Hi Wyze!
I just got a bulb-cam - LOVE it so far! BUT - here is what I need (mostly for my wife) - I want to hardwire the switch in the wall that used to control the light outlet, and have a paddle switch in the exact same spot - that controls the switch via wifi/cloud/whatever to turn the lights on and off. So she doesn’t know that there is any difference. And lastly - my house was built in 1968 so I don’t have a neutral in the box, just hot and ground.
Any solutions?!
If you’re in the US, your box has a hot and neutral. It probably does not have a ground since the box itself would be grounded, so you’d connect ground to the box.
Not clear on what you’re asking for, you want a “dummy switch” to control the light via wifi? You would need to leave the power switch on all the time to supply power to the camera.
As far as controlling the light via a dummy switch, they do exist but you’d need to find one that works with something like alexa and can then run a routine to turn the light on and off. That is not something I’m an expert on so I’ll leave it to others to comment, maybe @carverofchoice as he has a lot of smart home stuff.
EDIT - if you mean the box for the switch has no neutral then it probably has two hots and a ground, called a switch loop. The neutral will be up in the box where the light is. Still not clear on what you want the switch to do though, sounds like you want it to command the light to turn on and off but leave the camera on. Not something wyze has directly but can be done in roundabout ways.
I’m trying to understand the use case here, because if you…
…, then you’re going to be turning on or off power to the camera. What additional detail can you add about your goal?
Having said that, I do have Bulb Cam on a circuit controlled by a smart Wi-Fi switch, but I have at least three reasons for that:
If you’re looking for a smart switch that doesn’t require a neutral wire, then those can be found, but they tend to be pricier than switches that do require a neutral wire, and at this time you’d have to find a non-Wyze vendor. Before I moved into a house with neutral wiring, I looked at switches from Cync (formerly C by GE), because I’d had good experience with their smart bulbs, but there are others in the market, as well.
Really, though, I’m curious about what it is you’re trying to accomplish. If we know more about the problem and the goal, then we’ll be better equipped to provide guidance.
I want to connect the power in the box so that its ALWAYS on (wire nut the two black wires together). Then, put a wifi switch in the gang so that it can control the light on the bulb cam - the main reason being that my wife just wants to hit the switch like normal - she isn’t going to want to go into an app on her phone to turn the light on.
I will check inside the box - I think you are right - I am guessing that there is a neutral in there, but no ground - if so, I think I can just use the wyze switch.
Another question - the motion detection at night isn’t awesome, so I thought I would use IFTTT to see motion from a PIR hooked up to my hubitat, and then turn the light on. It seems as if the wyze integration doesn’t see the “bulb cam” as a light as well? When i try to set up the automation, and say “turn bulb on” it doesn’t list the bulb cam, just regular bulbs. Has anyone noticed this?
If your switch box has two wires connected to the switch and a bare ground, then that is a switch loop, neither of those wires are neutral, so you can’t power something 120v from there.
However you could go into the light box, connect the light directly to hot and neutral (so it always gets power) then change the switch loop to be a standard 120V feed (wire it to the same hot and neutral as the light). Now you’ll have standard 120v in the switch box. Just make sure to remove any black markings from the neutral wire (which signifies it is a switch loop, since it no longer is).
But it still stands that you’ll need to find a smart switch that can kick off an automation. If IFTTT doesn’t recognize the light portion, you may need to use Alexa or something else that does.
That’s why you’re not really going to be able to do this:
The lighting integrated into Bulb Cam isn’t designed to work that way. See this:
That’s not to say that what you want to do is impossible, because you probably could have some kind of switch that you use to trigger a Wyze Automation, and then that Automation could turn the lights on or off. At least when I’m looking in Automations for available Actions for Bulb Cam, I see those as options. I haven’t yet tried them.
If you have something like a Wyze Plug or Plug Outdoor that you’re not currently using, you could set up a couple of Automations as tests with the Plug being your “switch” in this case. At least that way you can confirm whether or not that piece of the puzzle fits.
It might be worth checking. Initially you said that…
…so I would guess that it doesn’t, but that’s just based on my experience as a non-electrician and what I’ve read about neutral not really becoming prevalent in residential wiring until sometime in the 1980s (if those sources can be trusted). Probably best to just check for yourself before going too far down the road with this.
