Got all my bulbs set up on a series of schedules. But when I physically left the time zone and opened the app, all of the scheduled rules began to run on the time zone where my phone/app is, not the time zone where the bulbs/router are.
Not exactly helpful for setting up an away schedule for lights to go on and off. I’ve seen there is a sync option for the cameras, but I have not seen anything about the bulbs having this problem. Did I miss something?
This is a serious issue for someone who travels extensively to different time zones! (and a serious design oversight!). Bulb / Thermostat / Camera / Door Locks … should be assigned a TIME ZONE during the setup process. It should not matter what time zone the user interface device is in. I have a dozen bulbs with AM and PM schedules for each that vary on different days of the week!
Setting up schedules is tedious enough - but to have to re-do them every time I move time zones is just not acceptable. Wish I had known this before purchasing WYZE devices.
What happens when someone who I have shared a device control with accesses it from a different time zone? This issue will start to get a LOT more attention once folks start traveling again!
Exactly!
Didn’t even think of that, excellent point.
I seem to remember this happening to me and resolved it by going to iPhone/iPad Privacy/Location Services and setting the Wyze app Location Access to “Never”. Not sure if that still works. There needs to be a way to lock the app to a time zone, or a time zone awareness toggle like Calendar has.
Thanks that’s a good suggestion will give it a try.
FWIW, I also noticed that when I am on cellular data (not wifi) in my “home” time zone, an IP address check occasionally reports my location (ie my cellular provider location) as being in a neighboring state, which is another time zone. Turning Wyze location access to “never” seems to keep that from becoming a problem.
Again, great advice thank you! I went ahead and turned it off. I am not using anything that requires the app to know where I am anyway. No reason to share my location.
Months have gone by and I am amazed that there are so few comments on this topic. I must be missing something.
The one suggestion to turn off the WYZE location might work in some cases, but I have WYZE devices in multiple time zones (and in time zones that change with DST). Trying to game the device time is a real pain in the arse.
I have little hope of WYZE addressing this issue and have stopped buying their devices.
I know right? In any case the suggestion to stop this was to turn off location sharing between your mobile device and the WYZE app. The app does not need to know where you are geolocated to function properly or set up WYZE devices and rules in different time zones. I can’t really think of a reason the app would ever need my geolocation for anything tbh. Or am I misunderstanding your need?
Think through how to set up time based rules for devices located in multiple time zones. (The geolocation could be useful for my door lock and thermostat features.)
I’m trying to sort out what that would look like with location services on vs location services off. And to be fair, I have not left the time zone since I turned off location services, so this may not even solve my problem. Your situation is certainly more complex, I only have devices in one time zone.
I think it depends if the rules are updated when you open the app based on local time on your device or if they are updated only via Location Services when you open the app on your device. I guess I’ll find out when I travel next, but I can tell you having to update every single rule to adjust them for “device” time zone was a massive frustration.
Either way, bad design. It should be locked to the router local time no matter where you might be.
I have been traveling 3 time zones away from my bulbs and can confirm that having location “on” is problematic. I signed out of the iOS app, had my wife log in at our home location to activate some of the lights manually, then I turned location “off” and signed back in. It allows rules to function normally. I suspect that Wyze simply licenses this software and does not develop it, I’ve seen same/similar apps under different names. If the origin is a Chinese developer, China is all one time zone… location is not a concern… why my light bulbs would be traveling between time zones and requiring location awareness is certainly a puzzler though.
I’m joining the crowd. I have some wyze bulbs in my house in Puerto Rico. I also live in Texas. When I’m in Texas, not only does it shift to central time, but PR doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time. My rules change depending on where I open the app and what time of year it is.
For even more fun, I travel a lot for work. Sometimes my wife is in PR and I take a trip to CA. If I open the app to interact with a device in Texas, the devices in PR suddenly turn on (or off) because everything gets reset to Pacific Time!!!
All they need to do is add Net Time Protocol to the devices so they can ask the local router for the local time. It’s very easy. Failing that, at least let me lock the Wyze app to GMT so I can be consistent when traveling. Accessing my devices from remote is the exact reason I bought these devices!
I am amazed at how few people complain about this. To me, it is a serious issue. I suspect that most people just don’t realize that their bulb schedules travel with them.
Found this out last year the hard way. If you don’t have motion sensors or anything that needs to know where you are specifically, someone else suggested turning off location services completely for WYZE. I’m on iOS so the option is. Is set to “never allow”.
But as the OP I want to reiterate WE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO DO THIS!!
Over a year since last message but same problem persists. Will try turning off location but absurd Wyze does not address this problem…
This probably needs to get fixed. Turning of location services makes it so you cannot use location based rules in the Wyze app.
Has Wyze officially responded to this? I need to know as I am just about ready to travel through multiple time zones. I have 2 Cams and 4 plugs to make my house appear like I am home. For now I am disabling location on my wife and my phone, but I need an official answer on what time zone my devices will follow, they were set up on Central, but I am going to Mountain, Pacific and Arizona time