So when I was looking at the OG/OG-Tel/Stack Kit bundle it had a decent price and made sense for where I wanted to use the two cameras. I watched the video for setting up the stack kit and it clearly showed a flat usb cable being plugged into the cameras several times in various places in the video. Apparently they were just using the regular cable to demo the stack kit, not the ROUND cable that is included with it. I realize now the video shows at the very very beginning that the cable is round, but for a split second, and I didn’t notice it. Obviously since the power adapter is indoor only (and I have no outdoor plugs close enough to put a weatherproof cover on) I need to run the cable indoors through a window which needs the flat cable.
Another thing worth noting, you would think the “Y” portion of the cable would be very short so as to hide behind the cameras, just long enough to connect to the two of them, and just have one wire running the rest of the way, but in fact the “Y” section is about 18" long so you’re still going to have 2 wires running from behind the cameras, sort of defeats the purpose of reducing clutter etc.
Had I known that I was going to have to use the two flat cables and power adapters included with the cameras anyway, I wouldn’t have bothered, $10 is a lot for a little piece of plastic, I would have just mounted them separately above one another. Yes I could now go and buy an $8 Y adapter on amazon and hope that I can get a weathertight seal (probably not) but that nearly doubles the price of the kit and is a messy setup.
As far as customer service, I kicked off a chat with them to try and figure out if I got an old kit or if the cable had been redesigned etc. After 90 MINUTES of “checking on this for you” during which I had to send multiple photos and even two VIDEOS showing that the cable was in fact round (implying that they thought it shouldn’t be) they just eventually said “yes the cable is round, you can buy a different one at the store”. Seriously? 90 minutes and all that effort for that? Why did you need photos and videos if you knew it was supposed to be round?
Yeah I realize that’s just a gripe and Wyze probably won’t see it but between this and the Pan v3 losing track of its home position issue that has been ongoing for apparently 8 months, really starting to reconsider my purchases here. I guess I shouldn’t expect a ton for the price but still…
But FYI for anyone considering the stack kit. It can’t be used with their outdoor power adapter, and it can’t be run indoors (unless you drill a hole or something) and still will have 2 wires for a lot of the visible distance, so really seems like a pointless purchase.
Wyze did see it, I will pass along your experience to the team. I can definitely see what you are talking about with the round cable and needing to use the flat one to get through a window. I also do apologize for the Wyze Cam Pan v3 home position issues that have been ongoing for quite some time. I do not know if you have been following our Fix-it Friday posts or not but this is an issue on that list and we put out the last update on July 28th.
Test results for future device performance are looking better but the drift is still visible to the naked eye. Our game plan now is to implement the new strategy to the production line, collect more data points about the hardware deviation that is leading to drifting, and then release a new firmware that will adjust to improve the performance of the existing devices.
I am hopeful that soon we will have the data we need to put out a firmware fix for the existing devices. Again I am sorry for the frustrations you have run into and hopefully, you will give us a chance to do better.
Thanks for the reply, glad to see employees are monitoring and participating, goes a long way.
Honestly at the price point, I don’t expect perfection, and I do see the Pan v3 issue is being worked, A bit concerning that it is taking so long but seems like progress is being made. Maybe rebooting once or twice a day is a workaround for now, though a bit concerned about additional wear on the servo since it “bottoms out” for several seconds during calibration. Possible corruption of the SD card too but hopefully it finishes the write operation cleanly before restarting.
What really is putting me off and making me consider returning all 5 cameras is the experience with customer service. 90 minutes of jumping through hoops, taking multiple pictures plus two videos “while rotating the cable to prove that you received a round one” only to be told yes, it is supposed to be round, you can buy a flat cable at your local store. That’s really not acceptable (especially since that’s a pretty specific item that isn’t available at any local store that I know of). And the only way to return the stack kit is to return the entire bundle at my expense, plus lose my original shipping cost. Had they at least offered to refund the amount of a Y adapter or something (and known much earlier in the conversation that the cable is in fact round, instead of going back and forth for so long), that would have been a much more acceptable experience.
Honestly, they totally missed on the stack kit. I’d be perfectly happy if it just came with a small Y adapter and a 1.5 amp power supply and you use with one of the existing cables. The flat cables must be able to handle 1.5A since the pan v3 has an even narrower flatter cable and it is a 2 amp power supply.
Going to have to sleep on it and figure out how I’m going to move forward. Thanks again for the reply.
I’ve attached the picture I ended up having to make to send the rep, they kept insisting that the cable in the video was the one coming out of the camera and not the part from the stack kit, even after sending screenshots from the video clearly showing the flat cable from the camera with the flat power cable connected to it, they still said no that is just the cable coming out of the camera, the stack kit plugs into that and is round. So finally I made the attached pic comparing the video to what I got, and she finally admitted, ok, I see what you’re saying now.
