I’m totally blind. I’ve noticed within the last two or so updates; the Wyze App has became less useful for a totally blind person using a screen reader on Android Talkback when in the Wyze App on the home screen of it. Example back in July, I could go down through the devices on my account and for the camera’s I would hear Front door camera battery 58% Power ON. Patio Camera Battery 78% Power off.
Now when I go into the Wyze App in the last two versions, I no longer hear the battery status and if the camera is ON or OFF. All I hear is Front Door camera Power and that is it.
Now for a totally blind person using Android and Talkback. We cannot turn on the speaker for a camera and unmute the microphone for the camera. These control are not accessabil to us.
This isn’t good.
Please bring back functionality so a totally blind person using Android and the screen reader Talkback can get this information.
Also add an option in the settings so a totally blind person can set it so that the speaker is always unmuted for a camera and an option so we can have the microphone always unmuted for teh camera so at that point, when I go into live view; I can just use it like a two way intercom. Also by having both of these in the settings, hopefully I can then select a Video recording and have it play and be able to hear the Audio. Currently this cannot be done if you are totally blind.
Thank you for sharing this. I linked this topic to an official topic in the Wyze News category where Wyze is soliciting app feedback. Although I don’t share your visual impairment, I’ve argued elsewhere on the Forum for improving color contrast and enhancing other visual cues within the app to increase usability, and I think it’s important to have comments like yours as reminders for Wyze to continue to recommit to their accessibility mission statement.
I agree about contacting Wyze directly just so this is listed in their official tracking system.
This will certainly get passed on to employees as well, but I think getting an official registration for the issue in their tracking system through support would be very helpful.
Yes I did open a ticket with Wyze Support but being the chat tool and how it works with screen reader isn’t real friendly! I don’t know if it treuly went through. I did get an EMail back but it sounded like it was from an AI tool and not a person.
The bad thing about calling them is getting through to talk to someone. As far as that goes; Does someone have the number for them? I could have been calling the wrong one.
I’m curious how a blind person can even use a security camera. Sure, you get might get an alert but you really never know what it’s for because the AI tagging can’t be trusted. You think you have a lot of cars driving around on your road, when in fact it could just one car that was parked there all day. And, it missed all the people that walked by that parked car because it only tagged the car.
Thanks for the number for Wyze Support. I did get ahold of them and the ticket I opened they whir able to find. ?So at least I did that correctly! LOL. When talking to them; Sound like theya re making changes to the APP and when you aren’t expecting things new; Then stuff doesn’t work like you expect. In this case, they told me that they got ride of the option that said if the camera was on/off and it now has only live view on the default home screen. They also told me YES the battery status is shown for a person that can see is on that screen but shows up as part of the live view. Explains why a totally blind perosn using a screen reader can’t get to it. They ask me to try the DEVICES option at the top of the screen that I didn’t even know was available being I normally just place my finger on the screen to get close to the camera/lock I want to inquire on. But when going into the DEVICES option, then I can hear the battery status for the camera in question sometimes. But at least that is a somewhat of a work around. On the Unmuting of the speaker and Microphone in the live view and unmuting of the sound on Video playback; They didn’t have any answer.
I appreciate your taking the time to post an update, and I’m glad to know that at least some of the accessibility features are working for you in the current app. I hope they give serious consideration to improving accessibility throughout, especially since the app now defaults to the Favorites tab with no user-selectable option to change that.