Today I started receiving a ton load of person detection notifications, when there hasn’t been a person in the frame.
I have been very impressed by how accurate my cams have detected person and motion, but today every car passing by, or sudden change in lights has triggered person notification, as if it was motion detection.
The camera is running fw 4.9.6.199.
Anyone else notice this? Has there been some changes on the server side maybe?
I’ve had similar things on some of my cams. It’s like any movement bigger than a cat frequently shows up as a person.
I am wondering if their testing out the pet and vehicle testing is having the AI send out notices to the rest of us for those things, but since we’re not in the beta it doesn’t have the option to tell us it’s a vehicle or pet, so it just says person which is the only option it has to inform us of an important video. Or else it could have something to do with their sensitivity issues lately…they’re working on both things, so I guess be patient and wait for the upcoming firmware updates and adjustments.
I have been having the same issues. Car rolls by and it thinks it’s a human.
Yes! I have had the same thing happen to one of my cams today. Usually person detection is amazingly reliable for me, but beginning today, December 1st at 1:38 a.m. the camera began registering a flurry of false person detections one after another - 36 false person alerts between 1:38 and 6:00 a.m. This afternoon it started again, despite my changing the detection zone to a small area of my driveway with absolutely no motion from blowing trees, etc. It’s only happening on one of my 4 cameras. For now I have had to turn off notifications on that camera.
Is it possible there is a person somewhere in the video but not in the detection zone? During the night, I get many, many alerts when the lights of passing cars even touch on my detection zone. The video is uploaded to the Wyze servers which then scans the whole video, not just in your detection zone - if it find anything that looks like a person, it flags it as a person.
Mine is the opposite. My CamPlus camera looking outside almost never finds people. It works best in the daytime and is useless at night (but behind a window with IR off so maybe that’s a factor). But during daylight today, someone walked up my driveway, rang the doorbell and left shortly after and I got no alerts of any kind (except from an internal camera when the doorbell was rung).
PD is incredibly unreliable. I’m quietly waiting for new firmware updates and the V3 cameras to see if the detection rate improves.
Well, it looks like I figured out what happened. I had changed the angle of the camera just slightly, and it seems that a street light a little ways down the road was creating the false person alerts (there were tree branches moving in front of the light and making it twinkle). I readjusted the camera slightly, moving the bright light just offscreen, and now all is fine again. That was the only time I’ve ever had problems with the person detection. Otherwise it’s always been reliable for me. I guess it has trouble in certain situations.
After some troubleshooting, I’ve determined that the wyze AI thinks my mailbox is a person so a lot of events are flagged incorrectly. The mailbox is excluded from the detection zone. I can’t get it out of frame so I guess i’m stuck with false alerts until someone tweaks the detection routine.
What I would realIy like is for the person detection to respect the detection zone settings.
Hi all, sorry to reply late. We’re investigating the cause of the false detection now. If you are on the 199 fw version, we’ve identified a potential issue whichi may cause false detection in a short period. If you are not on the 199 version, please help submit the video and if you can shoot me a email of your MAC, it will help speed up to debug. my email is sniu@wyze.com
For the detection zone setting, we are working on it already 
How about NO MORE person detection at all??
Ever since the introduction of Cam + no longer have person detection on any of my 8 Wyze cams. Total rip-off. Wyze wants me to now subscribe to the Cam + service at a cost of $24.95 per camera x 8 cameras. Very upset. This is false advertising. No mention of loosing person detection unless I subscribed to Cam + when I bought the cameras. Shall be complaining to Amazon and writing many negative reviews on all my social media.
It’s not false advertising. Nowhere in the Amazon listing does it mention person detection or state that it’s included for free. The US Amazon listing (for the V2) says:
About this item
Live Stream from Anywhere in 1080p -1080p Full HD live streaming lets you see inside your home from anywhere in real time using your mobile device. While live streaming, use two-way audio to speak with your friends and family through the Wyze app.
Motion/Sound Recording with Free Cloud Storage - Wyze Cam can automatically record a 12-second video clip when motion or sound is detected and saves that video to the cloud for 14-days, for free. Mobile push notifications can be enabled so you’re only alerted when something is detected letting you stay on top of things without having to constantly monitor the app. Or, record continuously to a MicroSD card (sold separately) regardless of motion and sound. Compatible with 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB FAT32 MicroSD cards.
See in the dark - Night vision lets you see up to 30’ in absolute darkness using 4 infrared (IR) LEDs. Note: IR does not work through glass windows.
