Wyze Customer Service / Support

Watercooler
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Prior to purchasing my first Wyze cameras last Fall (2025), I contacted customer service with a few questions. The rep was very helpful and knowledgeable, easy to understand, and took the time to explain everything. I thanked her for the preliminary info she provided, and said that I would be ordering the cameras, and would let her know if I had any additional questions.

Then I bought two cameras, and recently bought a third (and considering purchasing a couple more). Since purchasing the cameras, I have contacted Wyze twice, and no one seems to know anything about the camera at all.

Yesterday, it took me 12 minutes to get the rep to understand my email address, despite spelling it out repeatedly. Then it was constant holds while she tried to get answers to my questions. I had to keep asking if she was still there, and she would state she was trying to get answers to my questions. I even asked if she could just put me through to someone who knew the answers.

The main reason I ordered Wyze cams in the first place was because I thought the customer service was amazing, but now I can’t even get someone I can understand, or that knows anything at all about the products.

Yesterday’s call ended with me thanking them and hanging up, never having my questions answered (the previous time ended the same way). If I had this kind of customer service in the first place, I never would have ordered Wyze cameras. I have debated about getting a paid plan for the cameras, but with the customer service being this awful, I am very hesitant to do that.

Also, I have tried searching the forums about my questions, but called Wyze for clarification about what the forums said.

FYI- my questions yesterday were 1) Is there a limit to how many camera you can run when you are just using micro SD cards in each and no paid plan, and 2) Is there a way to not have the spotlight come on at night when motion is detected, and just have it use night vision (the forums seemed to say it can be used without the spotlight and just with night vision, and I have the settings for no spotlight, yet when reviewing the video, it looks like a bright light flashes when movement is detected).

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Welcome to the Forum, @PurpleReign! :wave:

Thank you for searching! Typically we’d like to see your questions in categories specific to whatever product you’re dealing with (Cameras, Services & Integrations, etc.), but I’ll try to provide at least one answer here since you’ve already posted questions above:

Nope! Knock yourself out. Clearly one advantage of not subscribing is that you don’t have any ongoing fees, and the use of microSD recording is yours and local, regardless of whether you’re using a paid plan. Paid plans do offer some benefits, but I think each user has to decide whether or not that’s worth the cost, and many users opt not to subscribe.

Probably “yes”, and I could probably give a more specific answer if I knew what Cam(s) you’re using and how/where you’re using the Cam(s). Most likely you want to navigate from that Cam’s (I’m using a Cam v4 as an example)  Settings ➜ Spotlight Settings and set SPOTLIGHT CONTROL to Manual.

Regarding the bright light flash, it might help if you could share a relevant video clip, and it doesn’t take much effort to get to the level where you’re allowed to upload something like that. I’m wondering if you’re actually seeing something from the spotlight or the Cam’s IR or something else, but all I can do is guess without more information.

As far as the customer service experience is concerned, I’ve experienced some of my own frustrations there but have never used the phone option.

Please poke around in the Forum to see if your spotlight question is answered elsewhere. If you want to create a new Cameras topic with that specific question and provide more detail about your situation, then that might help your issue to get better visibility, and that would be a good place to share a video example of the experience you’re having.

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Thank you. I apologize for not posting in the correct category. My main frustration was the poor customer service, but seems to be getting like that everywhere I guess.

My 3 cams are v4, the spotlight settings are set to manual, but then it also says dusk to dawn or something. On the SD card video, every time it senses movement, the video shows a bright flash. I’m very concerned that neighbors might complain if I have bright lights going off all of the time. I can’t like screenshot a video showing the flash. I thought the forums said it can be night vision only with no spotlight,

The discourse stuff might be a little over my head (I’m a senior) with how that works to use- I wasn’t even sure about using the forums, but getting desperate since I already own the cameras now- too late to change. I will read over the info at the link you sent though and try to figure it out.

My cameras only came with a quick start guide, and perhaps I need a Wyze Cameras For Dummies book- lol.

The previous time I contacted Wyze customer service to ask about the device sensitivity, and explained to them that I had it down to “2”, and my notifications were going off dozens of times an hour if the wind slightly blew a branch on a hedge or something, the rep only told me to turn it down to level “1”- lol. I did, but had to also stop all notification alerts. So, now the “security cameras” are mainly only of use when I know something is going on (eg- a package delivery I’m watching for), and not actually for security at all.

I wish I could speak to the original rep who was so helpful, as she was amazing at helping me understand the various plans and all that I asked about. I wouldn’t mind getting a paid plan, but I’m not comfortable paying for a plan when the customer service is so poor.

I really appreciate that you took the time to answer- I am going to see if the info helps get things sorted out. Thank you.

