Using Android TinyCam PRO with WYZE Cams

Hoping someone here can help. Have the WYZE Doorbell Cam & a Cam V3, Everything works great on the cell phone app(Apple). Next I downloaded the TinyCam Pro app, from Google Play store, onto my Windows 10 PC (using Blue-Stacks emulator) & I can see my cameras here as well. Next I downloaded the Amazon App store version of TinyCam Pro onto my Firestick. Using the same info that I entered on the TinyCam Pro app, that is running great on my PC, I set up the app on my Firestick. Unfortunately, no matter what I do, the Amazon version of the TinyCam Pro will not show my cameras. I have verified and reverified my un & password, but itā€™s keeps telling me ā€œToo Many Failed Attemptsā€. Even deleted the app and reinstalled (twice), waited 24 & 48 hours in case I am locked out, and even changed the protocol - still same error. The only difference i know of is that the apps I get from the Google Play store work, but the App from the Amazon App store wonā€™t. Any ideas? I want to be able to see my cameras on my TV, which I why I purchased the TinyCam Pro app. WYZE company customer service rep has no idea and since itā€™s not their app (TinyCam Pro) I am out of luck. I sent an email to the TinyCam Pro developer Alexey but no response. I have posted this problem about a week ago and followed all the suggestions, but still unable to get it working. ** Interesting fact: Donā€™t know if it matters but when I first downloaded the TinyCam Pro App from Amazon and opened it up, it already had some cameras on it - showing places from different cities around the world. Other people get this app to work on their Firestick, so I know itā€™s possible. Any help/advice is appreciated.

  1. Is the Fire stick on the same WiFi network as the cameras are?

  2. The sample world webcams are normal, and I thought kind of cool.

  3. Is ā€œtoo many failed attemptsā€ your only error? Iā€™ve never gotten that one on TinyCam.

  4. If you are using TinyCamā€™s native Wyze ability, and not using RTSP firmware on the cameras, I donā€™t see how you could ever ā€œchange the protocolā€. There is no choice in the matter.

  5. It might help if you showed us screenshots of your camera configuration and also the specific errors TinyCam is returning.

  6. FYI it is possible to export all the settings from your working Bluestacks TinyCam setup to the Fire TinyCam setup.

Edit: Bluestacks, not Bluetooth :slight_smile:

Are you using the correct version of tiny cam? Iā€™d do some digging in the Amazon store to find the developer info of the tiny cam app you got there to see if itā€™s the same as the others. Iā€™d hope itā€™s not some knock off and now you just have the developer of the other app your Wyze credentials. I think there was a post similar to this around here Iā€™ll try and find,ā€¦

Edit/ here is the thread that was fresh in my mind, doesnā€™t look like the same os here but good reminder to verify which app is downloaded.

Hi and thanks for any and all help and suggestions. To answer your 6 questions:

  1. Yes, all of our Firesticks are on our same router, the only difference being that the Firestick that I have installed the TinyCam Pro, from the Amazon App store), is had wired to the router. So is the Windows 10 computer running the ā€˜Blue-Stacksā€™ (with the TinyCam PRO app)
  2. Thanks for the info on the sample webcams, i was wondering about that, but at least it tells me I downloaded the correct app.
  3. The ā€œToo Many Failed Attemptsā€ is the error that I have gotten 99% of the time. However once it said ā€œToo Many failed Attemptsā€ on one camera, and ā€œCheck Password & Usernameā€ on the other. I have since double & triple checked my username & password. Now itā€™s back to ā€œToo Many Failed Attemptsā€ all the time.
  4. I tried everything on The Amazon App version of TinyCam PRO, including trying to change the protocol but nothing worked. i have since deleted and reinstalled the app a couple more times. The only think I enter in now is the camera brand, and model, & put in is username & password. I also designate the 2nd camera as camera #2. On another Reddit board/post, I was given the suggestion to check the configuration in/on the actual WYZE app. I didnā€™t change anything.
  5. Again, sorry to be such a commuter/tech ā€œnubeā€ but how can I post screenshots and pics here on the WYZE board - I donā€™t see any ā€˜attachā€™ link?
  6. if there is a way to export/import the settings from my Blue-Stacks app version to my Amazon app version, I donā€™t know how. But I have checked and unless i am missing something, they are all the same.
    Hope this will help you more advanced uses come up with some ideas and suggestions. Again, I appreciate the help!

