will it adjust the IP Ping to the MAC on DHCP?
All of my IoT devices have DHCP static reservations in my DHCP server. Therefore, they always have the same IP address.