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You didn’t at all, and I hope I didn’t give that impression. Since the main focus of your original post was about customer service, then Watercooler is an appropriate category. :+1:

I just wanted to let you know that when you want to discuss a question about a camera (or lighting product, or scale, or whatever), then there are other categories you can use that are more likely to get you the visibility you might want for that issue. If most of your original post was the questions about microSD recording and spotlight use, then you’d probably be more likely to get better answers by posting to Cameras, including details about what you’re using, etc.

Thank you for that additional detail. I think the Schedule always shows, regardless of whether Auto or Manual is selected, and I think Manual is what you want for this situation.

Without seeing it, I’d just be speculating, and at this point I don’t really know what’s cause and what’s effect. In other words, it could be that a lighting change is causing enough pixel changes in the picture that the Cam interprets this as a motion event and then drops a marker in your video recording. Without more data, it’s difficult to say.

Are you using Continuous or Events Only microSD recording?

I appreciate that you’re taking your neighbors into consideration. Have you tried to trigger a motion event on the Cam to see if the spotlight actually turns on at night?

Even with the Manual setting, I believe it’s possible to create an Automation to trigger the spotlight when motion is detected, and I think that some users do this because the Auto selection means that spotlight triggering is somewhat dependent upon ambient light availability. Setting it up as an Automation is a work-around to control spotlight triggering on a schedule regardless of ambient light. I mention that because you probably want to make sure you don’t have something like that going on with this Cam if you test and find that the spotlight is actually triggering when you move in front of it after dark.

While viewing a recording with microSD playback in the app, you can tap the  Record button in the icon/menu bar below the view pane to begin saving that video to your phone, then just follow the on-screen instructions to end the recording. That’s a fairly easy way to capture a short clip if you want to share a video of something you’ve recorded.

Don’t sweat it too much. It took me a while to learn my way around, too, and there are plenty of helpful people here if you have questions.

You’re not the first person to suggest something like that. I think Wyze tries to make the app and device features fairly intuitive, but there’s always room for improvement, and the way they occasionally add or change features means that any documentation would also have to keep up. That’d be difficult with a printed volume.

That’s tricky, too, and a different problem. Often the notification frequency can be reduced by carefully selecting the Cam’s view and setting up an appropriate Detection Zone, along with tuning the sensitivity setting. That can be a trial-and-error process, though. That’s another area where a subscription could be advantageous, because with that you can select to receive notifications only when a Person is detected (for example) in contrast with any general motion detection.

Package detection is another subscriber benefit. I really like the way my doorbell camera links to Amazon Alexa so that I can get voice announcements from Echo speakers whenever that Cam detects a package on the front porch.

I understand that, too, and after responding to your initial post I also pinged someone at Wyze as a heads-up, because I know there are people there who really do care about the customer experience.

You’re welcome. Please feel free to ask other questions if you have them.

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Are you sure it is set to manual. I have five V4 cams and they all came with the spotlight set to Auto by default, This is how I have them set now, I don’t like the spotlight because it makes the video darker when it first turns on then it get lighter after a few seconds.

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Mine is set on Low / Manual. But, for instance, while I was on this screen, a different nearby cam detected something, and I could see the flash from that other camera’s light on this screen. The other camera is set at the same spotlight settings as this one.

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This is the other nearby camera I mentioned in my reply. Same settings.

Also, I really appreciate the help so much! Ty!

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Those are greyscale images in the screenshots you shared—indicating that the Cam is in typical night vision mode—and to me that looks like it could be IR illumination that you’re seeing as the brighter areas in the image captures. Were you able to look at the Cams themselves to see if the spotlights were turning on at the time of capture?

Unless you can say that you’ve actually seen the spotlight turn on during these types of events, I really think that you have things set correctly and that the bright flashes you’re describing aren’t from the spotlight at this point. Thank you for sharing the images! :+1:

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I have not been able to be outdoors long enough to actually see the spotlights on the cameras.

However, I just googled how to take a video screenshot with my camera (never knew I could do this before). When I mentioned in my other comment that, while looking at the spotlight settings for my one camera (named Zelda), I could see a spotlight flash from my other camera (named Link) approx 40 ft away.

I live out in the country, there were no cars (headlights), no lights turned on in my home, nothing else that could explain this flash of light other than if it came from Link.

So, I just went to that time last eve on the SD card video recording, was able to do a short video screenshot, while viewing Zelda footage and seeing the flash from Link. The flash occurs a couple sec into the video.

What would cause this? Also, there is no event appearing on Link for this exact time. There is a bright flash approx 10 sec earlier that looks like it’s coming from Zelda, but again, nothing at that exact time in Zelda’s history.

This is why I am concerned about the flashes, and worried about it bothering neighbors. Uploading the first video (hopefully- had to keep cropping to reduce file size).

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This is the video mentioned from the other camera.

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Thanks for sharing the videos. That still looks like IR illumination to me. If you have Night Vision Mode set to Auto, then there may be enough visible light there that the Cams are at the threshold of what they can use for “Color Night Vision”, so they may be transitioning between that and regular “night vision”, and when that happens you see the IR LEDs “flash”. This wouldn’t be visible to the human eye in the same way that the spotlight would, but if you happen to be looking at the Cam at the time you might see the faint red glow of the LEDs because of the wavelength they’re using.