This is true now, but mostly only for anyone who has purchased these in the last half of this year (and promoting the person detection doesn’t mean it had to be on Amazon specifically, but any official Wyze promotions anywhere). However, there was a long period of time over several months where Wyze specifically sold a ton of these from telling people they had free person detection, it was then taken away. Granted, much of this was not Wyze’s fault, but the fact remains that they DID actually advertise and promote free person detection in an effort to sell tons of cams to people who are now stuck with a cam doesn’t function the way they were originally promised and for the purposes they initially ordered them. This is understandably frustrating and not out of place for someone to be upset over. At the same time, Wyze became stuck in a terrible Catch-22 without any win-win solutions, and found a middle-ground compromise to cover their most long-time loyal customers, but still somewhat screwed a lot of other people who also purchased the cams under the pretense and understanding they’d always have free person detection as had been promoted and such clear up through summer of this year until they made the announcement they were canceling it for all but their oldest customers. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was better than doing what most companies do in such situations…
As an early adopter, I have purchased 8 Wyze cameras as they were relatively inexpensive and relatively good quality for the price point. A major factor in my decision was the person detection function. No where in the early or even relatively recent product descriptions was there mention that person detection would be a limited time function. In fact even the current product descriptions highlight “motion detection” with the implication that “motion” would naturally include person detection. No product descriptions state specially that person detection would not be a function of the newer models. In my opinion, this is a “bait and switch” scam and therefore constitutes false advertising. I bought the 8 cameras in good faith and feel that the almost $200.00 annual subscription now required is outrageous. I can understand that your earlier business model was flawed, but that is not my problem. You should grandfather early purchasers and continue to include person detection without any incremental charges. In addition, current product descriptions should stipulate that person detection requires a paid subscription.
I shall continue to record my negative reviews to Amazon as well as other sites that advertise Wyze cameras.
If you’re an early adopter then they were offering to let you keep your free person detection if you so chose to have it for free. Why didn’t you just sign up for the service with a $0 amount like so many other early adopters did? It was hard to miss since Wyze practically spammed it non-stop for months in emails and notifications and in the forums and practically everywhere they could to warn all the early adopters to make sure to get it. Being an early adopter, how did you miss that boat, and why are you upset at Wyze if you chose not to sign up for it when they offered to let you and all the other early adopters keep it free?
I mean, just on the V2 cams alone, they were released for Early access. pre-orders way back in February 2018, and instead of only allowing the early adopters (those who ordered in early 2018) to keep free Person Detection, Wyze actually allowed everyone who ordered within the next 19 months to keep it free. That was even way more than just the early adopters, they let a lot of late adopters keep it too. I guess technically the real early adopters all have V1 cams from summer 2017, but since the Free Person Detection was about V2 cam early adopters, that is the first half of 2018. You should’ve definitely qualified if you were one of those early adopters.
Personally, if I were an early adopter like you, and I ordered in 2018, or even a somewhat late adopter in 2019, I would totally contact Wyze Support because they said they might make some exceptions if some of their early adopters missed the sign up deadline.
It’s the rest of really late adopters who got screwed (anyone ordering after Nov 2019 when Wyze announced that XNOR .ai was bought out by Apple and that now they had to revoke that person detection they had previously included. Wyze felt that anyone who ordered after that announcement was made wasn’t eligible to keep PD at Wyze’s expense, and that sucks for all the really late adopters who purchased hoping they’d be able to keep a free option like many of them were led to believe. Those are the people I really feel bad for…the really late adopters who lost their PD and weren’t offered a free way to keep it.
But seriously, if you were an early adopter, I’d totally call Wyze support. Look back through all your emails because I think some of them might have been where it mentioned they might not be super strict on the deadlines or something for those early adopters who were eligible for it. Maybe someone around here can provide an exact reference in the forums or which email it was, but hey, it’s worth a shot if it’s something you otherwise should’ve qualified for and been able to have. Certainly can’t hurt.
Many thanks for your very detailed comments and suggestions. I admit I was remiss in not signing up for the $0 cost option. My thinking at the time was that I would avoid the hassle of subscribing to something that I didn’t need to because, as a reputable company, Wyze would not rescind the no charge person detection for early adopters with multi-cameras. I was wrong on both counts. Me bad.
I was also mistaken about the purpose of this Forum. I assumed it was sponsored and supported by Wyze as a medium to monitor customer reaction to its products. I didn’t realize the Forum is an independent feedback medium so I commend you and your group for the service you provide. As an apparent subject expert in all things Wyze, do you know of a link to Wyze Support that might be more sympathetic to my plight? I shall try to escalate my issues directly to Wyze.
Once again, thank you for you assistance and service. I shall keep you and the other Forum members informed of my progress to resolve my concerns.
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VS I’m walking around outside right in front of my camera and it never recorded or sends me a notification. But my roommate will walk out there and it will pick them up more often than not… And I’M PAYING for the service! 
By phone: (206) 339-9646 Available Monday - Friday 5 am - 6 pm PT and Saturday 8 am - 4 pm PT
Or online: Wyze.com/support
I usually recommend by phone, since you definitely get a live person, and it’s always been fast for me. I have heard some people say they’ve had to wait before. I’ve also had good luck with chat the few times I used it, but sometimes it isn’t available. I would definitely not do the email thing, as lots of people never get responded to that way. Phone guarantees you’ll get someone, and if needed, they’ll go ask a supervisor for whatever they don’t know or can’t handle, even if just to ask for help.
I found where Wyze said they wouldn’t be crazy strict on the deadline. It was an email on September 18th, 2020. I received it at 3:57pm MST, it is in the FAQs in that email, FAQ #3:
Why do I have to sign up before October 9?
