@gsw_research
What firmware do you have? That capability has not worked in a long time (by intent). If the cameras will record to the uSD card after powerup prior to internet connection, it would appear that you are using very old firmware.
The link I posted was from Wyzeās support website. Didnāt google anything.
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Technically, that blurb you sent from Wyze is indeed correct in that the Wyze camera is designed to work with the Internet āThe connection is what allows you to stream, get notifications and change settings via the Wyzeā¦ā. And yes even the instructions they sent in terms of how to use it off the Internet says it āmustā first be connected through the app. So bottom line yes when they claim you must have internet access to operate the camera thatās right you absolutely need access to the Internet to operate Wyze camera. The misleading part is that once you use it for two or three minutes connected to the Internet to set it up you can then totally disregard the Internet if you want to take it to a remote area. In my opinion with so many people confused about this they are totally missing the boat of another market opportunity and that is people who do not have Internet access in the areas where second homes are located which are indeed very commonly in remote areas and those who donāt care to pay an ongoing fee for celluar cameras. Of course Musk is trying to take care of the remote Internet problem with Starlink, which Iām on a waiting list for and hopefully one day I wonāt have to worry about that.
Thereās no doubt mass confusion at Wyze with the help desk relative to what that camera can and canāt do at least it was several years ago when I was seeking information about using it without the Internet the first person got back with me said no it canāt it had to be connected to the Internet and they added āto view remotelyā. Then I reexplained I had no interest in remotely viewing and another person followed up to say they didnāt know for sure & they would check and get back with me then finally a young lady got back with me with instructions and said yes it can I followed her instructions (included earlier) and found out that it could indeed.
I used it for a while and then stopped using it for a couple years and recently found the need to use it again I just couldnāt recall if I it had to continuously record or could it do motion/event recording now Iāve learned I can do event recording remotely.
I took the little white camera and put camo tape all over it with a couple of artificial leaves jutting out for a three dimensional perspective and then set it in a decorative artificial flower arrangement and it stayed completely hidden and worked like a charm.
Again, what firmware version? You said you have not used the camera for a couple years. Sounds like you still have ancient firmware in the camera - back from when you COULD power up a camera and record to the uSD card without internet. That has not been possible for a very long time. Although there has not been much traffic on this topic in quite a while, it was very common on the forum for a while. MANY people (including me) have proven numerous times that the cameras with reasonably current firmware will not record to the uSD card until the camera is able to check in with the Wyze servers after EVERY power up.
I thought I sent this response earlier but perhaps notā¦as Iāve been juggling so many things. So I just copied and pasted from the email I had created earlier today. See below.
Through yesterday I was on really old filmware (Updated 2018 or possibly 2019 at the latest). This morning I updated to the latest filmware.
You bring up a good point and i hope I havenāt done something too screw up that camera from recording without Internet remotely.
My wife jumped on my case for disconnecting our Wi-Fi for a short while yesterday evening for testing so I dare not do it again this morning. We are heading to our remote Virginia cabin to enjoy a snowfall this weekend and I will try it out then. If for some reason the new filmware is not able to do this, I may have to beg Wyze camera for access to the old filmware which Iām sure would not be doable. So apparently if their new filmware no longer allows for this tremendous convenience itās a rare instance where I wouldāve been much much better off ānotā updating filmware from WYZE. Wish I had seen your post before updating this morning or I wouldāve not dared touched my camera.
No begging required for older firmware:
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Much appreciated. I am going to work on this tomorrow to get the older (and for me personallyā¦much more useful filmware) back on my camera.
I used to use a pan v2 hanging upside down on my car rear view mirror. I would just plug it into a power bank and it recorded all movement events onto an SD card. It recently died so I replaced it with the duo cam. When I tried to look at the events there were none because in fact their new cameras have to connect to the internet every time the power is restored. I reset up the camera to the Wi-Fi hotspot on my phone in the hopes that tomorrow when I try it Iāll just flick on my Wi-Fi hotspot plug the camera into my power bank and circumvent the Wyze power trip/nosey parker issue. The whole camera having to connect to the internet upon power up is just to make sure that it doesnāt record to your SD card on all movements without a cool down. For which you need to buy a subscription to get rid ofā¦ One thing I do notice immediately is that the new duo cam wanders. I have it facing forward but after it follow something around it never returns back to its original place itās always pointing up to the sky. Itās rotational speed is also extremely slow compared to the v2. When itās trying to fill my car thatās driving by it loses the car completely because itās not fast enough to keep up. I really think they have assād it, I guess thatās why their called āWyzeā and not āWiseāā¦. Iām going to start researching to replace my wyze cameras with something that I control and not themā¦
Better off buying a camera that is designed to work whether online or not 
Like Reolink 
Just being Devilās advocate, so if there is no WiFi, Reolink records to SD card but since there is no internet you canāt view it live. It just becomes a glorified trail cam then.
Which is the same thing Wyze does, aside from the small gap from the 30 minute reboots.
Canāt please everyone. People complained that things werenāt reconnecting after a power blip or internet issue (mine always did fine, so obviously it was a problem with some routers) so wyze made the cams more aggressive at trying to reconnect. Now people complain about that.
It would be nice if every new feature/change they made was just a toggle and you had the option of enabling it if you wanted, but I suppose that would make things very confusing for the average user, which I think most of us regulars (who would want this sort of control) are not.
I suppose they could put a supercapacitor and crystal in the cams to keep the time during power outages/reboots, but thatās going to add cost for a pretty āedge caseā scenario.
The whole point is that with a new wise camera you cannot set it to record to an SD card unless you have internet at the time of power up. But with reolink you can turn the camera on and itāll start recording as per itās last instructions, without having to check with Mommy and Daddy at wyze before doing so.
Example, if I set up a reolink to record to SD card on movements and then I unplug it and bring it to another location that has no Wi-Fi and I plug it back into power it will continue to record to an SD card without having to get permission for reolink via internet.
The only reason wyze does this is to cripple the SD card recording with ācooldownsāā¦
Just like they are spreading conspiracy theories about Wyze forcing them to subscribe by removing the playback button from the SD card recordings. Unable or unwilling to look beyond the box 
Again, glorified trail cam.
Yep, without Internet a glorified trail cam 
However some peopleās usage case they could connect with a hotspot while there and when they leave the cams revert to āa glorified trail camā
Some Posts have been deleted. Keep this topic on Task.
Please ensure that the Community Guidelines are followed. Specifically:
It is ok to disagree, but it is not ok to single an individual out and/or attack them in anyway.
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Not sure what your complaint is.
Please provide which post you think needs to be cleared.
The Community Guidelines must be followed, I would encourage individuals to follow them so that the community can help each other and issues can get to Wyze for corrections.
But, if I missed one, please feel free to let me know.
WoW this post has gone sideways
If you would like your account deleted, simply send a DM requesting to have your account deleted. You can send to me and I will make it happen.