Traveling with a Wyze Camera

[jsuvman]

For those that travel a lot, especially with pets, if you want to keep an eye on them in your room if you go out for an hour or just want to keep an eye on your room in general.

Been doing this for over 5 years now. Never had any issues, even out of the country.

Wyze does not support signing into “Captive Portals” like most hotels, resorts, etc, use. A Captive Portal is where a “web page” opens and you need to enter information like your name, room number, password, etc. (more than just a router password).

So here is what you can do. Get yourself a mini Travel Router, like this GL.iNet Mango that supports “Captive Portals”. See pic. Get yourself an extra Wyze Cam like a V2, V3, whatever.

Power up your Travel Router at home. Log into it and make the SSID Name whatever you like and change the default password to something you like.

Connect that Travel Router to your Home WiFi using the “Repeater” Mode. There are several modes.

Set up your Wyze Cam (only have to do this once) to connect to the Travel Router. You are done. You should now see that camera in the app going through the Travel Router to your home router. Do any camera updates if prompted to, do your camera settings, whatever.

Shut everything down and pack it away. I made a little kit I carry ours in along with a Fire TV Stick that also does not support “Captive Portal” webpage sign in’s. See pic.

When you get to a hotel. Power up the Travel Router. Power up the Wyze Cam. They will immediately connect.

On your phone, tablet, whatever, connect to your Travel Routers WiFi. Go into the Travel Router and scan for WiFi under repeater mode. The hotel WiFi will show up. Connect to that and the “Captive Portal” web page will open. Enter the information needed and log in.

You are now connected. Your Camera to your Travel Router and the Travel Router to the hotel WiFi.

Looks like a bunch of work but the first part you only do once. After you do it a few times at different hotels, resorts, wherever, it takes about 3-5 minutes to set up and you are good for as long as you are there.

I have even visited the same hotel more than once and sometimes the Travel Router just automatically connects to that SSID (no scanning as it remembers it) and just opens the web page so you can enter your information.

[Sam_Bam]

Very Creative and Clever. And in behalf of everyone here, thank you for sharing. I suspect you have planted a very healthy large seed.

[jsuvman]

No problem. As you see at the top of that Amazon screenshot I started doing this over 5 years ago when I first bought it. It does not come with a manual. (At least at that time). You have to go to their website and the have an online manual and lots of information about different settings.

I used their online version to create my own in a Word Document and then printed it as a .pdf and then sent it to my iPhone, iPad, laptop, etc. so I always a copy if needed.

[jsuvman]

I will add one note even though I have never had this issue.

The GL.iNet Mango can only connect to 2.4GHz WiFi. Not 5GHz.

GL-MT300N-V2 / Mango

The few resorts that had 5GHz also had a 2.4GHz but I guess if you found a place that only had 5GHz the Mango would not work. You would need one of their newer products the does both 2.4GHz and 5GHz.

[Crease]

Thanks for posting! I haven’t seen it written up in quite this way, but it reminds me of another Forum topic:

Setting up in a hotel room

Tried setting up my Wyze Cam Pan in a hotel room this weekend. Was unsuccessful. Did some research in the forums here and found the ‘no password’ option when connecting the camera to the hotel’s network (to thwart the hotel’s landing page). Tried that but still didn’t work. , Any ideas on how to connect a Wyze cam to a hotel’s wifi? Would it have been advisable to connect a separate device (iPad as hotspot, hotspot, etc.)to use as a repeater for the wifi and THEN connecting camera?

That links out to a Help Center article that @Loki wrote years ago, “Setting up on a network with a login portal”, so I want to include those here as additional references.

I especially like the visuals and how you have everything bundled into a kit that’s ready for travel!

[jsuvman]

Thanks. Tried doing a search on Traveling, Hotel, etc in here and nothing showed up.

Never saw that article in the Help Center. Funny they referenced the same Travel Router I bought. Must be an old article (even though it says update 2 years ago) as the interface was changed in late 2020 and looks completely different. That one also shows a very old firmware version, 2.263. I think we are up to like 4.7….. after many updates over the years.

Anyway, it is good to see they did supply a solution back then.

This is what the main Admin screen looks like since 2020 and the Repeater Option. Direction are also slightly different since that was written.

Thanks. Yes the little kit is great. I just grab and go. And as mentioned it works with other devices like the FireTV Stick, Roku, etc, that don’t support logging into Captive Portals.

[Crease]

I don’t have one of these, but I thought the router’s UI images in the Help Center article looked quite dated.

[CatHome]

I do something similar, but use an ‘old’ iPhone 12 on Visible as my internet source for my GL.iNet Slate AX (GL-AXT1800) Wi-Fi 6 Travel Router while in a Hotel or AirBnb.

iPads, Amcrest PTZ Camera’s and/or Wyze Battery Cam Pros and Wyze V4’s are all preset to connect to this travel router.

Arrive at hotel / Airbnb, pull router, phone, camera’s out of the bag, power up, instant Internet available. (Assuming I have Verizon/Visible coverage)

On a recent trip to Disneyland, I used this setup with two Wyze Battery Cam Pro’s in the car in the parking lot, as well as a V4 in the hotel room to monitor room and car while at the park.