We want to keep it simple. Having a defined time period that users can join helps us limit risk and accurately measure the results so that we can determine our next steps. We’re not going to be crazy strict on this, contact our support if you miss it by a few days or something.
They might say that 2+ months past the deadline is too long now, but it sure can’t hurt to ask. Afterall, they did suggest that if it is successful then they would consider expanding the offer in some ways:
It hasn’t been a few months yet, so maybe they don’t have enough data to determine if it was successful or not.
I know they did initially extend the deadline because they knew some people like you would wait to try to get the PD offer until after they finally lost access to it. When they first extended it, I commented:
And the employee responded:
I’m sorry to hear of your predicament. Honestly, the best advice anyone can give you is to try to lay it all out to Support and see if they’ll give you an exception due to how you would’ve qualified, but misunderstood or misinterpreted things or whatever the case may be.
And while I’d love to hear an update on how it went, feel free not to update if you feel it could somehow affect you getting an exception. From Wyze’s point of view, if they make an exception for you, and you tell everyone about it, then they’ll immediately have a thousand more people asking for an exception and it would potentially just make things worse for them to where they don’t want to give an exception, ya know? Of course, if they don’t give you an exception, then there’s definitely no reason not to let us know how it went. Good luck man
Here’s a copy of the email from 9/18/2020 where they said they wouldn’t be crazy strict on the deadline for those who qualify in case it can help you at all while talking to support:
Good luck!
I’m only moderately trying to resist making jokes about being human or having soul while thinking about that Simpson’s episode where Bart sells his soul to Milhouse and now even store doors won’t detect him and open for him…good times, good times…
In all seriousness though, that is weird. One thing I would suggest doing is submitting some of the videos to Wyze to use in training the AI, so that it will better learn that it should be detecting you as a person too.
If you are using legacy person detection, vs Cam Plus, then the most likely explanation is that the camera noticed motion within the 5 minutes before you walked in front of it, so a leaf or plant or bug triggered the motion detection, then within less than 5 minutes of that, you walked in front of the camera and so it didn’t trigger or analyze anything because it happened during the 5 minute cooldown period, and so it misses detecting you. That is the big downside of a cooldown period. You can use detection zones and such to help reduce this issue, but it isn’t perfect either. There are a few other things that could make a difference with this, but the cooldown period is the most common issue.
I hope you get it figured out.
I only have it set up to detect people, not motion. I was out there walking back and forth clearing some things out of the driveway and nothing. 
Thanks for the reply!
I understand you have it set up to only detect and alert to person, not motion.
It doesn’t matter if you tell it only to alert you to a person, not motion, because of how it works motion will ALWAYS initiate the cooldown period.
The way person detection works is like this:
Your camera detects that a certain number of pixels in its view is suddenly different than the color of pixels that were there 0.0666seconds ago. The camera then flags that recording as worth analyzing/recording and uploads the next 12 seconds of recording to Wyze’s cloud and and AI processing. The AI then looks at the recorded video and compares what it sees with what it has been trained to identify as a person. If it detects a person it then sends an alert back to your phone telling you a person was detected. If it doesn’t detect a person, then it does nothing (it won’t alert you that there was motion) and your camera will now refuse to check any other motion for the next 5 minutes. So if you tell it to only analyze for people, all that means is that it will continue to be triggered for motion, but just won’t tell you about those because you said you only want to be notified for people. But motion will still trigger cloud uploads to Wyze, and then Wyze will refuse to detect anything for the next 5 minutes, meaning, as I said in the previous comment, if a leaf blows by, then 4 minutes later you walk by, Wyze will never alert you that you walked by because the leaf triggered an analysis within the last 5 minutes already. To you, it looks like Wyze isn’t working right because it hasn’t alerted you to a person in a lot longer time frame, maybe you haven’t had a person alert for hours…but the 5 minute cooldown isn’t based on your person notifications like that. It is 100% based on ANY motion, not matter what settings you choose in the app.
If you want to see this for yourself, go into your app, go to events, click on the funnel icon, click “Clear All” to remove all your filters. Click “Show results” and scroll down the list of events. Even though you have told Wyze you only want to know about person detection, you will see it records any motion, and will upload those videos even though you don’t care about them. Any time it does that (any motion at all) it then has a 5 minute limit and will refuse to notify you about any person detected within 5 minutes of ANY other motion.
I hope that clarifies a little.
Now, it is possible that it is also not identifying you correctly. I have some cams that don’t identify me as a person if I am too far away from them (small in the view), at a weird angle, etc. If none of those apply to this, then again, I would recommend finding the cloud video of it (which would’ve still been recorded, but listed as “motion” instead of “person” and submitting it to the AI to recognize you in the future.
It still records all other motion as an event, even if you told it you only want to be alerted about a “person.” Just FYI…that is probably where your confusion came from.
But, you’d think if you were walking back and forth in the camera view for more than 5 minutes, it should’ve noticed at least one of those times…