I love a good ol’ fashion Wyze weenie-roast as much as the next guy, but I wanted to post about something I see a lot on here. No, I’m not talking about snow blindness in cats. I’m talking about WiFi coverage.
While my two biggest complaints about the Wyze cams have been a few security issues and bad follow up by the team, I do love the simplicity of their product. One thing I have never had an issue with was WiFi connectivity. My Wyze cams connect well and seem to stay connected with decent signal. Having said that, here’s a few tips I recommend to those implementing IoT devices into their world.
More Signal is not always better. There is such a thing as too much RF. If you have your camera located six-inches from your router, that’s not going to be great for your RF.
All routers/access points are not created equal. If you’re using a “router” provided by your ISP stop it. They buy the cheapest trash they can and rent it to you for quadruple what they paid for it. They are trash and you will have issues.
I saw someone say they don’t understand why their connection keeps dropping when their router is only 2 ft above their camera. RF has a donut shaped propagation pattern. If you put your router above or below your WiFi camera, you’re largely in the hole. Unlike real donuts, it’s not a sweet place to be in.
WiFi sucks, especially the 2.4 GHz bands. If you live in an apartment, close quarters neighborhood or you have more than one WiFi access point or router yourself you very well may be suffering from an overall poor RF condition. Imagine standing in the woods singing Kumbaya. If you’re alone, it’s a beautiful thing. Its just you and the bears to enjoy your angelic harmony. If you try the same thing in Manhattan it won’t go so well. There is too much noise pollution. Only the guy picking your pocket will hear your greatest performance ever.
Outside Interference is real and comes from many things you wouldn’t expect. I’ve seen all sorts of things create interference for WiFi. It could be a failing microwave, an elevator, or your dad’s diesel powered fleshlight.
Anyhow, the point of this is to say that Wyze really does a good job overall on their connectivity. I can’t say there aren’t real scenarios where people have a terrible experience and it’s not environmental; however, more often than not it is. There are people out there who get paid > $100k a year to figure these issues out. They’re complex and consumers are setup for failure by the over-saturation of their environments with arbitrary RF. Many of the same folks complaining about their Wyze camera would have the same issue with other live streaming devices. Just my two cents.
Also, you put too much good stuff in that post for me to highlight and agree with it all. It should be required reading for anyone considering a security system or smart home.
You’re welcome - it’s true! Actually, cheap store-bought routers are just as bad (as you likely know). If someone considers things that rely on their WiFi as critical then they need to invest in critical infrastructure. It amazes me that someone will spend $2,500 on a shiny-ass Mac Book Pro and then complain because their $40 router that they bought at Circuit City 15 years ago is sharting itself.
Mine was an ATT-not a bad box but not up to to home automation Switched to Mesh and life got better fast.
Still use the ATT box as a stand-alone modem but turned off WIFI entirely.
Thanks again for the time-I’ll probably quote your post in trying to assist other users down the road.
Feel free to use whatever you need from it. Also, I’ve seen other unique issues related to mesh that simply don’t exist on single AP architectures. Handoffs, etc. I’ve seen some advanced features like band steering really screw up some IoT devices, too.
I always refused to rent the ISP modem & used my own, until we started going over our 1TB data limit at Comcast…I had to pay the $50/mo for unlimited, then they had a deal where if I rented their Advanced xFi modem, the rental & unlimited data was $25 combined. saving me $300/yr…actually not a bad router, really haven’t had any issues, though I wish it had more configurable features. Oh and I even got 3 xFi Pods for free
Do you use it as-is? I know those xfinity modems can be “bridged” and pass-through all the traffic to a dedicated router. That will allow you to manage all your own NAT’s, etc.
I would love a recommendation for a new modem. I replaced my old modem with a 3.1 /32 channel and upgraded my speed to 1gig because it was less than my 400mbps.
After a year of use, I started to get fluctuations in the speeds resulting in intermittent buffering. My ISP, of course, said it was my modem so instead of buying another modem, I tried theirs and now my wi-fi is once again stable. All my wifi connected devices plus my Wyze cams, door sensors and bulbs and plugs are now happy, plus streaming with my Nvidia Shield no longer buffers.
However, I’m now in the market to get a new modem but have read about some having bad chips. The ISP tech told me that the 3.1 modems are unstable and I should downgrade or wait for the 4.0 version. I was hoping you can help me to make all my connected devices happy again with a new modem. I have Suddenlink as a provider.
I would add, that using Guest (WiFi) Networks is also a strategy that should be employed. Hopefully everything is secure enough that it’s never a concern, but if all your devices are on the same WiFi network and there was a breach on any of the connected services which exposed access to your network, or to your network/password at least you could limit it to only home automation equipment rather than any computers, phones, tablets, etc that might be on your network.
This is a lie of the devil. DOCSIS 3.1 is the standard for Gigabit. Many ISPs wont even provide 1 Gbps service to a DOCSIS 3,0 modem even though they may have enough channels. There are modulation and other spec enhancements that weren’t implemented til 3.1. That’s actually the standard. Send us a link to what you have now?
sorry, when i buy a product that it says it does this and that and all you have to do is this. I just expect it to work. I should not have to be an IT or electronics guy with a degree to get it to work. It should just work. I do own my modem and separate router. I have to press the camera group numerous times a day because something is dropping it. or even times during the day when individual cams stop connecting. just like now one is saying getting video data 1/3, 2/3, 3/3 and nothing
I would get a whole house mesh network. Installed the tplink deco and it’s been great. Had messed around with WiFi extenders etc and it’s always a pain. Having different ssid in each floor and separating 2.4 and 5g with different ssid names to avoid confusion etc.
