Unfortunately it is like whack-a-mole, get rid of one, another pops up. I do not trust any card sold by a 3rd party, sold and shipped by the main company only, and make sure the one you receive does not have any 3rd party stickers on it (like amazon with the white sticker, they’re known for sometimes sending stock from a 3rd party even when you buy from them).
The major manufacturers have validation tools now to try and spot counterfeit cards, but I’m sure the counterfeiters will figure ways around that if they haven’t already.
Perhaps where you have them, or the angle they’re at, is letting moisture get in around the speaker or other spot. I’m assuming you have drip loops on the power cords leading into the cameras? The cord should immediately slope downward after leaving the back of the cam. If they are angled downward, the speaker on the back might let some moisture in. I have 3 OGs on the front of my house, some angled only slightly down and one very steeply down, over a year now constantly writing to SD and no issues.
But knowing how water is even with “IP” rated stuff, not only did I ensure good drip loops, but also put some dielectric grease around the “boot” where the power cord connects to the camera whip, then wrapped it in white electrical tape. Also ensured the SD card rubber cover was pushed well in place and seated, it can take a fingernail to get it full “popped” into place.
They’re under an eave but they definitely get wet from time to time.
In addition to the other things mentioned, a short of the SD card pins will fry an SD card quickly, and a short of the power connector might be causing fluctuations that aren’t very noticeable as far as camera operation but are causing issues with the SD card chip.
Would you know of any tools that would diagnose a sd card? I like Samsung’s Magician. SM tells me a lot about the life left in a SSD. I am looking for the equivalent for micro sd. Maybe something like Crystal Diskmark.
I’m not aware of any for like lifespan remaining or showing you number of bad cells etc. The controller in these cards is extremely rudimentary. Samsung Magician relies on SMART which does provide tons of useful info, but these cards and controllers don’t have that.
The SD Card Formatter utility can force the card to mark bad cells, restore proper file system, and tell you if the card is totally shot (by failing to format) but usually once cells start to go bad, more will follow quickly.
There are methods of removing write protection sometimes but usually if it has gone into that mode, it is dead and just trying to hold as much of your saved data for you as it can.
Crystal Diskmark and similar benchmarking utilities can give you a hint that something is not right, if the transfer rate is extremely slow or erroring out etc. But it won’t really help narrow down what exactly is wrong.
I guess I consider them disposable. As soon as one shows any sign of an issue, it gets replaced and destroyed.
I’ve only had a few and two of them were for good reason (tons of writes, simply hit their TBW limit). The other was in a phone and started failing without good reason. Samsung sent me a larger, higher end replacement for free, so can’t really complain.
I did have a 32GB samsung evo in a dashcam that writes constantly at around 100MB per minute, It didn’t make it very long, but it clearly is not designed for that use so that’s on me. I still want to say it probably made it a year or two. But the Sandisk Extremes in my other ones have been going 10+ under the same conditions.
I will say when I’ve had to try and recover stuff for people, it is often out of some cheap no name camera they got off amazon or a similar type of device.
And let’s be honest, the SD chipset in the Wyze cams probably around the same quality. The difference is they’re typically powered up all the time. Those cheap devices seem to cause the corruption when they are turned on/off or when the batteries die, etc. In theory, with Wyze buffering 30 or 60 seconds of video then writing it all at once, if the SD card is reasonably fast, there should only be 1 or 2 seconds per minute where a power loss could corrupt the card, and it usually shouldn’t be permanent damage, just needs a format.
For whatever it’s worth. I have four OG-Tele cameras. All four have SanDisk 64GB High endurance µSD cards and are set to continuous recording. Two \of the cameras were activated 26 Jan. 2023 and the other two were activated on 28 June 2023.
All working fine. All four are inside, although one is looking through a window.
I have the same issue with my Wyze OG cameras. I have now bricked 3 Scandisk cards from different batches (was trying to eliminate a manufacturing fault). The third card I used had been installed and was working in a Wyze exterior flood light, 3 days after I installed in the OG I get a error and the card is now unusable, will not format.
Until I read this post I thought it was me doing something wrong. Hopefully Wyze support is reading this thread and will find a solution.
Bricked many Scandisk and PNY cards by just plugging them into the camera. Checked them first in PC and they were just fine. It is getting frustrating.
Scandisk or Sandisk? Scandisk is a common fake brand, total garbage/scam that you’ll get when ordering a Sandisk from a non-reputable seller.
PNY isn’t anything great, definitely not rated for constant writing, but simply plugging it into the camera shouldn’t kill it. If your camera is frying cards just by inserting them, I’d suspect a short circuit inside, possibly some water got in and caused corrosion between two terminals.
I have 5 OGs, none has ever killed an SD card or had any SD issues at all, been over 18 months now and 3 of them are doing continuous recording.
Hopping on this as well. I have three Wyze Cam Pan v3s and all have started having this issue. I have the same SD card in an old Wyze Cam Pan without any issues. I’ve gone ahead and ordered Sandisk High Endurance cards to see if that will make a difference.
I’ve been chatting with support and all they did was send a new camera, twice. Great that I got a new camera, but it has absolutely not helped.
Seeing more and more of these posts just confirm there’s an issue that Wyze is not addressing.