Letā€™s give this fancy reply a try:

1 Like

Do you have two factor authentication turned on in your Wyze account? (Where it has to call/text you for login confirmation.) Your errors are entirely about logging in. Iā€™ve never had those - my errors are connection and timeout related. Something is wrong with your login settings.

There are a few ways to export your working settings.

I only skimmed through the comments beyond your initial post so I apologize if my response isnā€™t helpful but Iā€™d recommend sideloading the Tinycam Pro app onto your Firestick from your phone (assuming you have one, otherwise you could try doing the same via BlueStacks) as opposed to downloading it from the Amazon app store so that you can be sure youā€™ve got the same exact version/release of the app, not to mention the fact that you know the Android version/release that you have works, so logic would suggest that that very same version should work fine on the Firestick, seeing as FireOS is just a modded version of Android.

There are a slew of options when it comes to sideloading apps but the route that I suggest to those new to the concept is called Easy Fire Tools

It works quite well in my experience and Iā€™ve tried just about all the different methods of sideloading in existence. Alternatively, just Google ā€œFirestick sideloadingā€ and youā€™ll see what I mean by a ā€œslew.ā€

If you donā€™t have a phone and are limited to BlueStacks, in the event that the EFT app doesnā€™t work, Iā€™d just go with the tried and true method of using ā€œDownloader,ā€ available via Amazon app store. It exists pretty much exclusively for sideloading. The article linked below is a few years old at this point but that shouldnā€™t matter because the process hasnā€™t changed (Iā€™d avoid option 3 on that list, as ES File Explorer has really gone down the crapper in the past few years so Iā€™d treat that as a very last resort). There are many other viable options even beyond these options but one of the two Iā€™ve given should absolutely do the trick for you, assuming BlueStacks plays nice.

https://www.howtogeek.com/336602/how-to-sideload-apps-on-the-fire-tv-and-fire-tv-stick/#:~:text=Option%20Two%3A%20Download,and%20under%20ā€œApps.ā€

Also, I doubt the issues youā€™re running into are stemming from your Android emulator but I use something called Anbox for PC Android emulation and like it a lot. Itā€™s been a while since I originally set it up but if I remember correctly, itā€™s one that requires one to be a bit more tech savvy but I get the impression that you are, since the tech naive rarely play around with things like Android emulators or even know about them in the first place for that matter. However Iā€™m running Linux not Windows and Iā€™m not 100% certain whether or not Anbox is Windows compatible but this is all probably moot, since you have a working emulator in BlueStacks. Just thought Iā€™d throw out another option.

Hopefully this helps and I havenā€™t just wanted the last few minutes of your life :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Thanks!! I never thought about sideloading the app onto my Firestick. Although not too often, I have sideloaded apps before onto my Firestick before using the ā€˜DOWNLOADERā€™ app. All I know is that in every case where I have downloaded the ā€˜TinyCam PROā€™ app from the actual Google PLAY store, the TinyCam PRO app works. I only downloaded it from the Amazon app store because it was easier and I saw videos on YouTube of people who did & it worked for them. I have been unable to find anyway to download the actual Google PLAY app onto my Firestick, which would solve all the problems. However, I didnā€™t know there was a way to sideload an individual app. I guess I will have to do a bit of reading you on this, unless you happen to have the steps available (and can save me some time)

These FireHD Google Play Store instructions worked for me a while back.

Did you download Google PLAY store onto your Firestick using these directions? Or onto your Fire tablet? If it was on your Firestick, which APKā€™s did you download for your Firestick (I have the newest 4K Firestick)?

Oh, sorry, I misread you; it was my FireHD 8 tablet. I donā€™t think you can do the same with a Fire stick. :frowning:
But I have successfully run the Amazon store version of TinyCam Pro on my Fire stick without issue. I had a whole thread about this.

Seeing that your reply is 12d old at this point (very sorry about the delay. I mustā€™ve missed the notification, which I am wont to do), youā€™ve probably progressed beyond this point but in case you havenā€™t, hereā€™s a video outlining the process which I only watched the first 30 seconds or so of but it seems like a solid guide (itā€™s a YouTube video only I linked it from Invidious so you could watch it without having to endure ads, Invidious is a highly recommended YouTube alternative/mirror FYI). Or, if youā€™d prefer written instructions, Troypoint seems to have you covered.

