We’re Giving Wyze Person Detection to All Users at Whatever Price You Want - 1/11/22

We can do well. Just find it a bummer when a good number of people are saying things quit working and people here keep telling them, that’s not how it works. Once the server issue is fixed or they “WYZE” rolls back the update. We will see if the cams function as before. (Cam lite, with no person detect set to on) and get the same old 12 sec recordings for anything from a Jet crashing in the yard to a butter fly 8 miles away…

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This board is in addition to Wyze customer service and in addition to the Wyze Reddit. There are also discussions between customers on FaceBook and probably other sources too. Most of us look to this customer discussion board as an additional resource and not as a single resource.

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yeah, 5 days later, though my issues have been longer than that, no action.

I understand that it is burying in the setup and help section that one might happen to find possibly when they can’t understand the 5 minute cooldown issue after they purchased. I was talking about the main v3 page and shop page where it is nowhere to be found.

I got busy so have only had time to review the below.

No misunderstanding. In my case on basic legacy detection I have had multiple occasions where I got more than one successful person detection announcement within the same 5 minute span as people arrived and left. In my personal experience the 5 minute rule is not always hard and fast.

No? In both cases it’s the motion that initiates the recording. And Wyze has already very kindly started indexing cloud thumbnails against SD recordings. I don’t see the need for much new code here, if they chose to grant this feature to their lowest tier users.

It is good feedback for Wyze to hear that they could more clear about this in several ways. I don’t think they were being disingenuous though. The camera box does indicate there are limits to the free cloud storage, and says they are limited to 12 seconds and that 24/7 recording requires an SD card and full-length motion recording requires Cam Plus.

And the Set up process further has explanations about the benefits of the difference from using Cam Plus vs not when people read everything in the set up. They did make efforts to indicate that the cloud recordings would not be unlimited without a subscription, and though they don’t specify on the box exactly what the cooldown period is, it does imply there is one since, if there was no cooldown period we would have unlimited cloud storage and the 12-second limit would be entirely pointless.

The Wyze website and Amazon appear to have been updated now that the changes have taken place, so we can’t show what was on them before, but the Amazon page still has a very public answer from Wyze being upfront about it:

I got cameras by other companies and found some of them also had some weird cooldowns on some things despite me not seeing anything about them elsewhere. Netvue has a 5 minute cooldown, Alder and Yi have a 3-10 minute cooldown on some of their cameras, I just read posts of people complaining about Nest Hellow enforcing a 5 minute cooldown, at least a while ago,

Some do small retrigger times, for example, Blink does 5 seconds as often as every 30 seconds. Different, but it’s still a cooldown. Arlo has the same thing by default, but allows adjusting the cooldown between 10-60 seconds. I’ve heard blink may have allowed a similar adjustment period now.

Others don’t have a cooldown, or allow you to remove it. Many require subscriptions to not have them.

It all varies by each company, but the thing they almost all have in common is that there are so many things about how their service or equipment is different, and we humans have limited attention tolerance, so they have to balance what will be most critical to know to the highest number of people without adding so many details that they ignore everything all together (which already happens). It’s a Catch-22. Basically, I don’t think Wyze intended to be deceitful about the limitation. Cooldowns aren’t enforced by every company, but they aren’t necessarily rare or unheard of or anything either. Wyze wasn’t trying to mislead or upset anyone as far as I can tell. The box the V3 comes in indicates there is a limit to the cloud videos without a subscription, and the setup process also tells you what extra benefits come from having cam plus instead of without it.

Regardless, it is good for Wyze to hear that there are still frustrations and misunderstandings about it. Hopefully there will be fewer misunderstandings in the long term future now that people have to actively sign up for the cloud and person detection features, and this new policy should make it a little more clear for people for future purchases.

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If they provide that as before with cam lite, and the option to use person detection as a filter. we are golden.

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I just will have to disagree with this completely. the 12 sec limit is needed regardless per event, you are not going to keep recording continuously every event. The detail left out is you can only have one 12 second event clip every 5 minutes. All that was needed was to add that detail on the main product page, or the details page , or the FAQ page this 5 minute limitation. All pages a user would go to to purchase were void of this, and as you note the box as well. Not having it buried in a question section, or a help page after you discover the issue and go searching why it is not working as expected. I would not be surprised if it ends up in a class action, but that my opinion only. The box could have easily said this: 12-second videos * * 5 minute cooldown period. I am not confident it was not left out on purpose. I understand the push to subscription with most likely a small margin on the product, but at least be transparent.

I believe it is wise to know when to “fold”.
All my cameras will just be converted in to “non-functional” cameras like weather cams or hen-house cams.
I have invested quite a bit in these products, but I have learned that knowing when to walk away from a losing proposition is a good thing to learn.

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restart/reboot. some of mine are working again. so i can see wild life on one of them again. 12 second vid which is nice, then I can goto cam playback for more with the SD card… way it should work. I did not assign person detection to any cam, just the cam lite. More promising than last few days.

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Fully agree with this comment. But I’ll pay if I can save my videos locally - and save you guys the cloud costs.

so the reason I purchased all 4 of my cameras, was because your cloud storage was free! So basically you have neutered my cameras! I feel like this has been a bait and switch on your customers! I understand it cost you money to maintain this service. but that is part of doing business. You never should have offered this if you could not maintain this process. bottom line, I will sign up for the cam plus lite, but i won’t be donating any money! sorry.

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Yeah, if I can save to my NAS I’m all over it!

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Allow me to RTSP to my NAS, or a FTP site upload… throw me a bone here, and I’ll donate. Sadly, I’m setting $0 until this day not because I hate Wyze but because I need this functionality and it was included when I bought it.

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Yeah, what about that “implied contract” when we bought our cams? I would just like what I paid for and what was promised. That is all.
Anyone up for a class action lawsuit? I do not want AI, Go ahead, sign up, even don’t pay for it. They just want your camera to have AI.
Join the flock, be a sheep. Track everyone, be tracked with facial recognition. Cry later when all your privacy has gone. Slide this “offering” right past everyone. Lock them all in. George Orwell… 1984 has come and gone but Big Brother is alive and well.

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Hello @atbingo8, welcome to the community, what do you feel you were promised when purchasing the camera?

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No AI, apparently. :slight_smile:

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As a retired trial attorney, allow me to educate you on the realities of class action lawsuits: When they are settled after the headlines fade, the plaintiffs’ lawyers are generally tossed a few million dollars for attorney fees which is cost-of-doing-business peanuts to most defendant corporations, and each customer who bothers to fill out the paperwork gets a coupon usually worth about 50 cents to a dollar towards a future purchase. I don’t think anyone is shaking in their boots yet over your threat.

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I agree they could have / should have mentioned the period. I only learned of it on this forum. But surely you recognize carver’s point that if two events are 13 seconds apart, and there is no cooldown period at all, then you have immediately granted everyone unlimited cloud recording. So there has to be some blocking period. (Five minutes does stink though. You get what you pay for.)

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Sorry for a clueless question, but here goes:
In my Account, under Services, it says:
Cam Plus Lite (PD Legacy)
Am I correct in thinking I need not do anything, and I will be migrated to the new Cam Plus Lite? I’m confused because I get a pop-up asking me to subscribe.
I also have an SD card in the camera.
Thank you.

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