Is anyone using a Wyze smart plug with their ORBI router ?
I would like to do this in the event that I need to power cycle the router when I’m away from home.
With my router I can reboot it remotely, but I can’t power cycle it remotely should that ever be needed.
Many users have used a smart plug with their routers, but you won’t be able to use it to power cycle on demand because the plug requires internet to communicate, and powering off the router will prevent that. You can however use LOCAL schedules (in the plugs settings > schedules (NOT RULES)) to schedule it to turn off and back on at certain times.
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The problem w\ smart plugs on a router is that if the WiFi goes down and the router needs a reboot, so does the WiFi that reaches the plug. Both are then cutoff from all interweb civilization.
That’s where one of these comes in. It’s a smart plug accessible locally and remotely for router reboots, it’s a power cycle scheduler to schedule periodic reboots, AND it’s a WiFi Monitor. If it senses your WiFi is down, it automatically reboots the router.
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Beans, Your response made me wonder about a different problem I’m desperately wanting to solve but have not been able to. This problem does not involve the router which I am able to reboot remotely if required.
Previous problem post;
You have no doubt seen my post looking for a way to REMOTELY restore a camera or smart plug without unplugging it. Just wondering now after reading your post if using the LOCAL schedule might accomplish this by forcing the camera to come back on at a scheduled time after it shuts off on its own ?
Let’s say the camera shuts down on its own at 9pm and I’m not around to unplug and re plug it. Well, if I had already posted a SCHEDULE before the plug shut down to turn it on daily at say 9:15pm would the cam start up at 9:15pm if it had shut down on its own at 9pm ?
Granted I would have no idea when these random camera shut downs would happen but if I knew it would come back on daily at 9:15pm following a random shutdown in the previous 24 hrs at least I would not be without it for days on end.
There are many users utilizing the local scheduling option saved to the plug to power cycle their cams on a periodic or regular basis. Since this isn’t dependant on the cloud or the internet, WiFi access is a moot point.
One of the most experienced is @habib who has remote cams in an area with minimal ISP support.
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I am attaching a screenshot of how I have set up my Wyze plug schedules which the camera is attached to in order to assure that the camera turns on at least twice a day if it had been disabled. Do I have it, right?
These are just turn on schedules. If your cam is already powered on but is just offline (WiFi not connected to the internet), that means it has power already. Turning on the power from the plug to the cam that is already on won’t achieve any results.
You need to have a “power cycle” in the schedule. Turn off then turn back on each time to force a cam reboot. This schedule will run so long as the plug has power, even if it is offline as well.
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Slabslayer,
Let me summarize the test I just ran:
I set a schedule for my smart plug (with a V3 plugged into it) as follows; OFF at 3pm, ON at 3:05pm.
When 3pm rolled around the smart plug turned off. Additionally the V3 disconnected.
When 3:05 rolled around the plug turned on. Additionally the V3 turned back on but only after I initiated it.
Did this accomplish the same purpose as unplugging then plugging back in the smart plug ?
If so, (even though this is a workaround) I see that It would get my cameras back on if they disconnect when I am away from home.
If the above is true I could set LOCAL schedules for each of my 5 cameras several times a day and be able to continue to use them even if I can’t get home to reset them. Caveat being that I would need to notice the cameras may have gone off and reset by schedule and I would need to restart them as required.
Have I got this right ?…tlhutch4
You don’t have to leave them off for a long time. 1 minute off should still do the trick.
If the V3 Cam was powered on when the plug cut the power at 3:00, it should have returned to the on state, logged into the network, and shown in the App Device List as green. You shouldn’t need to initiate any power on.
If, on the other hand, the cam was off when the plug shut off, it will return to the off state once power cycled.
No. What you have programmed in the schedule is the same thing as unplugging and replugging (power cycling) the cam, but not the smart plug.
When you power cycle any device, you force it to reboot and log back into the WiFi router to be issued a fresh IP address. In your case, your cam has a fresh IP, your plug does not. BUT… The plug going offline is not so much of an issue unless you have to do a manual power cycle on the cam. Even if it does drop WiFi and go offline, the schedule will still run and power cycle the cam since it is saved locally.
Yes. You should only notice this behavior if it does it while you are streaming or expecting motion activations. I wouldn’t think more than once a day would be necessary. If you have to do it more than once a day to keep them online, you have a significant network issue that needs solved.
As I mentioned above, if the cams are on when power cycled, they should return to on. You shouldn’t need to turn them on. You do have to give it all time to report back to the app. It isn’t instantaneous. You may even need to refresh the device list by pulling it down or closing and reopening the app so it can pull a new status from the server.
If you are seeing in the app the cloud symbol with the line thru it, the cam did not turn off. It is still powered on, it is still recording to the SD Card, and if you click to open it there is a distinct possibility it will still stream (a bug Wyze is working on). The cloud symbol just means there is a broken WiFi or internet link between the cam - the router - and your app (usually the WiFi). If you see this and can still stream the cam, Wyze wants SD Card Cam Logs submitted. If you can’t stream, that’s when you can manually turn the plug off then back on to power cycle the cam. If you find that the plug is also going offline, you most probably have some network connectivity issues that need resolved.