As far as sourcing APKs, youā€™ve got options. There are numerous Play Store alternatives that provide raw APKs, in addition to other app file formats - youā€™ll likely encounter split APKs or ā€œbundleā€ APKs that combine the package APK with configuration files, of which XAPK and APKM are two examples. These are the preferred file formats for 2 of the Play Store alternatives, APK Mirror and APKPure, which are both good, however unlike my favorite Play Store alternative, these two are proprietary as are their file formats (which shouldnā€™t require additional package installers to handle so long as you use their services but the former will likely require one so Iā€™d recommend sticking to regular APK wherever possible, as installing all the necessary additional installers can be a bit cumbersome). While they push their respective format pretty heavily, IIRC they also provide the APK as an option to choose from. There are many options in this category but 3 of the best include the aforementioned, as well as my personal preference, Yalp Store / Aurora Store , which are technically unassociated however Aurora Store is a Yalp Store fork, so the code is pretty similar (speaking of which, if the fact that one is a fork of the other didnā€™t tip you off - this just means theyā€™re open sourced vs. proprietary, which in turn means that their entire code base can be reviewed/audited by anyone at any time which generally means you can be sure thereā€™s no funny business going on behind closed doors, nor any malware/viruses, inclusion of crypto-mining packages unbeknownst to the end-user, etc., etc.) and in terms of functionality they are the same. Theyā€™re both Google Play Store clients that simply remove the tracking component, which essentially just means they offer the exact same selection as the GPS, and in fact are essentially a direct mirror since they use the same libraries/API, etc., only they remove the need for Google Play Services and attaching your personal Google/Gmail account, though you can associate yours if youā€™d like. Aurora Store has a nicer user interface / more eye candy but you canā€™t go wrong with either. The only downside is they are only available as an app whereas APK Mirror and APKPure have websites that function just as well as their apps but if youā€™d like to download Google Play Store apps without Google tracking your every move, itā€™s a worthwhile download (fun fact - Yalp is Play backwards).

Honorable mention in this category of options goes to F-Droid. This one doesnā€™t have all the apps available on the Google Play Store, in fact it has a very small fraction, as it only hosts open sourced apps but it is the go to for open sourced Android applications. Most if not all of the apps that you use that are open source will very likely have their app hosted here in addition to the Google Play Store. Many apps have actually forgone the Play Store entirely in favor of it. Similar to how the Aurora Store has a Yalp Store fork that is the same thing only a bit better, they also have an F-Droid fork (Aurora-Droid) that again is easier on the eyes and actually has a few added features that are very helpful but again, same exact package selection.

The other option outside of sourcing APKs from any of the above App Stores is to extract the APK from apps you already have on your device / emulator. Once again, the amount of options is staggering but a personal favorite because it does itā€™s job with no frills or ads is ML Manager (linked to APK Mirror but if you download Yalp/Aurora Store, just search for it using either of those)

Regarding using a mouse with the Fire, as @Customer alluded to in his linked review, there is (or was anyway but I havenā€™t used it or any Fire products in years so I canā€™t speak to the current landscape/availability) an app called Mouse Toggle that is (or again, was) quite harmless and minimal in terms of package size. However, just as FYI, if thereā€™s ever a question about the legitimacy of a file/app or a concern it might contain malware or viruses, I suggest using MetaDefender or VirusTotal. These will work with not only any file type but you can also use them to check any URLs, IP addresses, file hash values, domains and more that you are unsure of or feeling at all iffy about. For example, hereā€™s the summary from VirusTotal that was returned upon submitting the APK for the Aurora Store. Outside of using an app like Mouse Toggle, the other option would be to utilize an OTG cable, in which case you could use an actual mouse, be it wireless or wired. Or better yet, plug a USB hub into the newly available USB port and use any number of USB peripheral devices, add storage (last I checked, the Firestick would only accept SD cards formatted a specific way, FAT32 maybe? but this could still be accomplished using an OTG cable), get a more stable/faster internet connection by hooking your Firestick up via Ethernet adapter, etc. OTG cables can be had for next to nothing, hereā€™s a 2 pack for $5 or, and this one is new to me, hereā€™s a 3 port OTG hub for under $9

Ok, with that Iā€™m going to declare my novel finito. Hopefully any of the above is helpful to you or anyone that may stumble upon it with an extra 15 minutes to kill.

Godspeed, let me know if you have any other questions, etc.

1 Like