Discovered an issue today when my spouse was trying to watch some footage from one of the cameras. She was saying that she could only see the ~15 seconds recorded in the event notification but nothing else. I said go to SD Card and watch the entire thing there, I was surprised to find out she could not do that. Apparently it is not allowed for shared users??? So how does a shared user watch more than the ~15 seconds that is recorded for the event?
If it means just a single account being shared by both, that would then put a huge dent in their lifestyle devices such as the scale as you can no longer have separate private data…
Hopefully this is something that can be resolved as if not I will have to return the new scale to Wyze,
This is a known limitation, guest accounts cannot view the SD card footage, along with several other limitations. There are wish list requests regarding this but there doesn’t seem to be any urgency to do anything with it.
The only solution right now is to share a login. There shouldn’t be anything personal or sensitive in the Wyze account that would be of concern?
Note that the guest user should be able to view all cloud footage on Cam Plus, so if the motion continues, it will keep recording and it will be more than 15 seconds. So expanding your detection zone, sensitivity, angle of the camera, etc may help it record more to the cloud.
I would not have a problem sharing the “main” camera login with her. The issue comes about when you add things like a scale and each person’s data is added to their own account and subsequently synced with the health app on their phone.
If we both use the “main” account to view the cameras, it prevents you from segregating health data for each person, which was the main purpose we got the ultra scale. So unfortunately back it goes.
You can set up as many accounts as you like. Set up a new separate email address through whatever email provider you have (or use gmail, outlook, etc), and you both share that one for the cams. Then you keep your own personal logins for the scale or other personal things.
So then they have to log out of the common account and log into their personal accounts when they want to access their personal data, going though the 2FA roadblock in the process?
I don’t blame them for passing. Wyze should fix this.
I didn’t say it was an elegant workaround I forgot the 2FA thing but doesn’t it have a “remember this device”? I guess that probably gets wiped when you log out. I suppose the viability of the workaround depends how often that login needs to be used.
Android has some sandboxing ability, I wonder if Iphone does? Then you could run two instances of the app on the same phone. If iOS doesn’t have it built in, there is probably an app out there somewhere? Not an apple user so I’m not sure.
I 100% agree the guest accounts need a ton of work. But I 100% agreed and voted 18 months ago and it doesn’t appear to be a priority of any sort unfortunately. Maybe you need to be the squeaky Maven that gets the grease on behalf of the community.
@markwarn how long have you been married? From what I’ve been told (single myself) there is a point in time where nobody gives a crap what the other weighs
I did give some thoughts to creating multiple accounts but honestly the trouble between switching between them (one to view the cameras, and separate ones for the scales) seemed more of a pain than worth it, especially when you add in the 2FA check…
I don’t believe you can run two instances of the same app on an iPhone, and if so that could be problematic “for some” as well.
@dave27 It is not just a “privacy” issue about what the other weighs, The problem is that the scales are supposed to upload that data to your Wyze account (app) which then syncs it with your phone’s health app (Apple Health or Google Health). This requires distinct separate accounts as it is tied to each person’s phone. This is actually one of the selling points with these scales and impossible to do with shared accounts.
Wyze really needs to address the issue about having its shared users have very limited access on the cameras,
Ah, yeah that’s going to be an issue then. Honestly, I think Wyze should stick to a narrower field of products. May want to look for a scale that will synch directly with Apple Health and/or Google Fit.
I guess the only feasible workaround in that case is to try and set the camera to be a bit more sensitive so it captures more video around motion events. But that could obviously result in more false detections/annoyances. But at least then the guest account has more cloud video they can view.
The guest account functionality is extremely limited an even problematic (allowing conflicting rules to be created and people to mess up notifications etc). It does not seem to be getting any attention, possibly due to the fact that they’re too busy releasing scales and other new products.
Exactly… One app to rule them all is not really workable in it’s current form. I was surprised how limited the guest/shared account was with Wyze. I don’t believe that was a problem with my Nest cameras/app
Anyway, I had to pick which Wyze platform would get used more so went with the cameras and will return the scale. .
Honestly, the cameras are their bread and butter (along with maybe smart plugs and bulbs). Scales, vacuums, etc, seems to me like they’re stretching themselves too thin.
One app to rule them all would be fine, if they either fixed the guest accounts or made them have the ability to have multiple “sub users” under a main account feeding different health accounts or something like that. Not holding my breath for that.
Blink also has some limitations but they’ve gotten better and are somewhat more flexible. The main difference there is Blink only saves events to the SD card, not continuous, so in reality it is the same limitation, you just don’t notice it since the “extra” video doesn’t exist. Ring I think you have to use the “neighborhood” thing and it also only saves events, which some like and some don’t but I haven’t used that app in a while so maybe it has changed.
Yeah, if only I had that kind of pull. It’s a >6-year-old topic. At least it’s not tagged Probably Not.
Maybe I’ll just have to indulge in some “social lubricant” instead.