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Thanks, I looked closer and found that **as you said, the Camera turned back on per schedule. I did just have to refresh to see that it was back up. Then I followed up by doing a “Playback” and saw that the cam went offline then back online as scheduled…Thanks
I am setting up three OFF-ON schedules per camera per day. Each 8 hrs. apart. Thinking that if a camera randomly disconnects I won’t lose more than 8 hrs recording before the schedule turns it back on. This is important while I’m away.
Remaining questions (sorry, you may have already answered but…)
If my cam was plugged in but had gone off randomly would this schedule bring it back up on the scheduled-ON time?
I’m also assuming that the ON-OFF schedule will restart both Plug and Camera…Correct?
You have been so helpful guiding me through this process and that is much appreciated. I’m certain I will have more questions on this but for now Thanks again…tlhutch4
IMHO I think that is an overkill. Once a day scheduled hard reboot via smart plug should be enough, unless your network is crappier than mine.
Just to be clear, I have a same setup at both locations, home and cottage. Home network is as robust as they come, but still I want my router to reboot daily. Just like everything electronic and software driven, things get stuck in memory. I like to purge my memory. Having said that, I have my router connected to a Kasa smart plug (don’t trust Wyze plugs) scheduled to turn off at 3:00AM and turn on at 3:01Am every day. Haven’t had any issues so far and it’s been almost a year. All my cams are connected to Kasa plugs for manual hard reboot. Same setup at the cottage, with one exception. The router is connected to a Kasa plug with NO SCHEDULE and the plug connected to a timer set to reboot daily. The reason I did this is that I had long power outages at the cottage that will cause the Kasa plugs to hang until next power outage. The reason they hang is that they have a limited memory capacity and they’ll forget what time is it and never run the schedule unless rebooted.
I hope I’m making sense and all this helps you out.
3 times a day might be a bit of overkill.
When a cam goes offline, it means it just drops WiFi. The cam is still powered and is still running, recording to the SD. There should be no loss in SD Playback footage. Going offline will affect the cloud event uploads though.
If your cam is on in the app and power is lost, it will return to on when power is restored. If it is off in the app, it isn’t really off… Just sleeping. If it looses power while off in the app, it will return to that state. The only way to truly power off a cam is to unplug it, in which case it remembers it’s last state.
Power lost (unplugged, no power supplied), off (sleeping - off in the app), and offline (cam lost wifi or power) are three different states.
You are quite welcome. Mavens volunteer in the forum to help where we can.
The only reason I posted both places is that I thought the post in the forum got buried by a post following mine
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After rereading your last post it FINALLY clicked with me.
My main concern was to find a way to get my cameras back up without unplugging and plugging back in if I’m out of town for extended time thus losing the use of them.
I now feel like having my smart plugs installed on each of them will eliminate any concerns. Would you agree ?…tlhutch4
That is what the Smart Plugs are for. It “unplugs” and “replugs” them for you by cutting the power off to the cam and then turning it back on. It performs the power cycle for you either on a schedule or thru the app control of the plug.
The scheduled power cycle is a preventive measure to supply the cam with a fresh IP connection to the router. It won’t matter if the cam is off or on. When it restarts it will get a fresh IP and connect to the Wyze server thus showing as online (either off or on) in the app.
I haven’t had a cam (knock on 
wood) go offline since I upgraded my Wifi to cover half the neighborhood. I haven’t had to power cycle a cam because it was offline since that time. But my smart plugs are staying right where they are.
Sometimes I need to power cycle my cams after installing firmware or testing some settings bug. My lazy butt wants to stay on the couch to do this. I launch my Google Home Dashboard, tappity tap, the cam reboots. I’m happy.
I would agree that having the smart plugs remain on your cams along with a daily reboot is going to give you piece of mind and improve your uptime, easier access for manual power cycles, and remote power cycles if needed.
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SlabSlayer,
I’ve been testing my cams with the power schedule cycle and they are all working to plan. Additionally, I intentionally turned OFF the smart plug on one of them and it killed the plug and camera as expected. Then I used the app to turn on the plug and both plug and cam came back as you would have expected. Just as you told me it should work. Feeling better about leaving home and confident that I can get cams back up if needed.
Maybe it is Overkill to schedule 3 power cycles (8hrs apart per day) but it feels like it’s a good idea to me. If you tell me it’s overkill and setting only 1 power cycle per day at, say 4am then that’s what I will do. 
On a different matter but somewhat related I have noticed over and over that if I am monitoring my cams from 2 different devices (iPhone and iPad) recordings become less stable and go offline very frequently. If I discontinue either the iPhone or iPad, then the offline status/frequency goes back to normal on the remaining device. Wondering if I can fix that issue ?
Cheers, tlhutch4
All the above tells me that your network is suffering some sort of congestion.
I agree with @habib.
When you are streaming a cam while on the same network, the cloud and internet are not used. It is a direct link from the cam to your device app. Streaming a cam to two different device simultaniously shouldn’t be enough to crash your router link with the cam unless there is a poor connection. Check your router to make sure you don’t have any QOS settings on that may be automatically adjusting your connections. You may also want to look into prioritizing devices in the router settings.
Based upon the input of both Habib an SlabSlayer I will revert to doing just one reboot of my 4 Smart Plugs per day rather than 3 each…Thanks, tlhutch4
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Could be COVID…
Sorry, just having some fun…Cheers, tlhutch4
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