Wyze cam pan won’t factory reset

After the app prompted me to do a firmware update, the Wyze cam pan stopped working. After contacting tech support, still no one was able to help me. I deleted the camera from the app in hopes that I could factory reset it and reinstall it, but I can’t get the camera to reset. I’ve tried holding down the setup button for 10, 20, 30 seconds. I’ve turned the cam off and back on. I don’t know what else to try. Please help.

1 Like

Does the camera turn on at all? Does the status light come on, or the camera spin around when power is restored? Does it make any sounds at all? What happens?

Did support walk you through how to do a “Firmware Flash” to try to set the camera back to an earlier firmware? Or did they just Try to do a “Factory reset” by holding the setup button in for 10-30 seconds or whatever the timeframe is?

What troubleshooting steps did support try already?

How long have you had your device for?

2 Likes

When the camera is unplugged from power and then you plug it in, the only thing that happens is the light comes on and is solid yellow. The head does not spin around, and it makes no noises.

I literally opened the camera box earlier this evening. It was brand new. As I was connecting it to the app, all went well. The image came up, no problem. But then the app prompted me to update the firmware. From then on it would not connect and only showed a solid yellow light. I deleted the device from the app thinking perhaps I could reinstall it and fix the issue, but of course it can’t be reinstalled in the app without the camera first being reset with the yellow light flashing.

I chatted with 3 separate support techs online and then finally broke down and called and spoke to a 4th support tech live. They all had me go through the same steps of trying to factory reset it. No one tried to do a firmware flash. Finally the live tech offered me a $20 gift card to basically go away. lol Of course I didn’t except that. I need my camera to work!

The bright side is that it gets a status light, so at least it is getting power and isn’t necessarily totally fried.

In your situation I would try Flashing the firmware. Follow the steps here:

Flash Firmware for Wyze Cam v2 & Wyze Cam Pan

When you download the new firmware file for it, I would possibly choose the second to newest one just in case it is the newest one that had the issue, and trying to flash to same version it is already on might not be as effective as trying to force it onto a different firmware version. That is my thinking anyway. I’d probably try to flash to this one:

If the flash is successful, then try to update to the latest one. It may be that the main problem was from trying to jump straight from the stock firmware to the latest firmware, so if you pick an earlier firmware and step it up to the most recent, I’m guessing there is a higher chance of success. I can verify that my pan v1 successfully updated by doing them step by step, so maybe that will resolve it for yours too.

I also want to mention that in similar situations when I have had a camera seemingly “Brick” on me like this, that I had to try flashing the firmware several times before it finally “took” and was successful, so don’t be too discouraged if it doesn’t happen the first try as I’ve seen that happen before too.

You may have to try different lengths of time holding the button in while you do this. It says 3-6 seconds for a firmware flash, but since the Pan V1 Factory reset instructions say the factory reset can require up to 20 seconds with the button held in, It might be worth trying for longer if it doesn’t take the first time.

Anyway, if I were in your shoes, I would try the firmware flash and see if that helps it to try to boot from the SD card firmware since it’s not doing anything with a regular factory reset.

3 Likes

It sounds like we’re having the exact same issue. I hadn’t used my Pan v1 for a while, but have a use for it so I set it up and it worked fine.
Then the app prompted me to do a firmware update. Now the thing is bricked in precisely the way the original poster described: a solid yellow light when plugged in, and that’s it. No matter what reset/restart method I try, it returns to this state.
I tried to flash the firmware, per the instructions but the cam always does the same thing: plug it in, the status light turns solid yellow…and that’s it. Pressing the SETUP forever doesn’t cause any reaction, nor does holding the button down before you plug it in.
I’m not surprised tech support couldn’t help…there aren’t that many ways to try and prod the device into another state, with just a single button.
I think the thing is bricked for good.

Hello together… Absolutely same here… I opened a brandnew (unused) Wize Cam Pan and connected it. App asked for Update, the Cam is dead now.

Reset doesnt help (just yellow LED) and after turning on cam doesnt move or make any sounds. There are 4 Firmwares downloadable from the website - I tryed all of them, no luck.