2025-06-10T05:52:36Z Edit: Since you mentioned…
…I wonder what other connected gadgets you might be using. For instance, if you have contact sensors connected to your Hubitat hub, then you might be able to put something like this in the gang:
I don’t have any experience with Wyze Sense Hub, but I think you can use sensors connected to that as Automation triggers. With something like a Hubitat hub (with which I also have zero experience), if it can control something like a Wyze Plug, then you might be able to use whatever contact sensor as a signaling switch to the Hubitat, and then maybe it could change the state of the Wyze Plug, which you’re then using as a logical switch/bridge to trigger a Wyze Automation for the Bulb Cam light. It seems like it’d be possible, anyway. Whether or not it’s worth the trouble and response latency is up to you.
Again, though, if you consider doing something like that, then I’d probably want to start by testing some Wyze Automations to make sure those turn the light on or off in the way you’d expect, because that’s probably going to be the way you or your wife ultimately controls it if she really wants to avoid using the app.
If there is no automation/action to turn the light on and off the yeah, can’t be done. One would have though that would be in there (along with motion sensing via the cam).
If it could be done via automation, then the wife’s phone could just have two shortcuts on the home screen for light on and off. A lot easier than the other options.
I wish…I still haven’t ever lived in a house that has neutral wiring 
Drives me CRAZY!!!
I have tried a lot of non-neutral wiring switch options recently, but they are all terrible.
I definitely don’t have a good suggestion on how to handle a Wyze Switch if you don’t have neutral wiring. Officially speaking, it needs a neutral wire.
Technically speaking, as I understand it, even non-neutral switch wiring DOES technically have a Neutral wire, but I’m told it’s usually up by the light fixture instead of connected to the switch. So some people get around the non-neutral issue by connecting a RELAY at the light fixture with the neutral there…but that’s not really an option for this Wyze switch. Also, I am not an electrician and I didn’t spend the time to learn how to do all of that, so please don’t take my electrical wiring advice. I absolutely cannot be trusted for electrical wiring advice. I’m totally incompetent.
After my attempts with zigbee relays failed…I tried these cool options for smart switches:
I just couldn’t get my family to LEAVE them on the switches. 
and if they are too far away from the Zigbee hub, they would would lose connection. Their distance ability is pretty weak. But they were really cool if you use Home Assistant, to be able to control any kind of light switch with a smart button.
It isn’t that the house doesn’t have neutral, it is that switches often just use a “loop” up to the light fixture. Since a switch only switches the hot, there wasn’t a need to run a neutral to the box. So the neutral is up in the light fixture, and the hot loops from there down to the switch box and back.
But you’ll be happy to know that national electrical code now requires all boxes to have a neutral available in them, but obviously that only applies to new work since 2023. The code update actually references timers and smart devices as the reason. Switch loops can still be used, but it has to be 3 conductor wire now with the white wire connected to neutral somewhere upstream in the circuit.
OP in this case wants the light wired constantly, so they could actually hard wire it at the light box and convert the switch loop back to a standard hot-neutral configuration. But they want the smart switch to control the light on the bulb cam, and it sounds like that isn’t actually possible since there is no automation for it? The switch would have to connect to IFTTT or Alexa or whatever, then there would have to be a routine for turning the light on and off.
Not the best picture but you can see how if you are ok with the light being hardwired/always powered, you can get a standard hot/neutral at the switch by just moving some wires around (and removing the black tape marker that should be on the white going to the switch).
Note there is no standard on which color is the feed to the switch and which is the feed from the switch back to the light. I actually prefer to do it the opposite of this, black being the hot running to the switch, and white/black being the return from the switch. In my opinion, black should signify “always hot”, and white/black “switched hot”. But there is no requirement for that, so don’t make any assumptions.
I’ve seen it where people have used the ground in the switch box as the neutral. That’s a code violation and in certain cases could be dangerous. Technically, it works, but not worth the risk in my opininion.
@mathewbeall, this 
does work. I just tested it, and it was pretty responsive in my limited test. If you can come up with a switch that allows you to control the on/off state of a Wyze Plug or Plug Outdoor (I used one of the sockets on the latter), then I think something like this could work for you and your wife.
Thanks all - I will dig into this on the weekend!
I have a wishlist out there - to allow IFTTT to control the light on the Bulb Cam - this has to be super low effort for them, so if any if you want to vote on it, I would appreciate it! That way I can just use my zwave switch hooked up to my hubitat to control it, and everyone is happy 
If…
You’d just create two Device & Service Trigger Automations in the Wyze app and use your Z-Wave (via Hubitat and/or IFTTT or whatever) to turn the Bulb or Plug on or off. With the Automations, turning on the Bulb or Plug would turn on the Bulb Cam’s light, and turning the Bulb or Plug off would turn off the Bulb Cam’s light.
