Viewing playback on outdoor cam

cadov86, I don’t want to make things more confusing but what peace of mind are you referring to? If your car is taken from the drive way you can only have 12 seconds of video to help identify the thieves and those 12 seconds may not have the most helpful footage as the cam has a wake up delay that may or may not display the action from the beginning.

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Me thinks your ‘yet’ should be all caps :wink:

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I want to be able to check if racoons are trying to catch fish in the pond. With 12 seconds and the start delay I might see only few seconds. Then playback would be useful to see what is going on. That is how I used the indoor camera positioned by the pond. Obviously without power cord it would be more convenient. Unfortunately this camera cannot detect me in most cases and if it does it only records last part of my movement.

No confusion on that part. I know what the camera does and does not do. :slight_smile: I am not using it for car theft security. I’ll wait for anticipated updates just like any other new tech product.

I would use time lapse, it’s my understanding that you can use motion detect to get clips while simultaneously recording time lapse.
(Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.)

Something to keep in mind, especially for those reporting lack of events and/or notifications issues… When you enable Time-lapse, Scheduled Recordings, or view the Live Stream on an outdoor cam… Events, their associated cloud upload/storage and the associated push notification are disabled for said cam. Why? I don’t know. I don’t like it, but for now, it is what it is.

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Let’s see, each video clip is 12 seconds long and when stored takes up (x) number of bytes on the server… X is dependent of number of clips (y) per person multiplied by number of users (z)…

Holy shite that’s a coconut full of space required… Maybe, just maybe Wyze has a storage and retrieval time problem. Time to call Saul.

Is this temporary? Do the events resume once you revert to normal state?

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Yes, events & notifications resume once the SD recording functions or Live Stream completes/ends.

What’s the point of detecting and recording events if you can’t play them back??? I don’t get it. Has Wyze said they’ll fix this? This is bogus. That’s what I bought it for. Apparently this is only a live cam. Sad.

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The 12 second video clips are stored in the cloud (and the base station if you have an SD card installed. The cloud stored images can be played back on the app.

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Unlike the other Wyze cams, there is no internal continuous recording to play back.

There are only 2 ways to get the camera to continuously record video. You can do a manual recording, or you can do a “Scheduled Recording” over a time period.

Either way, the battery drains much faster while recording. By my observations, you can only record about 10 to 12 hours before the battery is dead. Apparently, that is the reason that the camera does not record continuously to it’s internal storage like the other Wyze cams that are externally powered.

Also, keep in mind that while doing live streaming, manual and scheduled recordings, you will not be generating events and their associated notifications.

Also, the 12-second clips are spaced by a minimum of 1 minute “cooldown”. This make the event recording pretty much useless because you only get the first 12 seconds.

Let’s take the case of a “porch pirate”. The event is most likely going to trigger and use it’s 12 seconds of recording while the bad guy is approaching. After 12 seconds, you are blind for the next full minute - while your stuff is being carried away.

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Can you say, “Class Action” for the early adopters?

I just can’t believe the “Beta” people didn’t point this out as a make/break problem.

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…and cue the “But They Say They’re Not Security Cameras” Chorus.

Though I always think the legal action stuff is way overblown and unneeded.

Well, the 5 cameras I now have will be going on Market Place and my $ will, sadly, be going to an alternative company…

Truly a shame.

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Things to look for in outdoor cameras:

  • Push notification

  • Wired power or large battery capacity

  • PIR (to reduce false detection)

  • Full event recording and remote viewing

  • Livestream

At least that’s what I’d look for.

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Okay so I just went through this entire thread. Can someone sum this up for me before. I have been going nuts trying to get my outdoor camera to record video. Let me get this right…

Here is my take

-The camera records motion.
-It doesn’t tell you it recorded motion.
-It saves footage it to the cloud, and an SD card?

  • It only records 12 seconds and then cools down for 1 minute
    -I can’t review the footage from the app.
    -The SD card needs to be put into a computer to see footage.
    -The only way to set recordings is with a time block for up to 30 days that will ultimately kill my battery.

Is this correct? If so I’m blown away because I truly love WYZE but this is trash. Please someone tell me I am not understanding something.

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Well, I see you didn’t read the fine print and search the back alleys of the forum. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:
I did come across this little gem today. Perhaps it applies to Wyze:
“According to the Startup Genome Project, up to 70% of startups scale up too early. They even go as far as saying it can explain up to 90% of failed startups. Premature scaling basically means too much, too soon.”

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