Absolutely unbelievable - true heroes to release an update like this…

1 Like

Yeah it’s pretty obvious that the latest release bricks Cam Pan under certain conditions. It seems possible that it has to do with missing intermediate updates, since in the cases we’ve identified, the cam was either brand new (and therefore never updated) or hadn’t been used in a while (so hadn’t been updated in a while).
I had high hopes when Wyze hit the market, seemingly promising high quality products lower quality prices. But…as they say…you get what you pay for, and Wyze has turned out some [Mod Edit] products (with [Mod Edit] support).
My guess is they don’t care that they’re updates bricked this cam and/or they don’t know how to fix the mess they’ve created.

MOD NOTE: Post edited to conform to the Community Guidelines.

That’s my guess too. Anyway, after I connected the cam first time to WLAN and checked its picture in the App I wasn’t very happy about the quality anyway (YCC365 looks better). On the YCC365 I’m playing video from the card and that feature is pretty bad (slow, not playing, skipping) - so I was curious how this Wyze will perform but even wasn’t able to try it out because I got interrrupted by that update… Unfortunately I didn’t made a screenshot which firmware was originally on it and was replaced through which never one (just remembered that the difference of the numbers was minimal). But guess it doesn’t matter which Firmware was previously on it since I’m not able to flash the 4 latest (Feb 2 2023 - Sept 27 2022) on it… even if there would be an older one available I doubt that it would work with it… (or who knows)… I will definitively NEVER recommend this brand to anyone.

Glad to see I’m not alone. Same thing just happened to me, exactly as described above except my camera makes an intermittent clicking sound while it sits there with the solid yellow light. I have two cameras that I have not used in a while. The first one updated fine and continued to work. The second appeared to work then asked to update. The update never finished so I shut it off. Now it’s stuck.

True that… the update never finnished and I had to shut if off too.
I also had that intermittent clicking afterwards…

I am also having this same issue. Insanely frustrating that a fix is not straightforward.

Just had the same exact thing happen today!

Welcome to the club =) (Wyze made their money, now we can throw it away…)

Exact same problem here. Wyze Cam Pan v1 straight out of box and latest firmware update bricked it. Arrrgh. Has anyone found a way to unbrick? Does a firmware update on microSD fix this??

No - read above, I tryed all 4 available Firmwares and none worked…

1 Like

Well, add me to the list of frustrated owners with a bricked Cam Pan v1.

  • Plug mine in and get just solid yellow led.
  • Hold down Setup button before plugging it in (with NO SD card) and continue holding down Setup after plugging in. Nothing but solid yellow led even after I release the Setup button after 30 sec.
  • Tried to flash older firmware. Put demo.bin file as the only file on FAT32 formatted 32GB SD card, inserted the SD card in unplugged camera. Hold down Setup button and plug it in. After ~5 seconds of solid yellow I get both blue & yellow leds. I released the Setup button and it stayed with both leds on for ~20 seconds and clicked once. Then the blue led turned off. Solid yellow forever since then. No clicking, no rotating, nothing…

Any good ideas what to do with a bricked Cam Pan v1? I liked the form-factor of the v1/v2 MUCH better than the Cam Pan v3 though the Privacy mode feature of the v3 is an interesting addition. Not like I’m planning to buy another Wyze cam any time soon given my overall satisfaction with the ‘working’ Wyze cams I have now.

Well, me too.
My v1 cam pan loaded a new update and now it does power up and then just stays yellow, but does turn the head 360 and then 180 and stops.
When I push the reset button to try to install, nothing happens.
I have 5 other cameras and I’m afraid to upgrade them and lose them all.

Has no one found a fix? Customer Service has no answers??

Although folks reported here that it doesn’t work, I decided to try to load old firmware. They were right. It doesn’t work. This should be very embarrassing for Wyze. Brand new product out of box and firmware update kills it before you can even use it once. OK, time to find another brand.

Just some questions: You held the setup button while applying power, continuously for at least 6-10 seconds, until you got blue and yellow lights together? You downloaded the correct firmware file, extracted it and copied it to a FAT32 sd card of 32gb or less, with nothing else on the card? The file should be named demo.bin so if using windows make sure it didn’t get renamed to demo.bin.bin and make sure you didn’t just copy the zip file to the disk.

Yes. Yes. Correct and verified file name. I see blue and yellow lights for about 20s…then solid yellow. Once click from an internal relay. Then nothing else. Is there a place to get older firmware files?? It appears there was a change somewhere that bricked Wyze Cam Pan V1 with older firmware.