Been experimenting with RTSP (now on 4.19.4.48 on all 3 cameras) and found that its rock solid stable if I connect with VLC, but that connections drop out with other RTSP clients on Linux (what my home server is running). So far I’ve had the best results with motion but beginning to suspect the problem is not the Wyzecam firmware but how some clients are handling these connections. I’ve begun researching (I was a middleware engineer/integrator for around 20 years, so I’m painfully familiar with misbehaving, and often high-priced, software) what exactly is causing the problem. There are quite a few (often poorly documented) variations possible, which explains why we’re still struggling with it. I’d appreciate any feedback on dead-ends you’ve found so I can avoid going down too many rabbit holes. Right now I’m still focusing on motion because it seems like the simplest of the lot, but am open to suggestions. Thanks much again for making RTSP an option, even on an experimental basis.
Just checking in. So far I haven’t experienced any drops in the last 24 hours. Using motion 4.2.2 from the project web site on Ubuntu Server 18.04.3 (headless), NOT the version in the distribution repo. This is a 3 camera setup. All 3 are outdoors. Going to post my configs on one of my github repos, onemoretech/motion at main · plembo/onemoretech · GitHub, in case anyone is interested.
UPDATE: Aug 20. Still going strong. My apologies for the typo in the link above, it is now corrected and should work. I have also uploaded the sample configs from the motion distribution so people will have something to compare against mine. I think the changes that made the difference were setting netcam_keepalive and netcam_use_tcp to “on” in each of the individual camera config files (my “camera1.conf”). Moving the data and log files to a big volume, and trimming the log_level in the main config (motion.conf) are just a precaution against failure due to a lack of disk space (I’ve also changed /etc/logrotate.d/motion so it compresses and deletes older log files every 4 days instead of 12, as I noticed my logs had hit 2 GB the first time around after a couple of weeks in production).
Is anyone here having their cameras literally turn themselves off (by theirself) on this firmware?
I am like everyone else here, the cameras are having to be regenerated in order to reconnect to blue Iris ever so often but…
a few times when I have seen in the blue Iris app that the camera was disconnected, when I go into the wyze app, the camera is turned completely off?!? Just wandering if anyone else here is seeing some of the same things.
Did have one camera appear to shut down, but it turned out to be a connection issue. Came back before I could go outside to power cycle.
Over Sept and Oct I’ve had 2 or 3 times when I had to go into Advanced Settings in the app for a camera and hit the Regenerate button. In all cases my connection over RTSP came right back.
I can’t find the 4.19.4.48 version of the RTSP fw; has this been deleted?
A bit confused as to the beta and “RC” versions of this FW; it would be nice to have them all available to download, it seems there are some issues with some, not with others…
TY
@philnc Where did you get this? I can’t find this anywhere; are there any release notes for the RTSP fw, beta or not?
thanks
Still can’t find this fw to download, how did you guys get this?
I am running 4.19.4.41 with BI (for the past week).
WyzeCam2version2 has been SOLID
WyzeCam2version1 stopped being seen by BI, I had to regenerate it.
Using BI5 (demo), and not recording 24/7 but using motion triggers to create 1 file of appended short clips (BVR mode), although I would like to do it in MP4 mode (which doesn’t seem to be supported).
Pretty happy with this so far.
I don’t know why, but setting Night Vision Mode to OFF made rstp streams on my wyze cam V2 a lot more stable. I have a well-lighted area at night so this is OK.
During the day when night vision was off automatically (“Auto” setting) the streams were more stable, so now I have night vision off all the time, just so I can use my wyze cam with Blue Iris.
Probably a fluke. The developers are not capable of implementing stable RTSP, it was even stated on here by wyze.
It’s true. Instead of the rtsp stream dropping every 45s, it’s dropping every 5 mins after I disabled night vision. It’s very reproducible. Could be just a quirk with my cam V2.
Whatever was BEFORE 4.28.4.41 was much more stable for me and quite usable.
If anyone has a copy of that .zip file, pls let us know. It’s not linked off the rtsp page anymore.
Which camera is it, the V2 has two different versions as wyze changed the sensor and have no way of tracking it (I find this unprofessional) other than a relative sale date. I’ll see if I have the firmware
How do I tell? in the ios app it says Device Model: Wyze Cam v2
Based on the thread below, I probably have a V2V2 (v2b?) because I got it directly from Wyze about 2 months ago (April 2020).
yes the 4.40 firmware is much better for me
Thanks again!
You’re welcome! So this FW helps you get less dropped frames, but what about connectivity, does the RTSP feed still drop in and out?
Actually, I can’t tell a difference in dropped frames. The 4.41 firmware would drop the connection every 1-3 minutes, so that issue overshadowed any dropped frames. On the 4.40 firmware I notice some dropped frames, if i stare closely to the video. For security cam purposes, the dropped frames are acceptable.
The real difference is in the dropped connections. Instead of 60-200 dropped connections per hour, on the 4.40 firmware I see approximately 3 dropped connections per hour. Blue Iris keeps a count of these (“NoSignal” counter).
Blue Iris is pretty good about restarting the stream after the Wyze drops the connection.
In the end, I’m still not happy with the Wyze RTSP and plan to replace it with a raspberry pi Zero W running MotionEye.
I’ve stumbled upon open source RTSP firmware for the wyze cam V2 (and other cams):
It works and has some other features like MQTT. I’m going to observe the stability/performance for a week or two. So far I like the features they have added. Things as simple as wifi signal strength that helped me optimize the wifi link (channel, positioning) to reduce disconnects. No problems with Blue Iris.
I dumped more details, flashing tips, and troubleshooting here:
https://donnlee.com/2020/07/26/rtsp-flashing-wyze-cam-v2-with-dafang-hacks-firmware-blue-iris/
