I posted previously about my cameras losing chunks of time on the playback.
I found the reason.
When i use my desktop i cut off internet access to the camers. They in turn stop recording on the card for a chunk of time. This happens with my 2021 V3 but not the 2023 V3s. V4 is fine.
I don’t know when this started happening but it’s very serious. What good is a security camera that wont record continiously.
I contacted WYZE support but i wonder if this has happened to others and how it was solved.
On your current firmware, you should be able to see the missing footage on the Wyze app on July 3 2024 around 1am. This date and time is only unique with this particular firmware. The footage is still in the microSD, but saved at another date. You can check out this post here as to why it is happening.
If you happen to power cycle your V3 camera while there is no internet, then it will start recording on the date based on the firmware build date.
4.36.11.8391 firmware build date is January 4th 2024 and footage should be starting to record at 19:39
4.36.13.0416 firmware build date is July 3rd 2024 and footage should be starting to record at 01:10
As to why this is only happening to your 2021 V3 and not the 2023 V3, it is possible this is only impacting the older V3 with Realtek RTL8189FTV wifi chip. The newer V3 are equipped with Altobeam ATBM6031 wifi chip. I’m only guessing here so I don’t really know what’s going on.
By definition, I’m home when I use t he desktop so that is not the problem. The problem will arise if I’m out and there is an internet disruption, there wont be any recording on the older cameras.
This is a major security issue when the entire reason for buying these cameras is to be able to continues recording regardless of internet.
BTW, one of the solutions was for me to put in the new cameras outside BUT they don’t seem to have the range to hook up to the WIFI. I installed it and did everything possible to connect, NADA. Inside the house, no problem.
Before, I had a older V3 even further away on top of the garage roof, about 50 ft away and at least 5 walls. No problem. Also the V4 connects but I hate it because it does not have the 12 second cloud storage. I have to hunt through the disk and by that time, they emptied the house while I hunt through the card. 2 second response from WYZE versus 3 minute hunting.
Thankfully in my new house I will have the HikVision camera system but I still want to have the WYZE for inside on a smart plug. If I leave the house, I will turn on the smart plug and viola, inside coverage…but nobody home to hack and frighten.
You can search here and find other threads, but basically Wyze has prioritized trying to get your camera back online after a wifi issue/interruption, so after 30 minutes of no internet, the latest firmware will reboot the camera.
There is no internal clock battery in the camera, so if it still can’t connect to the internet to set its time via NTP, it will take the time the firmware was built. Same happens with your internet router and various other devices, but you won’t notice on those as much.
As @Omgitstony mentions, these are internet/cloud cams and are dependent on having an internet connection to function properly. However the fact that the footage is there (whether you look up the date/time your firmware was built or pull the SD card and look for the directory that doesn’t match the others) is at least piece of mind.
Before this “discovery” about internet connection, the camera would record but at a much higher rate and then go blank for the equivalent time.
Before I pointed the camera on a clock to track it, I wondered why it was dark at 5 oclock. Turned out that it started recording forward over that time and then stop depending how far forward it went. So if started to record faster forward and the camera showed 5 but the actual time was 8. Then it skipped 3 hours and at 8, it continued normally.
If you just have a single outage with no recordings already on the date the firmware was built, it should work ok other than putting the files during that time in the wrong place. But if you then have another outage without having formatted the SD card, I can see it getting very confused.
There were people complaining that certain cams had trouble coming back online after a wifi issue (seemed heavily dependent on the brand/model of wifi router) so I’m guessing that’s why this new feature was implemented. You obviously can revert back to an older version without the feature. But if consistent recording is important and you’re not able to get a stable internet (and/or power) connection, then a hardwired system with local NVR/NAS would probably be a better investment.
I’m lucky enough to have extremely reliable internet and power (plus battery backup on critical stuff) so have not had to deal with this particular issue. I have OGs, Panv3s, and a v4 and all have been very consistent and reliable. There are some bugs and glitches here and there but they are more annoyances, they don’t impact the recording at all.
I haven’t done any testing, but in theory you could configure a local NTP server (some routers like Asus even have a feature to intercept NTP packets and respond on behalf of the remote server). I’m not positive if that would work with these cams or if they require a specific Wyze server to give them the date and time, but that might be something you could try too. It may be that if they can’t reach the remote server to authenticate, they never get to the point of setting their time, not sure.
