The Photo app storage on my iPhone being used up by WYZE CAM event recordings

Help, My WYZE CAM V3 is recording events to my iphone’s Photos app instead of my camera’s 32 gig sd card. It’s used up almost all my phone’s memory I need for for other purposes and Apple wants me to buy more cloud storage.
I have Wyze’s cloud storage disabled by turning off motion, sound, and fire/co alerts. And in the WYZE APP I have settings/local storage “record to sd card” is turned on.
I have CAM Plus too.
Now, using Wyze’s cloud storage is fine with me for recording events since I already pay for the service but does this service include using up my iPhones free memory? I do want to save events locally, meaning saving events to the camera’s sd card and not my phone’s memory.
Now, one more question: Does the “RECORD” button only record an event being played back, saving to the cloud or saving to the camera’s SD card? I never use that button while playing an event back and assume the event has already been recorded and should be viewable in the cloud for 14 days. Testing the Record button shows the event is saved to the sd card yet normal motion or sound events are not being saved to the app’s “Album” folder that presumably refers to the sd card in the camera…

Sounds to me you pressed the wrong record button.

This is recording to SD

This is recording to your phone

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Welcome to the Wyze User Community Forum @betabilly1! :raising_hand_man:

The only time Wyze Video or Images should be saved to your default Media Album on your phone or a SD Card storage extension mounted in the phone is when you press the Record or Take Photo button while watching a Live Stream or SD Card Playback; or if you download a Cloud Event Video.

All Event Videos should be going to the cloud and all SD Card Video should be going onto the SD Card in the cam.

What app version and cam firmware version?

Manually pressing the “Record” button on either the LIVE view page or the playback back records the clip to your phone.

If your “Event Recording” is set to detects motion or detects sound, those recordings are automaticly uploaded and saved to the cloud for 14 days. You view these recordings by visiting the event tab in the app.

If your “record to SD card” is enabled, then either continuous or event only is chosen, the videos are automatically saved to the SD card in your camera and are viewed using the “playback” button off the live view page.

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Cam firmware is up to date. 4.36.10.4054
Should I look for a WYZE APP update on the App Store?
As I previously stated I never use the Record button.
In the app home screen, pressing the Events button shows all Recent Events without any problem yet the events are not being sent to the camera’s SD card.
Disabling WYZE access in my iPhone’s Photo app settings produces a very negative response. I altered course and allowed only one photo in my iPhone’s Photo app to be used as an WYZE icon. That icon is in the app Album on my SD card but nothing else.
Wish List: A less convoluted description of what individual setting does in effect. I’ve been fiddling around with this app for two weeks and still don’t have a positive result.
Ongoing problems: Audio in live screen and playback is terrible, The sound of birds chirping sounds fine but anything else sounds like a deaf child learning to play a flute.
Creating a new RULE is nearly impossible. Deleting a Default RULE is even harder.
I attempted to schedule my cam to turn on at 7pm and off at 7am (overnight monitoring) and the app doesn’t comply.

Cam firmware is up to date. The latest App update is 2.40.

Those events in the Events Tab are videos that are sent to the cloud and saved on the Wyze Servers. These videos are affected by the Detection Settings and Event Recording menus in the cam settings. These videos are not going to be “sent” to the microSD Card in the cam. Event Recording settings do not affect the microSD recording. The cam saves video to the microSD Card and sends video to the server in two separate functions simultaneously.

The microSD Card settings are the ones @Antonius pointed out above. They work independently and seperate from the Cloud Uploaded Event Videos in the Events Tab.

You can toggle on and off the microSD Card recording in the Advanced settings menu of the cam.

If you have Record to microSD toggled on, the cam is always recording to the microSD. It records the video in 1 minute MP4 video files and saves them to the Record folder of the microSD indexed by date and hour, named by minute.

If you have the Record to microSD set to Continuous, it saves every 1 minute MP4 video file to the SD Card Record folder. If it is set to Motion Events Only, it only saves the 1 minute MP4 video files that contain motion.

Question: What are the files being saved to your phone from the cam named? Are they all the same length & size?


You only need one action command in a Schedule. The start time executes the action, the end time reverses it. If you put an On and an Off action, it will try to both at the start. Also reverse the command so both times are within the same day and do not bridge calendar days. Start time should be earlier in the day than end time:

The preset “default” rules are only template suggestions. They are not active unless you open and save them. There is no need to delete them.

Only the rules you have saved will show in the list when you press Account → Rules. Those are the active ones. The preset rules only appear when you press the plus sign to add a new rule to your active list.

To delete a rule, simply select it from your active Rules list and click Delete Rule at the bottom.

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Thanks. I’ll give it a try.
One more question: Will the cam reboot and operate after a power outage without the phone/device being within WiFi range?

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Yes. If a cam looses power, it will return back to the last state it was in and attempt to regain internet from the installed network router when power is restored. If on, it returns to on. If off, it will still reboot and log back into the router and Wyze Servers, but will then turn back off.

Once the cams are installed, the phone is just an access device thru the server by way of the App. It no longer needs to be anywhere near the cam or on the same network. It can be turned off and the cams will still record, upload, and rules will continue to run. Once installed, all cam commands and operations come from the server thru the internet.