If by 5G a person means the 5th Generation Wireless network that phones use, then I wouldn’t want to pay an extra $20 month forever for a camera to have it work on my 5G cell phone network. That would get expensive fast. That’s more of a niche luxury cam for rural areas with a lot of land, or for hunters (Also illegal to use for hunting in some states, but not in others). This is technically what “5G” internet means…using a cell phone tower instead of home WiFi.
If by 5G a person means 802.11ac with WiFi 5 protocol that also coincidentally added the 5 GHz band at the same time, Wyze has released several cameras that support 5GHz instead of 2.4GHz. Most of them are “Pro” models because adding 5GHz support also requires a more expensive network card to be used which increases the costs. (note, this shouldn’t be called 5G, it should be called 5GHz. It makes a big difference.)
But I can list the main rationales why the V3 and most of their other cams only support 2.4GHz:
- 2.4GHz is sufficient for most smart camera applications. They don’t require a lot of bandwidth and 2.4GHz is more than sufficient for most smart camera uses of streaming live video and uploading to the cloud with compressed 1080p or 2K streams that are using double to triple digit kbps uploads. It’s insignificant. 2.4GHz can go up to 600Mbps while our Wyze cameras are usually using a meager 0-300kbps upload if we’re lucky. I just checked one of my V3’s and it was streaming between 50KB/s-110KB/s. 2.4GHz can handle TONS and tons of cameras at that rate. I have over 40 cameras, most of them on 2.4GHz, and have zero problems. 2.4GHz is NOT slow as far as a highly compressed smart camera is concerned. The Wyze founders said something very similar in response to an AMA question about this:
- Distance : Also as mentioned above, 2.4GHz has a longer range and travels through obstacles like walls WAY better than 5GHz. Users are often complaining that they can’t get a good signal on a camera/device because they want to place it so far away from their router. Not everyone has good mesh routers that extend a 5GHz signal across their entire property. and then users would be more likely to complain about the terrible reception and low signal on the camera, uploads not working, etc.
- It can be mentioned that in some cases, the shorter signal of 5GHz can be a positive thing though. At least you are less likely to get overlapping signal interference from as many neighbors because the signal doesn’t extend as far or through walls as well. So even though 5GHz is way weaker and more susceptible to interference (including from microwaves, radar, Bluetooth, metal/water/walls, phones, or whatever else), than 2.4GHz. So sometimes weakness is a strength when it means that weakness keeps neighbors’ devices from added signal saturation.
- Cost. Supporting 5GHz radios adds an extra cost, and a lot of people really want the most affordable cameras they can get. This is why Wyze has mostly kept the added cost to 5GHz radios to be in their pro models. Then the people who still want the cheapest camera possible can still get that, and the people who are desperate for 5GHz can also get that without forcing the extra cost on the people who are trying to save money.
Conclusion: If someone really wants 5GHz, Wyze has options for them. They can buy the Pro line of camera models that support the extra cost that comes with a 5GHz radio. For most people, 2.4GHz is sufficient, especially for a 1080p camera that only uses a minuscule 50-200kb/s where a 2.4GHz band can theoretically handle a few hundred 1080p Wyze cameras streaming all at the same time if the user has a sufficient router and antennas. I’m up to roughly 40 cameras on 2.4GHz with no problem (and yes, I even have nearby neighbors, one of them has their house wall 15 feet away from my house wall. And I just checked: I have MORE than a dozen SSID’s hitting my house right now…but I still have no problems with 40 cams on 2.4GHz). Usually, if someone is having signal struggles, they either live in a highly saturated apartment complex (worse than me having a dozen SSID’s hitting me), or it is something unrelated to the 2.4GHz band itself, but more likely their router, etc. 2.4GHz is a lot smaller of a problem than most people make it out to be. Don’t get me wrong, I use 5GHz as a preference when it’s available, and I use 6GHz when it’s available, but 2.4GHz isn’t as bad or weak as everyone makes it out to be. It can handle A LOT of devices with no problem at all.