Wyze app - Add an animated icon to live stream to indicate active stream

Memo
Dept of Belabor


The bitrate display updates once per second in both tinyCam and Wyze apps. The timestamp in the Wyze app also updates once per second - when the livestream is flowing fully and freely.

When the stream falters or stops, you see it in a second with the bitrate. With the timestamp, increments display sporadically when it falters. When it fails, it freezes, and stays frozen for ~10 seconds before error - an interminably long time to just stare.


tinyCam starts out at 0/0, the whole shaded block expands to accomodate the numbers when streaming begins: a general indicator for each cam’s status as a component of the group when viewing it more as a whole.

When bitrate stays at 0 for ~8 seconds, the cached image disappears, replaced by a dark grey field. In the background the sofware is trying to revive the connection (intra-lan?), because the live stream often restarts.

After about thirty seconds without success reviving, an error is displayed, then it automatically does something more extreme (reauthenticate?) which often brings connectivity back.

Additionally, ‘stale’ cached images (over 1 min old?) are displayed grayscale when accessing a cam or screen group - changing to color as streaming succeeds.


I think with tinyCam, form follows function; its visual design is pleasing but it’s not ‘flash’. Maybe it was coded and designed by a single individual who used the UI like a demon daily for years?

Whereas, the Wyze app, coded by an engineering ‘team’, visually designed by a design ‘team,’ in collaboration with a branding ‘team’?

I donno.

Aesthetic and/or branding considerations seem primary at times. Like the cyan/white splash screen and app color scheme? Maybe they’re trying to maintain an Apple level ‘slick rich,’ hiding homely tech guts, masking the ‘stuff that gets things done?’


Finally…

This topic seems not to be a big thing for most folks. (Look at ol’ @tbagcam 's worthy topic, still stuck on ‘Maybe later’ some five years on.)

  • They’re young(er) and their eyes are good?
  • Things stream solidly and they seldom need to reference an indicator?
  • They don’t use groups or view things in landscape primarily like me?
  • ?

P.S.  Zoom-in and you often lose timestamp - with bitrate overlay, most decidedly not.

Provides:

  1. Status: Streaming or stalled.
  2. Condition: Healthy or not, updated second-by-second.
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