It applies to any Wyze device that connects to WiFi. Mainly Cam’s and any other Wyze WiFi device.
It DOES NOT apply to the sensors (contact, motion, climate, leak). The sensors do not connect by WiFi. They connect directly to the Hub by Radio Frequency and the hub acts as the controlling bridge box. For the sensors to work with a Hub, they must be within RF range of the Hub to which they are installed. For a sensor to trigger an “alarm response” on the hub with the HMS subscription, it must be within range and installed to the hub that has the HMS subscription.
But… You CAN have as many Wyze Sense Hubs on your account as you like, at any location that has WiFi, like the cams. The restriction is that only one of your hubs is allowed to have the HMS Subscription. The extra Hubs can be installed without the subscription and the Sense V2 Sensors installed to that hub (within RF Range) will work for Push Notifications and any Automation Rules or Alexa Routines you develop. You just cannot use it for any of the features you find in the “Monitoring” tab. The extra Hubs cannot trigger an “alarm” response like the hub that has the HMS Subscription assigned.
The restriction Wyze has is on the subscription, not the Hub. And, it is because of the way the subscription is monitored by Noonlight and the limitations of the Wyze App. Your App only has one “Home Address”. So, Noonlight can only send police to that one “Home Address”. If you had multiple HMS Subscriptions at multiple addresses, house #2 would trigger an alarm and police would show up at house #1.
Many users have multiple hubs for 2nd and 3rd locations. They just don’t have Professional Monitoring there. They “Self Monitor”. They install very loud bullhorn sirens connected to stacked Smart Plugs and use Rules and Routines to enable and disable them. The top plug is the one that triggers the siren from Rules and Routines when a sensor is activated, the bottom plug is the one that activates and deactivates the “system”. Here is a great How To if you are interested. They also use the Sensor and Plug Push Notifications to receive alerts when the plug and sensors are triggered. The Rules to activate and deactivate the siren plugs also turn the push notifications on and off respectively.
Yes. IMO it was shoddy journalism at best and a deliberate hatchet job for shock value and click bait at worst. All of their “investigative journalism” was from reading other online reporting of the incident over two weeks after it was first reported. I think they were just miffed that they didn’t get a press release before customers were informed and lost their bid at the scoop. With social media nowadays, mainstream media is suffering. And for good cause, it cuts out the middle man and removes their ability to create their own spin and narrative.
Wyze shut down the site in 40 minutes, it was limited to the WebView website only for Cams Plus users and only for those logged in at the time, directly affected the source streams of only 10 customers, and Wyze was immediate in making announcements that it happened on their many social media platforms. They kept customers updated with several follow up posts and were quite transparent about it in the process. I knew about it within minutes after it started and personally saw the Wyze response to the initial reports in real time. Here is the Topic Wyze created in the forum the day of the incident.