Wyze keeps on restricting things to force you to get Cam plus. I’m sick and tired of this behavior. Thinking about contracting the BBB and even suing. Anybody else think they’re being scammed?
What things are you upset about them restricting behind a pay wall that aren’t cloud-based things that have ongoing costs to them?
Note: I have also criticized them for paywalling things that don’t have reasonable ongoing costs to them. So I’m not suggesting there aren’t any -there are- but I think there are also a lot of misunderstandings about what they can and can’t afford to do related to sustainable fiscally responsible decisions
I have been a Wyze user for 3.5 years and have seen changes to the Wyze business model over those years. I bought my first v3 camera in January 2022 and signed up for Cam Plus Lite Name Your Own Price. I then discovered only Wyze cameras Cam v3 and earlier are compatible with Lite.
Around the summer of 2024, Wyze stopped new signups for Cam Plus Lite. Those the had Cam Plus Lite are grandfathered in to Lite.
I drive a 10 year old Toyota Tacoma. It has turn-by-turn Navagation built into the head unit with no subscription. If I were to buy a new Tacoma I would have to pay for a Navagation subscription or use Android Auto.
Companies do change their business models and I can jump on the newest, shiny thing or not.
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Then you don’t know BMW has a subscription for their heated seats. No pay, no heat.
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BMW got a lot of push-back on the heated seat subscription. I wonder if any automaker is considering a subscription to use power windows?
https://www.edmunds.com/car-news/bmw-relents-on-heated-seat-subscription.html
Two things come to mind. You used to be able to set the floodlight to not repeat its warning. Now you need to be a Cam plus subscriber. Also motion warnings on the floodlight only carry a picture. For video you need a subscription.
I’m ok with new business models. But if you buy a product with certain features and then take away those features that’s not fair. At least grandfather in those features
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No, there’s a free option still. You just need to insert an SD card into the camera. A lot of people in my family do this just fine without a subscription. The events tab is solely for cloud events, but you can click on the playback or SD card button to have it link you to the video on the SD card. Also, you can open the camera itself to browse through the SD card. You can even have the SD card. Richard, just motion events or record continuously. Either way, the events tab will link you to the correct spot on the SD card video. That is a big positive difference compared to a company like Ring.
You could be right on this. I haven’t personally verified myself. But even with cam Plus The only options I have on the flood light for the motion warning are intervals of 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 60 seconds and once per event. This means that even with cam Plus the motion warning always repeats at minimum once every 5 minutes, sometimes more often since an event might be less than 5 minutes than notice motion again and trigger again. There is no way for a cam plus subscriber to tell the motion warning not to repeat. In some ways if you want it to repeat less often, it’s actually better not to have cam Plus on that camera, because the camera will have a 5-minute cool down between events. So if you can select to only have it repeat once per event, then it should be limited to once every 5 minutes Max. Someone with cam Plus doesn’t necessarily get that benefit of a guaranteed 5-minute cooldown between motion warnings. They might have an event that only lasts 20 seconds and then stops and then motion is seen again and it repeats. Even though the person selected to only have it go once per event, it might happen way more often than if they set it to once every 60 seconds. So arguably, it might actually be worse to have a subscription if you are wanting the motion warning to happen less often.
I had this happen to me when I was swinging in a hammock on my back patio just two nights ago. I have the motion warning turn on anytime. My alarm system is armed. And the flood light kept warning me repeatedly even though I had it on once per event (which is the maximum possible interval) and have cam plus. So no matter what, I was getting the warning at the least every 5 minutes or less until I finally disarmed my alarm system to turn off the motion warning.
Here is a new subscription. VW wants to charge a subscription in the UK to unlock more horsepower.
https://www.neowin.net/news/popular-car-brand-wants-you-to-pay-monthly-to-unlock-more-horsepower/
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Yeah, companies should definitely not be charging subscriptions for something that has no ongoing costs for them. Something like horsepower is something you charge a one-time amount for at time of purchase because the equipment is more expensive. I hope every company that does this kind of thing gets a lot of backlash and drives customers to their competitors and gets them to change their mind.
(Yes, Wyze, that includes you charging a subscription for people to unlock local Edge AI detections that cost you nothing on your newer cameras like the V4 which admits it has local AI but is paywalled. You’re driving users away to go to companies like TP-Link and Reolink, etc…it’s fine to charge people more the cloud storage and cloud AI detections, but it’s not okay to paywall the local Edge AI detections. You will eventually be forced to reverse that decision as the competition takes more and more market share away. I have been telling you this and I will continue to tell you this [even though it doesn’t affect me personally because I have the subscription anyway] and I hope you learn the lesson before it becomes too painful and you’re left with no choice but to follow the market standard.)
I remember the time when there was an evacuation order in parts of FL and Tesla announced that it’s flipping a software switch to let its cars get more range temporarily. Even though the feature has always been there, it was meant to be sold separately.
Does Microsoft still sell server and desktop versions of Windows? I forgot the name of the company that offered (for a fee) to convert any desktop version to the server version. Although it is only a software switch, the server version costs a lot more.
This is exactly why I am thinking of switching to TP-Link or Reolink. I like the V4s and I would definitely buy more but only if the local Edge AI is enabled.
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Another interesting No Subscription camera company is Aqara.
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I have been casually keeping an eye on them lately too, but they are pretty new to the budget camera competition, so I haven’t tried one of theirs yet.
I’m currently holding out to see what comes out with the new matter camera libraries that are allegedly supposed to launch before the end of 2025. I think 2026 will be the year of Matter cameras competition so it feels kind of premature to start buying cameras during 2025 2H.
I suspect a lot of smart camera companies will also be releasing a legacy matter bridge to allow older devices to gain matter support. I want to see how all the companies fight out the matter competition wars next year (2026), even though there are some interesting new things coming out this year prematurely.
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I know we’re on the same page there, and I know you know that. 
Incidentally, a neighbor who has never called me before called me Sunday afternoon. When I saw who it was, I answered thinking maybe she was going to tell me about the gunshots[1] heard in the neighborhood a few nights ago. Instead, she told me about how she and her husband had bought a new TV that morning and while going through the process of setting it up (their first “smart” TV) were prompted to call a number, where they had to create an account and were asked to pay a setup fee in order to use the television. She wanted to know if I’d ever heard of this, and I hadn’t. I walked over to their house to see what was up, and the TV was essentially stuck in a setup loop getting it connected to Wi-Fi, but before I got there her husband had already watched a YouTube video about the setup and was eventually able to get the UI to a place where he could switch inputs, scan for digital channels received by their antenna, and watch live OTA TV, which is all they plan to use this for anyway.
They sounded like gunshots when I heard them live, anyway, and they sounded that way to her when I played back events from a couple of Wyze Cams I currently have outdoors while I was at her house. ↩︎
Impressive, Home Kit compatible. Thanks for sharing.
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Agreed we have lost a lot of functionality for our Nest cams. Google told us for over 5 years … maybe … and then also keep asking us why we do not move to their new Google Home app,
AND they just increased subscription fee substantially in each of past 2 years with little to no relevant functionality to all the features they will not give us back. And they are a $Trillion company …
So I look to Wyze and do appreciate what they try to do for us recognizing the differences in budget availability for improvements. And yes I do provide my critiques and also my congrats.
And do keep an eye on others .. a bit.
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