Certainly was the case…
Later on, after it was more publicly launched they indicated the new experiment would be in seeing if they would cover enough costs to expand it to other devices:
I think that experiment mostly failed though since they decided not only to not expand it to future devices, but also to grandfather/deprecate it to not be available to new users anymore. This implies they were unable to cover enough cost with user contributions (ie: too many people decided not to contribute).
This seems like a good alternative which would allow it to continue and expand while getting the costs covered.
Having said that, they do risk some backlash if they make all people on CPLite have ads when many have gone years without ads. Wyze would be within their rights to do that, but it could hurt their reputation. I think it would be better to let people keep what they have with CPLite right now, and call the Expanded version something else. If people want the cloud events and Person Detection on the NEW cameras, then they can “upgrade” off of CPLite to the new version with ads that includes newer cameras. That way nobody feels like their expectations were broken. There are probably lots of people who bought a bunch more V3’s, etc with the expectation they would continue to keep the same functionality. Changing that to something many may see as a downgrade after it’s no longer possible to return their purchase would be frowned upon at the very least. So I would try to keep it either grandfathered or distinct from the new ad offering that includes new cameras.
If I were Wyze I would probably start there, then if that experiment is successful, and their financial analysis implies they can support more, then they can upgrade the ad service to give full Cam Plus instead.
That’s probably how I’d do it to ensure minimal risk (both socially and financially) while maximizing potential value offering.
The main rationales for skipping CPLite entirely and starting straight with offering Cam Plus for ads is that it avoids the CPLite complications and makes a bigger initial market impact with more tech articles remarking on it for greater exposure and excitement right from the start. That could certainly be worth it.
It will be interesting to see what Dave decides to do. I think it has some great, exciting potential and may bring in new users who want AI functionality but don’t want to pay for it. People might not care so much about Edge/Local AI detections in competitors as much if they can get it and ongoing AI updates free here anyway. There is still a benefit to Edge AI, but it would be slightly diminished in many user’s eyes because they don’t really care where it comes from, just whether the functionality exists.
Definitely some interesting potential here. I love that Wyze considers creative things that others aren’t doing and helps drive the market to compete more.