Why do the V4 cameras need Bluetooth, NFC, and Location to setup? The V2 and V3 cams only needed location. Why isn’t this information available BEFORE you buy them?
Because the general smart home community has decided that the standard for provisioning a new device should be done using Bluetooth now.
The problem is that if an app has access to Bluetooth, they can use that to know your exact location because lots of companies have started tracking Bluetooth and WiFi broadcasts against other things to triangulate exactly where a person is using bluetooth alone. So now Android, and I presume iOS too, have decided that in order to approve Bluetooth access, you need to also approve location access to make sure you know that giving a device bluetooth access AUTOMATICALLY means they will definitely be able to know your exact location just from Bluetooth alone.
So, the general smart home community wants bluetooth to be the new standard for activation/provisioning/installation/setup, and Android/iOS want you to know that Bluetooth means they will [be able to] get your location too.
It is getting harder to find IoT devices that don’t require location permissions now. The Matter consortium is requiring this standard. It is quite likely that certain categories of devices that refuse to use Bluetooth for provisioning won’t be allowed certification into Matter since they won’t be adhering to the standard.
Even though the Camera libraries haven’t been fully released for matter yet, a lot of camera companies are still making all their new cameras use Bluetooth provisioning just in case they want to add Matter support for them in the future when it’s finally an option. Any camera that doesn’t require Bluetooth Provisioning/setup is likely to be disqualified from the start.
Anyway, that’s the reason why most companies are releasing new models that require Bluetooth and location permissions, because the Matter Alliance (Google, Apple, Amazon, and others), all declared this is the new standard everyone should adhere to from now on. But you can still find some old camera models from most companies or cheap Chinese company brands, etc that don’t adhere to the newly declared standard, or certain privacy-focused commercial CCTV cams, all of which don’t care if they adhere to any standards.
But since Bluetooth is the new declared standard, and Android/iOS decided that Bluetooth requires location permissions, that’s why it’s required on newer phones.
As for NFC, are you sure? I haven’t had to give NFC permissions for ANYTHING through Wyze. I have over 50 cameras, almost 60, and over 300 total Wyze devices and not a single one is requiring NFC permissions. It might be something with your phone manufacturer or some custom launcher or something? IDK, but that’s not normal. Did you get your Wyze app from Google Play or some other App store? Maybe you have some other malware on the device? This is the first time I’m hearing of someone saying they had to turn on NFC permissions. Are you sure? I would go disable NFC permissions. They shouldn’t be needed. That is abnormal. I didn’t need it for setting up any of my V4 cams.
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It’s a legitimate question. I suspect that @orinodude meant the “Nearby devices” permission—which, like “Location”, is part of what the Wyze app would have access to when it’s allowed to use the device’s Bluetooth features (at least that’s my understanding)—and not actually the NFC setting.
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Oh yeah, that would make sense. The Nearby Devices permission is required to give access to Bluetooth (or WiFi or UWB) too so that the phone/app can find, connect to and determine the relative position of nearby devices, in theory without needing to access the GPS, etc…but in truth can still be used to triangulate location, or know based on a known beacon, such as if it is in range of a known Bluetooth Beacon (such as at a store, which means the app would know you are in that store). So because Bluetooth can still give away the location, it requires both Location and Nearby devices permissions.
It’s not actually using NFC though, it’s just that Bluetooth uses those things, so the OS won’t allow you to use Bluetooth unless you allow both of those permissions.
In many cases, the app in question may not even use any of those things it requires permission for (location, etc), but since it is POSSIBLE for them to access it or learn it, permission is required so that we go into it with knowledge it can access those things if it so chooses. So, I would usually only approve it “this one time” or “Only while using the app” if it is something concerning.
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Wyze Cam v4
You can turn Bluetooth off after setup is complete. You can turn location off too if you’re not using location-based rules with your v4. You don’t need NFC at all.
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Turning Bluetooth off on iOS 
