The cameras lose connections and don’t necessarily reboot. The internal time is still valid and yet the clip still gets the wrong time.
The battery isn’t needed as long as it doesn’t lose power. And it doesn’t. Even if it does a reboot.
I’m only referring to the ones that do reboot after 30 mins (supposedly), that’s what the conversation was about.
Lots of devices hard bounce the power when they reboot and thus reset the clock. Just about anything that runs on Linux follows this behavior and I’m guessing these cams run some very lite flavor of Linux. You can observe the same behavior on most home routers if you have access to the log, soft reboot it and you’ll see the date and time in the logs goes back to way in the past after reboot, then NTP sets it.
Well honestly I have had no need to find out even if there is a forum for Reolink 
I have had no issues at all so no need to go to a forum…
On the Wyze front however the saga continues of cam issues and failures 
Another camera ate a SD card recently, went to review some continuous recording and found out it said I have no SD card… Eventually I will go get the card and see if it is dead or just needs reformatting.
edit: Reformatting with Laptop fixed the corrupted by Wyze V3 SD card 
But as it goes with Wyze cams I wanted to review something and of course now that I wanted video off SD it failed, Glad it wasn’t guarding my tricycle
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From my testing, there are no authentication required for microSD recording especially for wired cameras. As long as you have power, then it will record to the microSD, but getting it to record into the “correct” folder is another matter. I managed to keep my V3 recording properly even after I blocked it from the internet by setting up a local NTP server + NTP intercept (worked after with power cycle as well).
As far as I know the only cameras which exhibit the “OG behaviour” (after 30 minute internet outage, the camera will automatically restart itself and then it starts recording into wrong folder with incorrect timestamp since it can’t connect to a NTP server to sync) are:
- Cam OG
- Cam V3 (with July 2024 FW 4.36.13.0416)
- Cam V3 Pro (with July 2024 FW 4.58.13.0416)
- Cam Pan V2 (with July 2024 FW 4.49.13.0416 or newer)
I don’t know if Cam V1, Cam V2, Cam V4, Cam Pan V1 or Cam Pan V3 have the same issue. Having said that, I suspect the older cameras (V1, V2, CPV1) might not this “OG behaviour” as it seems like a recent change with the July 2024 firmware for the impacted cameras.
In my experience, corrupted micro SD usually happens due to insufficient power to the camera like voltage dropping too low when using very long USB cables or defective power adapter. This is of course assuming the microSD is fine. Another scenario where this happens is power surge / power outage causing the camera to corrupt the recordings and the internal controller locking it up from further writes to the SD card (more rare).
I was previously running a 33 feet USB cable setup to power a V3 camera and it started acting weird. It will record fine for a few days and then it stops recording and I get “No video at the selected time” when I try to playback my SD recordings. The camera itself still functions fine except for recording (detection, siren, live view, & everything else still works). It is only until after restarting the camera does it start to record again, but then it stops after 2 to 3 days. In the end, I finally figured out it was my long 33 feet USB cable was causing the voltage to drop too low at a specific outdoor temperature (mainly on a sunny afternoon) so I used a separate 5V 2A power adapter plugged into an outdoor socket to fix it.
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I recall some discussions here about people wanting to use them as dash cams in their car or something and people saying you’d have to connect them to hotspot every now and then to authenticate. I don’t remember the specifics. Maybe they just weren’t noticing that it was recording, but to the wrong folder.
For your voltage drop issue, keep in mind the more powerful adapter will still experience voltage drop across that length of cable, but the overall wattage should now be higher. The cam may have actually started to burn out the previous adapter by constantly trying to draw too much current to overcome the lower voltage. If you have the option, running a higher gauge USB cable (even if you use a coupler and smaller gauge at one or both ends) should yield less drop. Of course, bumping the voltage is another option but since there is no USB supply over 5V (at least without USB-C PD), you’d be splicing USB cables and measuring to make sure it wasn’t over 5V at the cam, probably excessive. If the cam is working now without any issues, worst case have to buy a new adapter from time to time or possibly a new cam. Just hopefully not when you need some footage off it 
Or maybe I’m misunderstanding what you said and you eliminated the 30 foot cable by plugging it into a closer outlet instead.
