Google Play Store finally offered me the 3.0 app update today, so I put it on one device, and there are definitely things I like so far, and there is also plenty of room for improvement.
In my current Wyze environment, I have eight total cameras, including a Video Doorbell v2. In my v2.5x app, I have the Home screen arranged to show the Doorbell at the top of the list, and it’s immediately followed by four camera groups, some with only a single camera in them. When I launched the v3.0 app for the first time, after reading through the brief initial tutorial, the new Home screen appeared with only five things on the new Favorites tab: The Doorbell live stream is front and center with the four camera groups in 2 × 2 tiles beneath. This was a pleasant surprise and seemed intuitive. I didn’t expect this to happen automagically and it’s probably better than what I would’ve configured for myself within a few minutes of playing with the new app. It’s a really nice view, and I have no reason to change it at this time. Well done!
I’ve read somewhere on the Forum[1] about people putting their cameras into groups in order to avoid the massive live stream loading lag issue with the new Home screen and Favorites tab. Since my cameras (save one) were already in groups, I’m not experiencing this issue, and I definitely understand the argument for putting cameras into groups.
The press-and-drag feature for re-ordering on the Favorites and Devices tabs works as expected, but this really should be extended to Automations, as others have mentioned elsewhere. I have no idea if this is part of the roadmap, but it’s a sorely needed feature.
One thing I like about the new Automations tab is in the Schedules section. I currently have only three items here, but two of them show a “Coming up in [number] days” message with a greenish-colored accent (I’m using System Default Theme on an Android 10 device with Dark theme enabled in the phone’s system settings—so “dark mode”, such as it is, for the Wyze app) and the other one shows a grey “Disabled” message. I really like that use of color.
I mention that because the Devices tab is showing some use of color in a similar fashion, but this could be extended and improved. I have some Plug Outdoors that I’m not currently using, so they’re not plugged in anywhere, and the Devices tab shows these with an “Offline” message in red. Where other Device statuses show as “Off” or “On” (Bulbs and Plugs, for instance), I think contrasting visual color cues would be helpful.
I understand the discussion about how Favorites is now supposed to be the interface for daily use and that Devices is the places for configuration when necessary, but a lot of users have expressed a desire to do most of their interacting with the Devices tab, and I think that’s a perfectly valid viewpoint, because that’s where the devices are. Making this area a little more user friendly with some color splashes could help a user more easily assess the status of his or her Wyze environment.
Overall I’m liking it so far, but I’m cautiously sticking with the update on only a single device until I have more experience with it. My other devices will continue to run v2.5x for the time being.
There are too many 3.0 app topics for me to track thanks to some very zealous (often very new) community members! ↩︎