The Wyze app and Wyze websites will be down for scheduled maintenance on February 8th at 12:00 AM PT. The process is expected to be completed by 2:00 AM PT. Here’s the scope of impact:
Users will not be able to log in, sign up for accounts, or use the app.
There is a setting called “Power Loss recovery” where you can tell the bulbs “turn the light on” so that if you ever turn off the power to light then turn it back on manually with the switch, the bulb automatically comes back on. Then the bulb will still work just like a normal non-smart LED bulb. Then when the internet is restored, it will go back to all the other smart functions being available again.
It is possible that some of the bulbs may have SOME functionality without internet as they have Bluetooth.
Pretty wild to shut down functionality of a home security system for a few hours and broadcast to the world the exact time it will happen. You might want to put some thought the implications of this type of thing before deciding to move forward
For anyone wondering, they sent an email to HMS owners explaining:
You will still be able to use the physical Wyze Sense Keypad to cancel alarms or arm/disarm your system.
Alarms that occur during the maintenance window will trigger the siren on your Wyze Sense Hub, but your system may not request the Noonlight dispatching service.
So, we can still arm and disarm the system (locally) and the alarm/siren will still go off, a person just needs to dial 911 themself.
The email says it’s an upgrade to the cloud infrastructure. I hope that means things are going to be a lot more smoother.
I appreciate Wyze letting me know when things change temporarily from what I would normally expect and letting me know that I would need to manually call stuff in myself.
We actually did take this into account, we did not want to do it so early that people could become a target but also give enough time that people could make adjustments and be prepared.
…and what do you say to folks who are out of town whose alarm triggering wake the neighbors in the middle of the night with no apparent way to shut it off? Since Noonlight won’t receive the alarm, will the neighbors call the cops due to the unusual noise at that time? How long will an alarm continue to blare without human intervention? The Wyze alarm owner’s hands are tied since they cannot turn it off either!! So please play out that scenario for us! No back door way to shut it off remotely!!!
If an alarm goes off with a person not there and Noonlight can’t call the cops, I would appreciate it if it caused my neighbors to look at my house and call the cops. But, for what it’s worth, the siren times out all on its own after I believe 10 minutes anyway.
A person concerned about the remote property scenario can make the informed decision which risk they prefer: have the siren go off for 10 minutes and the neighbors call the cops, or turn the alarm system off in advance for a couple of hours or so so that this doesn’t happen (incidentally, the cameras should continue to record locally to an SD card even during outages, so footage can reviewed later). I, myself, will probably just leave mine on.
Incidentally, I found examples of similar scheduled maintenance downtimes causing similar concerns with most other Home security companies as well, including ADT, Honeywell, Simplisafe, etc. which indicates this isn’t something specific to Wyze or abnormal in the security industry, but hopefully such downtime instances will be rare because none of us like things not working exactly as we want them to.
Wow just wow. Is this going to be normal? The year of the camera? Huh? Let’s shut down all camera events for millions of security cameras even if some customers pay for a service. I realize it’s only a few hours but come on. Wyze needs to improve their clouds redundancy.
I think he was talking about false alarms being triggered. Sorry, It’s not normal. I’ve had Ring and Reolink for several years and nope never happened. They just had periodic outages like wyze. This is good to know though especially during the “Year of the Camera”. You guys are making it very difficult for us early supporters to stay with you.
Along these lines, I always tell people to never advertise the company you use for security with a sign (unless they’re paying you to put their sign up in your yard…and yes I have had companies offer to pay me monthly just to put up their security sign in my yard even if I don’t actually use them )…I tell people to always put up a generic sign, so random people don’t feel confident what the system weaknesses are (EVERY company has security weaknesses). Generic signs are best. So this is good advice in general anyway…
IMO:
Best = Use a generic sign
Second best = use a sign for a company other than the company you actually use for security
Not speaking for either of those fellas, but I am guessing there are metrics showing when the time of the least amount of alarms or events are, when the times of least rules triggers, least amount of user input into the systems etc etc to find the sweet spot that impacts folks the least. There is no good time that impacts no one, so choosing a time that effects the least is a good course of action. I am guessing that the time chosen reflects that, coupled with engineer availability etc.
)…I tell people to always put up a generic sign, so random people don’t feel confident what the system weaknesses are (EVERY company has security weaknesses). Generic signs are best. So this is good advice in general anyway…