That’s something you could do immediately without waiting for a Wishlist topic to get Wyze’s attention. I’m not saying that the Wishlist is a bad idea at all; however, you should be able to accomplish this now with the work-around.
My hubitat can’t see or control any of my wyze devices. The zwave switch I have is on my hubitat. IFTTT is the bridge between wyze and hubitat for me.
If I understand correctly then, and your Z-Wave switch connected to your Hubitat hub can be the “If This” in an IFTTT Applet, then a Wyze Bulb or Plug turning on or off could be the “Then That” in the Applet, and then within the Wyze ecosystem the Bulb or Plug turning on or off would be the trigger in an Automation to turn the Bulb Cam’s light on or off. Maybe I’m not understanding what you mean, though. (I don’t use Z-Wave or Hubitat devices, but I do occasionally use IFTTT.)
2025-06-18T05:37:48Z Edit: Looking in IFTTT for Hubitat integrations, I’m seeing things in the Triggers category like “Device turns on” and “Device turns off”. If those can correspond to signals/states of your Z-Wave switch, then with a Wyze Bulb or Plug acting as an integration bridge this could be totally doable now.
Hubitat can’t see ANY wyze devices - so I can’t use anything in the wyze ecosystem as a integration bridge. IFTTT would be the best way - since it integrates with both hubitat and wyze.
Example: If Hubitat->Zwave_switch_turns on then wyze->turn bulbcam on
No need to do any wyze automation tasks as IFTTT would just handle turning the bulb on (or off).
You are right though - if I wanted to spend $30, I could get a wyze plug (which IS in the iFTTT integration) and use that to bridge over into Wyze, and then have a wyze automation to then turn the light on the bulbcam.
Just trying to avoid spending another $30 and create more complexity that is necessary. Wyze supports IFTTT natively - so when they release new products, they should get all the BASIC functionality set up! I don’t think its unreasonable to expect to be able to turn the light on and or off using the integration.
Matt
Right. That’s what I gathered from your prior post and from poking around in IFTTT myself, as I noted.
Yes, you can. That’s what a Bulb or Plug would do:
Z-Wave switch ➜ Hubitat hub ➜ IFTTT ➜ Wyze Bulb/Plug ➜ Wyze Automation ➜ Bulb Cam lights
That’s correct if Wyze built that part of the integration as you requested in the Wishlist. What I’m suggesting is that if you and your wife don’t want to wait around for that, then you can accomplish the same thing now with the addition of a Wyze Bulb or Plug to the cascade. I have no idea when or how Wishlist items are officially reviewed or prioritized. I was just trying to suggest something that should work immediately.
Yeah, that’s exactly what I was saying, though not with that price tag (maybe it depends on where you live and shop). 
Since I learned about the usefulness of Plugs (and Plug Outdoors) as work-around devices, I’ve tried to keep a few extra on hand. I haven’t checked Home Depot recently, but in the past there have been occasional reports of the Plugs being on clearance for $5 apiece, and I once picked up Plug Outdoors at a Home Depot for that price, so it’s like 2-for-1 logical switches! 
I get that, too. Doing that has the potential to introduce more latency and failure points.
I don’t think so, either, and I also don’t think it’s unreasonable to want to name my Accessory Bulbs (so I know which is which at a glance in the app), but that’s also something Wyze apparently decided not to build into the new product. 
I will keep an eye out for a reasonably priced wyze plug - appreciate the dialogue!
I just realized that its 2 for $25. I bit the bullet - lol… I am sure I will find a use for them if Wyze ever adds native turn light on/off in the integration.
Good deal. I thought $30 seemed unexpectedly steep, but I’m cheap.
They’re handy to have specifically for things like this. I have one that spends most of its time powering a plug-in air freshener (because that’s something that I’m okay with turning off occasionally), and then when someone presses the button to ring the Video Doorbell v2, a Wyze Automation turns it off. Google Home then detects that it’s been turned off and uses that as a trigger to stream the doorbell’s video on a Home Hub and a couple of other devices. A minute later, the Plug is turned back on by a second Wyze Automation. Doing an on/off thing for the Bulb Cam’s lights should be even more straightforward.
Maybe the most important thing, though, is letting your wife turn the lights on and off with a switch. 
