Trackers on WYZE app

[wjessop2020]

Trackers on WYZE app

[ssummerlin]

I see you joined 30 minutes ago. Welcome.

Can you provide more details or a complete sentence?

[wjessop2020]

I have a Samsung A53 Android phone. Requested help from WYZE but nothing yet. My phone Browser Duck Duck Go has a feature “App Tracking Protection” that blocks 3rd party trackers, not all but most. Example my Wyze app trackers was blocked 6/16 20512 times, 17 40154 times, 18 22601 times, 19 1660 times app was shut off most of the time, 20 2668 times again reduced time on. The two sites are Google and Braze.

[wjessop2020]

I looked away from screen and it was thanking me for my entry. I was wondering if others were seeing the same thing on their Wyze app. Why so many hits by these two sites for our information. Other sites are sending these 3rd party trackers but no where the extent Wyze is allowing.

[Seapup]

@wjessop2020

The two sites are Google and Braze.

Old post from Wyze… they still use Braze but have moved from Segment to Google:

Wyze app data collection

Hey All, @UserCustomerGwen hunted me down and diligently made sure I got back to all of you here. I am not saying that to downplay the importance of responding here or of downplaying the importance of letting you know what information we collect. I only added that to let you know that Gwen is awesome. Ok, to the question posed by @Daniel_SA. We are working on implementing both Segment and Braze. They are still not fully implemented, but we do have their basic SDKs inside of our…

And current privacy policy:

Privacy policy

[ssummerlin]

Yes. Unfortunately, loads of companies track. I use duck to block my trackers as well. The excess traffic is annoying.

[p2788deal]

@wjessop2020

Duck Duck Go has a feature “App Tracking Protection”

Then they’re being blocked already. Is there a problem?

[WyzeMatt]

We are looking into this. Agree it’s excessive.

[carverofchoice]

I believe it’s also one of those situations where normal attempts are much lower and spread out, but when you block them the program is told that it didn’t get through so it tries again soon or constantly polls the connection until it finally gets through again. I have seen this a lot in general (not specifically Wyze) even for things like a totally benign ping or DNS inquiry. Once one doesn’t go through it will constantly re-attempt until it gets through then slow down again. In this way, sometimes blocking things actually causes it to use up more processor/RAM/battery

I also regularly use the DDG Tracking protection, and I notice that the blocked tracking attempts are primarily when the app is in active use. I have some other apps that spaz out really bad even when they are closed. Some apps have purposely integrated their trackers in a way that the app won’t even work right if you block their trackers. So at least Wyze didn’t do that.

But I still agree that the Wyze trackers are among the most excessive in general out of all the 300+ Apps I currently have installed on my phone.

I have long advocated for Wyze to give us the option to enable/disable the Braze/Segment/Google analytics. I appreciate that Wyze doesn’t SELL our data to 3rd parties, but we should still have the control/option of whether we allow them to aggregate our UI use/experience, even if it is anonymized in aggregation.