Where I live my cell service is more consistent than my WiFi. It seems that my V3 Pro doesn’t record to my SD card if WiFi is down? Is there a way to have the camera record to SD if it loses WiFi connectivity? Can I use a cell hotspot as a backup when wifi is down? If someone cuts my internet cable on the side of my house is Wyze worthless?
That is an interesting question. As far as I know, the v3 and v4 (not sure about the Pro as I don’t own one) will continue to live stream and record to SD card after internet loss as long as they don’t need to do a new handshake with Wyze servers or loose power.
I’d like to see what other Pro owners have to say about it.
There is a known bug that causes some cameras that are normally supposed to record to the µSD card to stop doing so a while after losing WiFi. Most of the reports have been for the V3 camera, but there have been a scattering of others. I have a V3 Pro in my truck that is one of those affected - which is annoying since that camera drives out of WiFi coverage every time I leave the house.
Wyze is looking into it.
two different scenarios.
just put $10 mini ap in truck
Only slightly. When I drive out of range, the signal degrades until it fails as opposed to an instant failure when the WiFi or Internet fails.
Normally not enough of an issue to bother with the added expense.
As mentioned above, I have heard that a few cameras lately when they lose Internet they will lose time tracking. Then they record to the SD card with an entirely different date and timestamp. So if you try to view them in the app it looks like the camera didn’t record at all during that time period because the recordings aren’t matched to that date or time.
However, many people have found that if the remove the card from the camera and put it in a computer, the recordings are actually there on the card, just not with the correct date/time.
All of the above is assuming that the camera initially boots up with Internet access then sometime later loses internet. (If a camera boots up without Internet, it won’t start recording to the SD card until it first authenticates with the Wyze server sometime after it first restarts)
So, I believe they all do still record to the SD card when they go offline, but there is a new bug that makes it lose the date/time stamp for storing the recordings in the right order. I’m not sure why that happens now. It didn’t used to and not all cameras have this issue. It started with OGs and sounds like it’s spreading.
That’s probably not a bug. The code might be doing an nntp call before saving to the SD card, and fails to get the correct date/time. The camera has no real time clock.
Like a virus
What you say is all true. I called it a bug because none of the cameras used to have this problem, and it seems some kind of coding update has inadvertently created the problem.
Generally speaking, if there is an error, fault or flaw in coding that causes it to produce an unintended or unexpected result, it may considered a bug, regardless of whether it was a coding error, design flaw or programming logic issue. I agree with you that none of the cameras have a real time clock, but considering almost all of these cameras functioned as expected (intended) at one time and now they do not (unintended), I call it a bug for that reason.
On the bright side, since the cameras have all functioned the way would expect in the past, they should be able to reverse or re-correct whatever changed to make it function differently now.
With the introduction of beta firmware ending in 12.9371 for V3, V3 Pro and (maybe) Cam Pan V2, the cameras start acting in a new behaviour. This is true for the most recent beta firmware ending in 12.9751 as well.
I have done a few test with the 12.9751 beta firmware. I turned off the network at 7:55am and turned it back on at 9:55am. I am only able to view the playback footage until 8:25am in the app. After 30 min of internet outage, the recordings start saving in a randomly generated dated folder with a incorrect timestamp. As a result, you need to physically remove the micro SD card to play it back in a phone or PC. Flashing these beta firmware will cause to act exactly like the OG cameras. The stable firmware ending in 11.8391 can playback the full 2 hour no problem.
I even did a longer test with the stable 11.8391 and it played back 4 hours without a problem as well.
If @vailster0 didn’t flash a beta firmware to his V3 Pro camera then there might have been a power outage when his internet went down. If you don’t have internet connectivity and your cameras restart due to power outage or power surge, then you will experience the same “No video selected at the time”. It is still recording though, but it starts recording into a different folder with the time stamp are all messed up because the camera require online connectivity to a NTP server to sync the recordings. The Wyze app relies the recordings being in the correct dated folder to align the footage chronologically.
If this wasn’t a problem before, I can see how this happened.
The cameras don’t have a real time clock, but it does have an internal clock. So it looks like on initial power up, the camera does a succesful nntp call, updates its internal clock and even if the internet connection is cut, and if the power is still on, its internal clock is still semi-accurate. And the camera gets a correct timestamp (from the internal clock) for SD recording.
So it looks like now, the code is doing an nntp call each time it formats file datestamp. And fails because there’s no internet.
Edit -
I remember someone complaining about the huge DNS calls coming from the cameras. These nntp calls probably is a huge chunk of that.
Sounds reasonable.
Hopefully they will fix it back to have the internal clock stay the same and not reset with a new nntp call constantly causing it lose the internal clock whenever the internet connection is cut.
Though I do know that random cameras have done excessive DNS calls over the years even before this issue started happening, I’m sure this issue only makes that worse and causes excessive DNS calls on more devices than used to happen in the past sometimes.
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