I had me a nice little camera with spotlight, until someone decided to push firmware update 4.52.9.5332 onto my Cam v4. It looked innocent enough so I didn’t stop them from dumping it into my camera. Now I have a $35 white brick. I talked to John on Wyze Chat, who seemed like a nice guy. But he informed me that because it was out of warranty it wasn’t their problem and I am just stuck with a little white brick that stopped TinyCam Pro from running it. I guess if I hit someone’s fender and his warranty is out of date that it isn’t my fault and he can just fix it himself.
Lesson learned I guess. Don’t let Wyze push updates onto your camera it you can figure out how to stop them. At least all my Cam v3s are still working, but they didn’t push that update onto them.
What version of tinyCam Monitor Pro are you using, and have you read Cam v4 cams won't come up on TinyCam Pro since firmware update to 4.52.9.5332? Discussion in that topic indicates that the tinyCam developer has released an update to that app which is supposed to be compatible with the security enhancements Wyze included in the most recent Cam v4 production firmware.
If updating the tinyCam Monitor Pro app isn’t an option for you, then you can flash your Cam v4 back to an earlier firmware version, as a number of Forum users in that topic reported doing.
Thanks, I will look into getting the upgraded TinyCam Pro. It isn’t the one on Google Toy Store though, because I got it already. Where is the new TinyCam Pro available from?
I would not expect that to support the newer Cam v4 firmware. The most recent tinyCam Monitor Pro version appears to be 18.0.3.
You should still be able to get that from its page in Google Play Store; however, it’s important to note the details in the changelog (linked above), which indicate that the minimum Android version may have changed. Because of that, you may not be able to install the newest version of the tinyCam Monitor Pro app on your mobile device(s), but that’s going to depend on which particular Android device(s) (and what version(s) of Android OS) you’re using.
If you’re unable to update to the most recent version of the tinyCam Monitor Pro app but wish to continue using your Cam v4 with that app, then your options are primarily to…
Upgrade your phone or other device to hardware/OS capable of supporting tinyCam Monitor Pro’s minimum requirements.
Flash your Cam v4 back to an earlier firmware version and disable Automatic Update for that Cam.
I wanted to address something else you wrote earlier:
This is because different Cam models use different hardware, so the firmware is specific to each model of Cam. The firmware that runs on your Cam v3s is always going to be different than what you install on your Cam v4, and the version number differences should be apparent if you review the Release Notes & Firmware page.
Ai is not perfect but it has led me through dozens of problems. Thank you for showing me where to find Automatic Updates. I just turned it off and will on the rest of my cameras.
But, I did not buy 5 cameras from Wyze so I would have something to baby sit. If MS updated Windows with the same cavalier attitude people are getting from Wyze concerning updates trashing their computers it would cause a major uprising. The same would be true of any company that sells updatable products to the public and they would soon be out of business. What this Cam v4 update did to MY camera is no different and an immediate voluntary solution should be offered to anyone whose personal Wyze products are damaged by Wyze updates. After my discussion with John, I was offered a fair solution which I accepted. It would just be better if Wyze, instead of fighting it, would just take responsibility for their actions in the first place.
Microsoft has caused problems for loads of individual users and businesses with Windows updates in the past. I don’t think any technology company that continues to try to improve their code, add features, and fix bugs is immune to this sort of occurrence. Based on what you’ve described here so far, your primary problem seems to be that a security improvement Wyze made within its own ecosystem caused an incompatibility with a third-party viewer that you were using, and no company can be entirely responsible for every third party that tries to integrate with its system. I think Google also frequently breaks these sorts of things (it seems to me like they’re always changing things on the back end of Google Home, so behavioral glitches with that system seem to get more and more frequent; lately I’m finding that I have to phrase questions differently than I used to in order to get a sensible answer from Google Assistant), and I also keep reading (even here in the Forum) about how Alexa Plus seems to be breaking things. My understanding in the case with this most recent Cam v4 production firmware release is that the tinyCam Monitor developer eventually released a version of his product that works with that new firmware, but accommodating for that change takes time, and that’s a risk anyone takes when relying on a third-party—rather than native—solution.
You’re welcome. I think a lot of community members do this. I have since a Video Doorbell v2 firmware update caused problems with notifications a couple of years ago, and I use the Forum to watch the Wyze News and Beta categories for announcements and user reports of firmware problems whenever new versions are released. (I don’t even auto-update the Wyze app on my main mobile device.) If things seem relatively quiet and stable within a week or so after an update release announcement, then I’ll typically update. It might seem a little inconvenient because it requires some manual intervention, but checking and doing those updates within the app isn’t much of a chore, and for me it’s not any worse than manually checking and updating any other mobile or PC software. It just becomes part of the process of using the technology.
Curious if Automatic Update is set to On, or Off by default on all Wyze Devices ‘new out of the box’. Same question for what it is set to after any update, does it set it to Off, On, or previous setting after a successful update.
If set to off by default on all devices, then Wyze could produce a Warning to the user that setting it to Automatic could have unintended results due to the nature of 1’s and 0’s sometimes getting tripped up over each other, which can cause planets to collide… or words to that effect.
I also have all my devices set to OFF for that reason. I wish Wyze would implement an option to turn it Off for ALL devices from one place, rather than have to change it on my 30+ Wyze devices individually.
Odd, mine do not allow me to turn it off, just checked. My v4 and Panv3s do allow disabling it. Maybe I have to wait until one is available (like yours) for that to show on the OG? My others allow turning it off even if there isn’t one pending.
But that being said, if I answer “no” to the prompt, I’ve never had it actually automatically update, even after a week or two.
Maybe it’s related to app version. I think I grabbed that screenshot from the beta RC app. But try updating to latest 3.11.0.758 for Android that came out today. I just check it and it’s showing the option to disable firmware updates for OG.
My Wyze Cam v4 replacement for the one that was crashed by firmware update, 4.52.9.5332 came today and I set it up. Be careful if you have a new v4 on the way. Mine came with 4.52.9.3415 and wants to update to 4.52.9.5332. That is a bad move if you don’t want another crashed v4. Neither of those versions work in TinyCamPro. I haven’t been able to test the new version 4.52.9.6119 because even though it shows in my app it is not yet available to me so I can’t tell you if it is good or not, or if it fixes the P2P problem as they say it does.
