Yesterday was Canada Day. My balcony has a beautiful view of Toronto and I was looking forward to capturing the many fireworks displays across the city with two cameras. Both cameras are on Cam Plus and both have SD cards and are set to record at all times.
Too bad your Time Lapse feature sucks. I set up both cameras to start recording at 9 pm and stop at 11 pm. Your buggy software had other ideas. When I changed the stop time to 11 pm, it automatically advanced the date without my knowledge. So, shortly after 11 when I went to check the footage, I found the cameras were still rolling.
Then bug #2 took effect. There was a button called “Stop and Save”. Silly me, I thought it meant what it said and would stop the camera from filming and save the footage it had already recorded. WRONG! It erased all of the footage and I ended up with nothing.
So thanks for making me miss the fireworks this year. Given the stellar Wyze track record I should have known this would happen and just gone outside with my binoculars as I’ve done in previous years.
Fix your Time Lapse feature.
-Change the interface so that it’s impossible to change the time and date at the same time, and/or
-add a confirmation screen so the user can make sure the settings are correct.
-Disable auto settings changes like changing the date just because the user changes the time.
-Fix your “stop and save” button so that it actually stops and saves instead of erasing all of the footage
I just pulled up one of my V3 Pro cameras (what I assume you were doing this on since you tagged the post that way). and set up a future time lapse. I note that the date change is right next to the hour change so it would be VERY easy to accidentally slide it - what I suspect you did. I thought that maybe when you set the start time to 2100 and the end time defaulted to shortly after the current time (before you set it), it did automatically change the date to the next date - else the start would be after the end time. However, that is not the case. It will allow entering an end time that is before the start time on the same date. Of course when you try to save that condition, it won’t let you save it and give an error message that the start time is later than the end time.
In other words, the software behaves exactly as it should.
BTW, in my opinion, a timelapse would be a very poor choice for fireworks. You would have been far better to set the uSD card to continuous recording. I have shot video of many professional fireworks shows over the years - both using Wyze cameras and a drone. Here’s one I shot with a V2 camera that was in the middle of the firing pit pointed straight up. This video is the last minute of the show. The finale starts about 12 seconds into the show, and yes, by the end of the video, the sound is several seconds ahead of the video (a Wyze problem many years ago).
" I note that the date change is right next to the hour change so it would be VERY easy to accidentally slide it - what I suspect you did."
That’s exactly why I suggested disabling changing the date and time simultaneously, to prevent this type of error. They could also make the fields larger so it’s easier to tell when the date has been changed accidentally. Blaming me for the error doesn’t change the fact that it was too easy to make the error, too hard to avoid it, and too difficult to tell when it happens.
“In other words, the software behaves exactly as it should.”
A date/time selection screen that’s almost impossible for the user to avoid changing the date or time when they don’t want to, does not constitute “software behaving exactly as it should”. It’s a design flaw. Users should be able to change date OR time without accidentally changing both at the same time.
“BTW, in my opinion, a timelapse would be a very poor choice for fireworks”
Disparaging my choice to use time lapse (aka blaming me again) is a red herring which doesn’t negate the lack of usability of the Time Lapse feature.
And your “software behaving as it should” created its own time lapse events during the night AFTER I clicked the “Stop and Save” buttons for both cameras. It set time lapse sessions to start in the middle of the night last night, ending sometime tomorrow. When I go into the time lapse settings it only tells me the start and end dates and times with “set” as the only option. I can’t cancel or go back and edit the dates and times to create a new time lapse session. So much for “behaving as it should”.
You were recording continuous. You have the footage. Every frame. What did you miss?
I have this: “No video at the selected time” in the Playback screens of both cameras. For all times.
Both cams. If you still want to know what I missed, go back and read my original post.
And if I just wanted to have to scroll through hours of footage on the Playback screen (another nearly impossible and frustrating task in Wyze software), I wouldn’t be here posting about the TIME. LAPSE. feature. The whole point of time lapse is to condense hours of footage into a shorter video.
These comments lead me to think you have a bad SD card in the camera as both continuous recording and time lapse files save to the sd card. What troubleshooting have you done to the SD card? Switched cards? Formatted card in a computer? What type and info card are you using?
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That is a very important bit of information that I missed in the first post because it wasn’t there.
Pull the card from the cam and read it on an external SD Card reader in a computer or OTG in your phone or a secondary SD slot if it has it.
Chances are that the continuously recorded files are there in the “Record” folder and that you probably also may have a video in the “Timelapse” folder.
This is not the first instance I have read of an SD Card seemingly not reading properly in the app. It may be caused by a problem with the P2P stream connection between the app and the cam. I have not yet read of a definitive cause or resolution yet.
So lean & dry. 