I have this cam with an SD card in my mom’s room in memory care. I need to monitor what the aides say to her & how they treat her, as well as track her decline into severe dementia. Two problems:
The video clips start out recording sound but partway through the clip, the video goes silent, even when I can see people talking in the room.
Since the last update, every clip defaults to being muted. This is such an inconvenience when I’m having to watch several clips in a row.
I have tried powering down and resetting the camera. Any ideas?
Are they not recording audio, or is the app just shutting off audio playback?
Frequently in the app you need to turn the audio playback back on by tapping the speaker icon, I’ve never taken the time to figure out the rhyme or reason to it but certain things will turn it off. Cam groups are one such thing that seems to cause it, since only one can play audio at a time in the group, the others get turned off, and similar things seem to happen with playback too.
If audio definitely is not recording to the SD card (or stops recording) perhaps the SD card is having issues. Also are you recording 24x7 or events only? I’m wondering if the sound events are recording audio then it stops when it is only detecting motion or something. There is a setting in the camera to record audio, make sure that is enabled, and probably have sound events disabled (motion only, or no events at all and just 24x7 recording).
Note that bluetooth devices can interfere with the audio in the app too, though not sure of an example where it would play audio for part of the clip then block it for the rest, unless it is a bluetooth device that only activates after a while or intermittently etc.
In addition to what @dave27 described, I have a couple of thoughts related to your points:
I suspect part of this might be the camera’s fault. My understand is that Cam OG was introduced last year as kind of a “back-to-basics” device and that one of the design goals was to bring it in with an initial <$20 price tag, so Wyze made some decisions that might seem like corner cutting in order to meet that goal. One potential solution for you would be to consider a Cam v4, which, in my experience, while imperfect, actually does have better audio performance than other Wyze Cam models I’ve used (Cam OG and Cam Pan v3). It also officially supports microSD cards up to 512 GB. (I’ve read about users having success with cards of that capacity in other Wyze cameras, but most of those models officially support cards up to only 256 GB.) I’d think that would be something to consider so that you can leave the camera on continuous recording and have plenty of storage room/time for capturing events while you’re using this to monitor your mother’s care.
What you’re describing about muted audio during event playback is a known issue discussed in the announcement topic for the v3.2 app (starting here). One of our Mavens asked specifically about this issue in yesterday’s Reddit AMA, so we’re trying to make sure that’s on Wyze’s radar and is potentially addressed in a future app update.
Having been involved in the care of relatives with dementia myself, I appreciate the time and energy it takes to be engaged in that, and I’m glad that you’re actively trying to look out for your mother. I hope she’s receiving care that is respectful and maintains her dignity.
Strange, latest app and latest firmware on my OGs and on both one with event recording only and another with constant recording, audio never drops. Maybe iOS related bug?
@dave27, I think we’re talking about two different things here:
The camera may be failing to continuously pick up audio and save that as part of the recording.
When playing back events or opening a camera’s Live Stream screen, the stream is automatically muted, regardless of what the user had previously chosen when viewing that same screen, so it’s necessary for the user to tap the speaker icon on the viewer pane in order to enable sound (and sometimes necessary to tap the screen once prior to that in order to make those overlay controls visible in the first place).
This second point is what’s discussed in the v3.2 app topic I mentioned, and I believe it’s also what @mirandapanda was talking about by mentioning “every clip defaults to being muted”.
Regarding the first point, I definitely agree with you about confirming the app settings for the camera, especially ensuring that audio recording is enabled, but depending on the placement of the camera and the environment that it’s in, it might be dropping sound that’s below the recording threshold, which makes me think it might be a hardware issue, but also leads me to another thought:
@mirandapanda, in addition to making sure audio recording is enabled ( Settings ➜ Advanced Settings ➜ Record Sound), you might consider adjusting the detection sensitivity: Settings ➜ Detection Settings ➜ SOUND DETECTION SENSITIVITY. I’d consider moving the slider to increase the sensitivity and then reviewing events after a while. Depending on how you have your notifications set, this might take some tweaking until you find an acceptable balance between too many (false positive, in a sense) and too few events. I wouldn’t expect this to improve the recording quality or amount of audio captured (especially if you’re doing continuous recording to microSD), but it might help with tagging the events that might be important for you to review.
Yeah I thought we were discussing sound dropping out mid clip.
Honestly the speaker icon has never been consistent. I think I may have always had to turn it on when listening to events, but I don’t remember. I just know to always check it.
Even when my camera isn’t picking up any sounds, if I turn up the volume it has that obvious “ambient sound”, it doesn’t cut off due to being below a threshold or anything. And the cameras I was checking are set to the default 60.
I’m wondering if @mirandapanda might have sound events set to record, but the main “record audio” turned off. Maybe the event starts off as a sound trigger and records sound, but then switches to motion which doesn’t have sound enabled? Just a total guess.
I would go into settings, then event recording, and turn off sound leaving just motion (as long as you have motion, and especially if you have 24x7 recording to SD, sound events just add confusion in my opinion). Then make sure advanced settings → record sound is enabled.
Thanks again for all the suggestions. I tried everything suggested and the problems persist. I’m taking the advice to buy a Cam v4. It’s on sale with free shipping right now. And Crease, thank you for your kind and understanding words about my mom. You clearly get it from your experience with overseeing the care of elders. Much appreciate the human touch. Have a good day.
I’m glad you were able to grab a Cam v4 while they’re still on sale, and I hope that provides better performance for you. I’d definitely throw a high-capacity microSD card into that (I like SanDisk High Endurance; others on the Forum swear by Samsung PRO Endurance) and set it for continuous recording. I still really like my Cam OGs, but Cam v4 is better in some ways.
Thank you for your kind words. I hope you have a good day, as well.
Hello. I’m having issues as well with V3 event recording audio. This started right after the last update to how you swipe recordings up and down rather than side to side.
The video playback drops out every two seconds. Even when there’s consistent sound to be recorded.
I am having the same issue and it is incredibly frustrating. I needed the sound on a couple occasions to hear events for the police. This better be fixed soon. I had expected to see more people with the same issues.
Settings ➜ Advanced Settings ➜ Record Sound), you might consider adjusting the detection sensitivity: