So I now have 6 Wyze Cams in my system. All seems to work well but would someone please explain to me how the WiFi connections work.
As far as all of the cams go, are they all connected to my router first? And if I choose to view all or one of the cams on my Android device, are they connecting to it directly through the router or are they bouncing off of a cloud somewhere first? That connection is steady and very low latency. All of my cams are set on HD as well.
I do have and use an Amazon Echo Show Gen 1 for viewing my cams as well. Is there any way to link it directly to the cams to eliminate the latency and constant buffering which almost makes it not worth using as a monitor?
The cameras are always (when called upon) sending video directly to your phone. On your local network that means sending packets across your wireless network from camera to phone. This will usually not pass through your router unless the phone and camera are on different subnets.
Outside your home the camera video will of course pass through the router on its way to your phone across the Internet.
I believe in both cases the initial setup between your phone and the camera is handled by the TUTK P2P network, which resides on so called “cloud” servers. The Wyze servers are also always involved and responsible for supervising connections.
I don’t think you can do much about your Show. With a Fire tablet or Fire stick you can load the Wyze app or TinyCam app for more direct control of the cameras.
Thank you very much. That explains a lot for me. I guess I could look for a used Android tablet and install TinyCam on it since it has the sequencing feature on it. Yeah, the Show works but with the buffering and the short time out it has, it is a pain to use for monitoring the cameras.
I don’t believe this is quite accurate. Wyze uses a cloud setup for their app. This means the app must have cloud connection to work and, therefore, view your clips. A true LAN viewable cam is generally going to be on a system with a local IP to call upon in a browser to directly view a cam. Even Blue Iris software uses a cloud setup for their app.
The reason you experience additional video delay while using an Echo Show, for example, is you’re now dealing with a cloud to cloud setup instead of just 1 cloud passing to the app.
If this was a true local processed system, you could disable your internet, but leave your LAN intact, open the app and still see a live feed through your router. Mentioning Blue Iris again, you CAN do that from a browser, not an app. Because it, like Wyze, uses a cloud to transfer video to an app.
No. You are mistaken and my description was accurate. When calling up a live view or SD card playback, at no time does the camera transfer a moment of video to anywhere in “the cloud”. (I clearly referenced that TUTK and “Wyze servers are also always involved and responsible for supervising connections”.) The video stream is ALWAYS direct from the camera to the phone.
If there is evidence to the contrary please share it.
As to offline operation that IS possible under certain circumstances. There are several forum threads about it.
I reread your explanation and appreciate the attachment.
This note, “Camera videos are transferred under a secure channel from device to Wyze Cloud (ingestion) and from Wyze Cloud to phone (digestion)” is the piece that I’m hung up on. The OP asked if they’re bouncing off a cloud. It would seem they are to an extent. If your internet goes down while connected to your LAN, the app won’t work. Therefore, you can’t view the cam.
Correct me if I’m wrong there. I’d love to have a better locally controlled option with these inexpensive cams. I’d really like to see a feed on wall mounted tablets like I was able to with Blue Iris. I just didn’t enjoy being my own support with BI.
Nope. The only “extent” to which the live stream bounces off the cloud is in the initial setup ONLY. The part you’re hung up on applies to event recordings only. Those are the motion events specifically uploaded to the Wyze cloud servers. I have been careful to answer the question about live streaming and SD card playback from the camera. The camera’s event uploads to cloud are separate.