Now that you have the older firmware, make sure to format the SD card (if you don’t mind losing the recordings), don’t want to risk it getting confused with those incorrectly dated clips on there.
Yup, I first erased the software then re-formatted the card when I inserted it.
IT WORKS…I just checked it and no more dead spots. Tomorrow I have to take down the other ones…grrr…
My wife always complements me that I’m smarter then a pet monkey…as if monkeys can flash a camera…or can they?
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EDIT,BTW…I also have the internet on a power backup but my provider still manage to go down every month or two. Usually half an hour or so. I use to have a building and had the security cameras on live feed 24/7 so I know their reliability record by now.
Depending how critical the internet is for you, you may want to look into a router with dual WAN/auto failover. Depending on your cellular provider, you can usually get a 5G USB dongle for a small monthly fee that pulls from your data plan. Or there is the option of a second ISP like a T-Mobile wireless, starlink, etc, but that can get costly.
As far as the other cams, you could just bring the SD card with the firmware up with you along with a clean formatted one. Do the downgrade, swap the card, then format that card and use it for the next one etc. Guess it depends how much you like being on the ladder.
Not that important. It use to be when i had the building and the insurance company insisted on bank level security. Because i did it my self, pretty easy but still 5 grand out of pocket for hardware. .
New house is getting that very high end colour night vision HikVision from the building for outside and the Wyze inside on smart plug. The HikVision DVR will buried deep inside the house with a one week power supply. The alarm is going on cellular. They have to be very sophisticated pros to bypass all that. Cutting both land and cellular, they still will smile for the cameras and zero chance to find the DVR.
Anywho…i said that the problem was solved, but the cameras i didn’t change also didn’t skip. Need to run another test tomorrow to confirm the change.
Nothing like stupid little cheap cameras to challange my sanity…
Well as they say, you get what you pay for. If this was mission critical for me or I lived in a high crime area, I would have invested in something else. But it was more of an impulse purchase during prime day in 2023 (couldn’t resist the prices) and they have proven to be helpful/useful for various purposes. I would not by any means consider them “security cameras” though. “Monitoring” is a more accurate word.
There isn’t a shred of comparison between the HikVision and Wyze…but…the HikVision is a 16 camera system that use 174 watts an hour or about $450 a year of electricity. That’s a pile of money that was ok for a commercial building but the house, well, the wife isn’t worth that…ducks frying pan
I have no clue what it costs for the Wyze, but i bet its 1% of that.
All the Hiks cameras have memory slots. I’ve never ran them but maybe it’s time to explore that option. The DVR is half that demand and i won’t need 16 cameras.
About 1.25 watt per cam for most of the cams at idle, a bit more when viewing or uploading. The pans take more but only when moving. So if we assume 1.5 watts average, it’s around 33 cents per month per cam at my rates (which are on the high side, but not as high as some areas, so maybe 50 cents for some people).
Should have asked them to leave their camera system, you can bet it was a nice one
Surprised that wired camera system draws so much power. Is that what you’ve measured or is it just based on the POE rating for each one? Higher resolution/less compression and transfer rate etc will definitely use more, and the NVR will consume some too, but what you mentioned before seems like a lot even for that.
I guess it isn’t terribly surprising, my little web server that is on 24x7 I’ve managed to trim down to about 16 watts on average but over the course of a year that adds up to $40 or so. If your NVR is processing a good amount of data (especially if with spinning disks) I wouldn’t be surprised if it was up around 50 watts. That leaves about 8 watts per cam assuming your 174 number included all 16.
Back when I ran all my own servers out of my house (email, web, monitoring, few other niche VMs) along with enterprise network gear, I realized it was costing me around $30 a month in electricity, and that’s when rates were half what they are now. Then on top of that the more expensive business class internet with static IP, I finally became conscious of my energy use and outsourced it all for a fraction what it was costing me.
I do miss the auxiliary heating source in the winter though. Sometimes I fire up a stack of 10Gig Cisco routers and crack out the marshmallows (and hearing protection) for old time’s sake.