I believe that was @K6CCC who tested V2, V3, V3 Pro and V4 on his truck (here). I had brought up that the 30 minute internet outage issue which was actually introduced in beta firmware 4.36.12.9357 for Cam V3. In that linked thread I was able to recreate the issue every single time on my V3 and I did the same test again with 4.36.11.8391 to compare. At the time I mistakenly thought the cameras required online authentication from Wyze to record properly. Anyhow, I brought this up with Wyze multiple times at various stages of different beta firmwares, but they still went ahead and released it to the public anyways.
That is very likely the case. My old setup was plugging a 33 feet USB cable into my old Floodlight V1 USB auxiliary port and it worked for ~1.5 years. Luckily I had a outdoor socket right below my Floodlight so I just used a more powerful adapter to provide a little more juice to account for the voltage loss and reused the 33 feet USB cable. I really didn’t want to mount a new cable. I could use have an extension cable, but it would have looked ugly mounting that with the power adapter.
Where is the fun in that? At least you can always come here.
He has no problem with Reolink cameras. He does have problems with Wyze cameras. So do many people here. And they come here trying to find solutions. I wonder if that’s also his motivation?
That equation doesn’t work with me.
Guess I am here to watch the suffering?
Hence, another post.
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Stick an SD card in a new Wyze cam fresh out of the box. Just plug it in and do nothing else. Inspect SD card after a while. You’ll find footage from end of self-check to removal of card. It’s been that way since Cam v1.
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So I guess as long as you’re willing to pull the SD and watch on a PC (or card reader attached to your phone) they can be used as “offline” cameras, to a certain extent anyway. Probably be confusing as hell trying to line up the time though.
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Time schmime! Just make sure the camera is pointing at a clock! If outdoors, point it at a sundial! Nighttime be damned! 
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Or just buy a cheap dash cam
I do see the usefulness of say, you need to haul some stuff in the back of a rented truck but need to stop somewhere along the way. Grabbing a spare Wyze and a power bank and setting it on the back of your seat while you’re in the store could be useful. But in that case the amount of time recorded is short enough that it doesn’t really matter what the time says. Could always fire up a hotspot on your phone for a minute when you bring it online too.
As a long term permanent dash cam, far better options out there (with supercapacitors in case power gets lost during a crash too). If nothing else, per the laws of nature, once you install one you’ll never need it (as has been the case for me in 10+ years now, aside from grabbing some clips of hilariously bad drivers or weirdos on the side of the road to show to friends).
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I agree. You would think that in thier pursuit of “data” they would work better. For what it is worth, in addition to 5 Wyze cams, I have 6 Brinks/Alarms cam and they also capture 1. shadow changes, 2. hornets, 3. lizards. People, not so much. I wanted to see why a pizza delivery was so stealthy in my delivery…hmm. But to no avail. nothing
I set up the Wyze Cam V4 to record nonstop to an SD card in the baby’s room. However, when someone took something from the room, I wanted to check the footage, but there was no recording for two hours. Why didn’t the camera record nonstop?
It may be there, but it may have lost internet connectivity or restarted and not been able to set the time, which the camera relies on for organizing the files. You can pull the SD card and check in a computer, it may be in a separate folder.
If not, then my guesses would be the cam lost power, froze up for some reason, or the SD card has a bad spot. Continuous recording requires an SD card with endurance rating (it will work fine for a while but will wear out relatively quickly depending on the size and quality of the card and how much use it got before that).
Same happen to me i bought 6 camaras they keep disconecting fron internet everytime the powers goes off i have to reset then all. The restart botton is worless. They are good to look strim live but just that. I have one on a plan and record just when it fell like it. Some time i get the notificacion some time i have to go to history to realized that a person came to my door .
I agree with original poster. Recording to sd cards is terribly unreliable. It records, it doesn’t record, then connected and recording again.
These cameras are toys not real security cameras. Take them for what they’re worth. A fair real time camera, a poor security camera.
Alas, you get what you pay for!
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