I don’t think your neighbors would be likely no notice this unless they also have an IR-enabled camera looking at your house or maybe a telescope aimed directly at one of your Cams. Enjoy your games. :grin:

Incidentally, I wouldn’t have recommended recording the videos the way you did (with screen capture). I would’ve done it the way I described in a previous post, just grabbing a segment of the microSD recording playback. The way you did it shows the full screen, which means that we also see the timeline and how it’s missing the Motion marker, as you indicated, so that actually tells us more in this case. Nice job with that! :+1:

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I really appreciate all of your help with this! I used to be pretty tech savvy, but those days are long gone now. Technology is so hard to keep up with. But if you ever need someone to help rebuild a 486 desktop computer, reinstall Windows 3.1, add more memory, or add a cd rom drive to one, I’m your person. :rofl:

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You’re welcome! I’m glad you’ve found it helpful.

I haven’t plugged it in for a long time, but I still have a Gateway 2000 486DX2-33. :grin::+1:

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Nice!- many people wouldn’t even have a clue what that is- lol.

I still have some of my original 486 computers, in various working conditions. I have a (working) 1984 Tandy 1000. My oldest computer / video game system (still working) is a 1981 Texas Instruments TI-99/4A.

I have a collection of vintage video game systems (everything from Pong up to Playstation 3), and have them all hooked up for when my grands and great grands come over. They love it.

You would think I would do better with operating basic security cameras- right? :woman_shrugging:

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Every once in a while I think it’d be fun to try setting that up again to see what Linux distribution I could get to run on it. That thing was great. It was the first PC that I ever bought for myself (my grandmother had gifted us an IBM PCjr when I was a kid) and over time I added several things to it that it didn’t have from the factory: replaced the 5¼″ and 3½″ diskette drives with a single combo drive in the 5¼″ bay so that I could also install a CD-ROM drive (that required each disc to be loaded into a cartridge first) and a tape backup drive, installed a sound card with joystick port as part of the multimedia kit that included the CD-ROM drive, added my first modem later, swapped in a larger hard drive (I think the original was 212 MB, and I replaced that with a whopping 1.6 GB). IIRC, I also swapped in a different processor at one point (the motherboard had a ZIF socket) and added some RAM. I really liked that machine a lot.

Seems like you have quite the collection!

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Funny story- my first 486 had no cd rom. I bought one to put in, but had a commitment that evening to help with a telethon fundraiser for a local charity. Before leaving, I told my 13 1/2 yr old son that, under no circumstances was he to mess with any of it while I was gone. I came home, he was standing there saying “you’re gonna be really mad at me”, and had tried installing the cd drive while I was gone, and “I think I broke it”. I checked, and only issue was he didn’t have the ribbon cable on quite right. He went on to do some video game work & testing with EA, Naughty Dog, Konami, etc.

I really miss the days when technology was relatively simple to learn (I was self taught). And back then, weren’t many females into it. That’s how I met my 2 best friends. One- he has been my bestie since 1994. The other, who passed away abt 13 yrs ago, (also besties since ‘94) was my Master Of Honor (twice- lol) when I got married. My children still think I was some sort of crazy hacker back in the day- lmao! Funny when your kids think you were some kind of legend or something (lol- hardly!). But I seriously did order pizza on the internet like Sandra Bullock- haha.

Remember pre-internet bulletin boards??? Those were the days.

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Oh yeah, those were indeed the days! My first modem was 300 baud (or bits per second if you prefer) back in 1985. Obviously that was well before the 486 PC and even pre-dates the 386. I was using a Commodore-64, which was my first computer that I still own to this very day. I haven’t had it up and running since 2001/2002 though. When connecting to a BBS one could literally read the text as fast it would appear on the screen. After the 300bps modem, I upgraded to a 1200, then a 2400, then a 4800, then a 9600, then a 14.400, then a 28,800, and then finally ended with a 56kbps. Every once and awhile I hear a fax machine handshaking and I have a flash back to those days.

I still remember the phone number to my favorite BBS from 1985. It was named Krackline BBS 612-484-5925. I used to manually dial the number by hand over and over and over. Once it didn’t ring busy, I would quickly connect the modem. The BBS was so popular it was the most reliable way to get through and connected. The old 300bps modem dialed far to slow and would almost always result in a busy signal. I couldn’t wait to get online and slaughter all of my real life neighbors (also Commodore users) in Championship Joust. I’ll never forget the time they stole my modem for the weekend and killed off my character. :rofl: I am still friends with a couple of those guys to this very day.

Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

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:upside_down_face:

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You caught me, the entire region was a single area-code back in those days. The 612 was not required when dialing.

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I remember days like that in a different part of the country. When I lived there it was 4 different codes in the metro area. :grin: