To be clear here, I would happily pay a ONE TIME amount of $5 (maybe more) per camera to upgrade to RTSP built-in-to-official-and-maintained firmware. There’s literally no way I’m paying yet another monthly fee, no matter how tiny for features that should be one-time purchases with no ongoing cost.
Sure, you have to pay cloud storage, sure you have to pay developers to fix software, but nope… you don’t have to do anything more than just don’t break the RTSP implementation ongoing.
Agreed. I don’t mind subscriptions for things that have ongoing costs like cloud storage, but I REALLY don’t like the idea of long term paywalling features behind a subscription when they don’t have reasonable ongoing costs above normal maintenance like occasional security updates that a camera will already need sporadically even without the local feature. For example, I am really against Wyze paywalling the Local Edge AI on the Cam V4 because it doesn’t reasonably have significant ongoing costs. Similarly, I just can’t see this going well publicly if an ongoing subscription is required for RTSP. I think it’s okay for funding development for those who want to do charity or like a go fund me or whatever, or a one-time payment, or subsidized by existing subscriptions, but it shouldn’t be paywalled long term. The goal HAS to be to eventually open it up to everyone for free in the long term. I don’t see a reasonable alternative away from that.
You listed good rationales why. I agree.
No, I wouldn’t pay, but I would pay more for a camera that supports it natively. Frankly, I doubt I’ll stay with Wyze because of the lack of RTSP now that I have H/A installed. Why pay for a service when I can pay more up front (but only more, as in 1-2 years of subscription services) and have it all in-house, all the bells and whistles, and it works with zero internet connection and no risk of exposure? Not that there’s ever anything happening here that would warrant someone sitting there watching!
Why don’t you spend the resources to fix what you have now instead of starting something new that would take more hours to fix once you put it out?
Making it a subscription makes no sense. Folks want it for local LAN use not for your cloud offerings.
If you must recoup costs to justify then increase the selling price. Frankly you will have to do it anyways to remain competitive since your competition has RTSP and you will lose market share if you don’t match features.
Is there a list of existing camera’s that Wyze has targeted for RTSP? with?
Or, will it only be implemented on new camera models going forward?
I’m not paying a subscription fee for RTSP.
I might pay a small one time fee per camera to enable RTSP.
SJ
They haven’t said. It seems they are currently just in the research or information gathering stage to see what the viability of each option is first.
If they can’t justify the cost of doing it on all past cameras, I wouldn’t be surprised if they just limit it to future cameras that they can build the cost into the price of the camera instead. It seems like they may not be able to easily do that for past cameras without making a lot of people really upset that they have to pay more for cameras they already paid for.
Crease is bang on how I feel and why. I don’t want a recurring subscription. I’d love to use on my own LAN vs Wyze app. I’d pay more for initial cost of cam, but a subscription? Hell no! Wyze’s track record for supporting their devices is sorely lacking. Not to mention the whole cloud/privacy fiasco/potential.
On a sidenote, Xnor.ai was phenomenal (once trained); it’s why I bought more cams. What replaced it was a sad excuse, even after using for a few years. Add to that the lack of issue fixes, loss of the original free/down-graded features, forced layout changes, and you have the main reasons are why I would never purchase a wyze product again. I went from loving these cams to no longer using some to barely using any.
A properly designed RTSP, without a subscription, might encourage lost customers to return, and new customers buy.
Why stop with RTSP? Why not go all-in on ONVIF? I asked my AI (perplexity.ai) whether ONVIF is a superset of RTSP, and here’s its reply:
ONVIF is not strictly a superset of RTSP, but it does incorporate RTSP as one of its components. ONVIF is a broader standard for interoperability among video surveillance products, while RTSP is a specific protocol for streaming media.
ONVIF uses RTSP for video streaming, but it also provides additional functionalities beyond what RTSP offers. These include:
- Camera configuration
- Authentication
- Video Motion Detection (VMD)
- Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) control
- Input/Output management
While ONVIF cameras generally use RTSP for video streaming, it’s not a strict requirement. Some ONVIF cameras may use alternative protocols for video transmission. However, RTSP remains a common choice within the ONVIF framework.
In essence, ONVIF is a comprehensive standard that encompasses various aspects of network video devices, including but not limited to the streaming capabilities provided by RTSP. It aims to ensure compatibility and interoperability between devices from different manufacturers, whereas RTSP focuses specifically on the control and delivery of streaming media.
For those of us who understand what it is and what it’s for can just spend $20 for Amazon.com : Tapo TP-Link 2K QHD Security Camera, Indoor/Outdoor, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 𝗣𝗖𝗠𝗮𝗴 𝗘𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿'𝘀 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲, Color Night Vision, Free Person/Pet/Vehicle Detection, Invisible IR Mode, SD Storage, C120 : Electronics and set it up for free with zero subscription cost because RSTP doesn’t need a cloud service. Duh
Just get this and be done with it. No subscription needed Amazon.com : Tapo TP-Link 2K QHD Security Camera, Indoor/Outdoor, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟰 𝗣𝗖𝗠𝗮𝗴 𝗘𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿'𝘀 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲, Color Night Vision, Free Person/Pet/Vehicle Detection, Invisible IR Mode, SD Storage, C120 : Electronics
Buy a camera that already has this function.
I already pay. I paid for the many cameras, doorbell cameras and I paid for the Wyze Cam Unlimited yearly subscription. What more do you want?
I would gladly pay the 10 bucks that I currently give up for the lackluster I get with cam+ unlimited. Hell i would toss another 5 on there to have rtsp on any device I want and drop the cam plus option and just use the free basic settings you get at no cost. i mean if you currently pay anything for any cam you should be willing to pay atleast that amount for better management, privacy, and general security of your files. Even if it means limiting my saves to local or other better 3rd party options for cloud backups.
I don’t think they said they planned to drop the steam roller of money coming in every month by getting rid of cloud service they said how much are we willing to pay to add it to currently available services
Would be awesome to see RTSP return to WYZE Cameras, Although I don’t believe it should be a paid feature.
I would still be paying a yearly fee for the app. I just want my feed to be viewable when the internet is out, wich can be quite often at times.
I feel like Wyze is a little late to the game for this. I feel you won’t get much traction for RTSP anymore because those who truly needed/wanted it would have jumped ship to other, similarly priced cameras which has this built in (without the need of a subscription).
I think it should be part of my subscription that I pay already and I can choose whether to keep my images on the cloud on their servers or store them on my servers here at home I will pay the $110 a year to be able to stream them locally on my screens here using my home assistant or blue iris server with no using any kind of bridge I think it’s just silly that I pay that kind of money and they can’t give me extreme that is usable locally it makes no sense and probably cost them more money for peer to peer streaming with their streaming provider then it would be for me to pay them $110 a year and I won’t even stream through their service
Just adding yet another reply with my own opinion. There’s a ton of responses already so I haven’t read through them.
From a business perspective, I totally understand why adding RTSP is problematic, especially when you’re already operating from a fully cloud perspective:
I’m a software engineer for a living, I love all things tech and messing with the latest things…but I would still very likely keep my Wyze subscription because I personally don’t want to deal with implementing AI detection, AI descriptions, alert categorization, etc.
BUT what I do want, is the ability to view the cameras directly over the network…I don’t want to deal with going through a cloud service just to view my camera that’s on the same network as me.
However, at the same time…I am so annoyed by the fact that I can’t access these cameras locally, that I am very close to cancelling my Wyze subscription for my 9 cameras, and just giving them away to someone who might want them and switching over to a fully LAN based solution.
So to answer the question of…how much would I be willing to pay for this feature? It’s complicated. I’d be willing to contribute to a Kickstarter type thing where I pay ONE time to help with the initial development costs, but that’s it.
But I would not be interested in paying for this on a month to month basis…with 9 cameras…Even if it were $1/mo/camera…that’s $108/yr for me…for that price, I’d rather switch back to all my old Amcrest cameras which offer FTP, RTSP, local SD, SMB, and more out of the box, with no fees. And they offer a cloud service now…
The only thing that keeps me on Wyze is the app and the ability to scrub through local storage…but half the time that’s laggy and doesn’t even work anyway.