I agree, and what I’d like to see them do is allow the owner account (whichever Wyze account was used to set up a given device) to assign permissions to shared users with some degree of granularity, but I think that’s probably asking way too much.
That’s kind of a shame about giving up the Scale Ultra, because it seems like a cool product, especially since it uses Wi-Fi. I don’t have experience with that one (I’ve used the Scale S for a couple of years), but since Scale Ultra is Wi-Fi connected and doesn’t rely on a Bluetooth connection to a phone, I’d expect it to be able to upload user data to the appropriate Wyze account so that the data can be synchronized to the appropriate third-party health app, regardless of what account a given user currently has logged into the Wyze app. The scales are supposed to be able to differentiate users and assign measurements to the appropriate user profile when a person steps on the scale, but my understanding is that if two users sharing a scale have similar enough weights then the scale will ask (via the app) which profile should get the data.
If your weight and your spouse’s aren’t very similar, then I think using the Scale Ultra sync’d to your chosen third-party app might be something to try, just to see if you can still get the data you want while also sharing “master” access to your cameras.
That would definitely be a much better solution. I’ve had cameras from Nest, Ring, Blink, Eufy, and Defender. I generally like the Wyze cameras but this needs some re-working.
The way I understand it, the app still has to be running for it to sync to appropriate user’s health profile on their phone. That is why switching profiles (one for scales, one main for cameras) is not really a viable option. I have heard the scale does use some “user fingerprinting” to determine which person is on there but I think needs their individual app running to make that determination. Hopefully they will look into these issues fix it.
Have you tested it, though? My expectation would be that, since Scale Ultra uses Wi-Fi and doesn’t require a connection to the phone when in use, the data would be sent to Wyze’s servers and the connection to any third-party health app would be done in the cloud. I don’t have that model of scale, though, and this may be another case where I’m expecting too much or thinking that it should work one way (what makes sense in my mind, anyway), when it’s actually been designed to work another way (i.e., be more app-dependent for that function to work). I don’t know the answer, which is why I suggested trying it.
I have not as when chatting with support they didn’t really give any indication that would work. From my understanding, on the “older” scales it hold those weights in a device cache until there is a nearby Bluetooth connection to the appropriate phone and then syncs it with the Wyze app which then syncs with the phone’s health app.
The Ultra adds WIFI connection so can upload that data directly to the cloud and then eventually to the correct (running) Wyze app which will sync with the phone. I don’t think it is possible for it to do that if everyone is logged into a common “master” Wyze app.
The easiest solution for them (and us) is to just open up what shared users can do with the cameras…
Like I said, I don’t know what the answer is (i.e., if a Scale Ultra will upload its data to the Wyze cloud in a way that the information can be consumed—also in the cloud—by a third-party service). I would expect all of that to happen on the backend and not be dependent upon user accounts on a mobile device, because that seems (to my non-developer self) to be the more sensible way of doing things, but I don’t know if this is the case, which is why I suggested trying.
I don’t know what specific questions you asked of Support, but my interactions have been hit or miss. I don’t have high confidence that they have real experience with the actual products, so I tend to be skeptical of their guidance unless they can point me to better documentation.
Where does that happen, though? Is that local processing on the phone (which wouldn’t be my suspicion), or does the Wyze app upload the health data to its servers (which does happen, because that’s where your user data is stored for things like sync’ing to your Wyze app/account on a second phone and generating the e-mail that sends your data in a spreadsheet workbook), which then communicate with a third-party service, which your third-party health app on the phone then downloads when you launch that app? This latter is what I’d expect.
I haven’t seen a definitive answer, and I’m stubborn enough that I’d want to try before giving up, especially if it’s a product I like.
If it was actually easy, then I imagine the work would’ve already been done. I suspect there are technical challenges because their framework was probably written without the forward thinking of provisioning permissions in mind. They still haven’t even done a global dark theme or landscape mode in the app, likely because of the way their system seems to be cobbled together, so I imagine incorporating something like this would involve major code revisions.
I’m not disagreeing with you: They should definitely do this. I’m just thinking of another company I deal with in the security arena that also hasn’t implemented multiple users’ access to system, and their users have been dealing with similar frustrations for years, also.
It does require the apps to actually do anything with that data the scale uploads. Wyze keeps that data private so in theory after the scale has “fingerprinted” you, only your individual Wyze account should have access to that, The Wyze app is acting as a gatekeeper to that data. If another app (i.e., Apple Health, Google Health, etc.) wants that data, it has to go through that Wyze app to get it.
The idea behind at least how I understand it is that it’s working as sort of a key. Essentially extra steps in MFA to keep that data private and secure.
If/when they fix how secondary accounts interact with their cameras, this problem gets resolved. As these companies add more products into their line, they need to better test how well they play with each other.
I forgot the 2FA thing but doesn’t it have a “remember this device”? I guess that probably gets wiped when you log out. I suppose the viability of the workaround depends how often that login needs to be used.
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