📚 Wyze Glossary

[peepeep]

I find this a fun development:

@peepeep

People (naturals) should compose a definition off the top of their heads and then query the Wyze bot to compare. John Henry vs the Steam Engine. Sort of.

May not be ‘fun’ to everyone.

[Crease]

@peepeep

“Subscribed” - “signed-on and active in” - the collaborative project?

I wondered if you meant something like that, but I wasn’t sure. Maybe that word needs to be in the glossary (cf. “engaged” ).

[peepeep]

video compression

All Wyze cams compress all video before it is provided for live streaming (both local and remote) uploaded to the cloud or committed to the SD card in the cam. Compression reduces the transmission load on networks. It also degrades the video/audio quality from its raw, straight-from-the-lens/mic, state. Developers try to strike a balance between reduced size and acceptable quality. It’s not easy to serve both well.

[peepeep]

CODEC

An algorithmic tool that compresses video as described in ‘video compression’ above. Stands for code/decode, I think (like MODEM stands for modulate/demodulate.)

[peepeep]

artifacts

Distortions in the video image due to video compression. Also present in audio. More likely to occur in a scene with movement. More likely to occur when there are a variety of subjects of different character (near/far, light/dark, still/moving etc) that the CODEC is trying to reconcile. Imperfectly.

[peepeep]

@Crease

Maybe “wired” and “wireless” would be good, since Wyze apparently considers their battery-powered cameras to be “wireless” and their AC-powered cameras to be “wired”, though all of the cameras communicate wirelessly.

Yes! I was just about to post this:

Wired, wireless and wifi. What’s the diff with respect to Wyze cams?

…but searched the thread first. Apparently I missed your edit when first posted.

[carverofchoice]

@peepeep

Wired, wireless and wifi. What’s the diff with respect to Wyze cams?

• [Power Grid] Wired (uses a plug and USB cord to stay continually powered)

• [Power Grid] Wireless (usually has a battery so it doesn’t NEED a cord plugged into the power grid [AC Outlet], but it may still have a cord for a solar panel, or it may even still be plugged into an outlet. And even if you choose to plug a “wireless” Battery camera into an outlet, Wyze still calls it “Wireless” because it’s OPTIONAL. Maybe it should be relabeled as “Optionally wired”?

• [Internet] Wireless = using a radio signal to connect to the internet or to connect to another device which connects to the internet (all Wyze cameras are internet-wireless). Some devices may connect through WiFi, some through Bluetooth, some through 915mHz, some through Zigbee (Original Lock/Gateway)

• [Internet] Wired = uses an Ethernet cord (e.g. Wyze Sense Hub, Wyze Base Station)

[peepeep]

Nice!

[peepeep]

kill switch

A toggle that completely disables a (usually vital) function.

eg, the Wyze app provides a toggle to prevent recording of audio (to both local SD card & remote cloud Events) but does not provide one to exclude audio from livestreams.

A kill switch would completely disable the microphone, killing all audio birds with one stone.

[peepeep]

mute

‘Masks’ audio (versus killing its source.)

You can mute audio in a cam’s livestream by tapping the speaker icon on the displayed video in the app.

If you have formally shared the cam with someone (or shared your credentials so that they can be signed in to your account simultaneously on another device) they will still hear whatever audio that cam’s mic is picking up when they access its livestream.

[peepeep]

@gemniii

There needs to be a glossary.

I doubt this’ll rouse him, but you never know.

[Crease]

Something I’ve really wanted to see in glossary or guide form is a primer defining all of the UI elements in the Wyze app, because a lot of users—especially those posting for the first time with a problem—seem to have difficulty adequately explaining what part of the app they’re using and having issues with in a way that other community members can immediately grasp the nature of the problem and provide assistance. That’s one reason it’s so frequently necessary to ask good follow-up questions, which can be helpful for a number of reasons:

• They (hopefully) elicit better and more useful/detailed information from the user experiencing the problem.
• They (hopefully) help to shed light on the primary and potentially ancillary issues and can tease out whether more than one problem is occurring.
• They promote user-to-user dialogue, which (hopefully^[1]) increases engagement and makes the community better.
• They contribute to a record that might be helpful to others experiencing the same problem(s) in the future.

I enjoy the back-and-forth involved in problem solving, and I especially like the aspect that allows me to try to educate others (so that hopefully they’ll be helpful to others in turn), but I realize that even that process can be frustrating to some who are already frustrated and just want a more immediate fix for an issue, perhaps because of an urgent need with a camera or something. In that case, guidance about how to efficiently describe a problem in the first place—using the “correct” words in some sort of “standard” way that other users will understand—could be helpful…but then you gotta ask, “Who’s going to actually read and use that?” (How often do we see user requests or suggestions for new features or products and have to direct them to How to Use the Wishlist because they apparently haven’t already read that?)

Back to my original point, a guide could be useful, because there are a number of Forum topics where users have requested more thorough documentation about a product (usually wanting a PDF or some other more detailed manual to supplement the Quick Start Guide^[2]), so a UI elements guide could potentially fill some of that void, especially if it came directly from Wyze’s design team. As disjointed, fragmented, and piecemeal as the various parts of the app often seem, I’d like to imagine that somewhere Wyze has created some sense of a style guide for internal use in order to promote consistency for the UI/UX, and hopefully that would include labels and definitions for all the elements. While I wouldn’t expect them to share everything within such a document (if it exists), at least exposing the preferred terms for interface parts could be helpful for user-to-user communication so that we don’t have to guess at what some things are.

For instance, if I tap on a Cam v4’s tile within the Wyze app to get to the Live Stream screen (which I believe is also referred to that camera’s main “plugin page”^[3]), beneath the live view pane is a row of virtual feature buttons, which I used to refer to as a “control strip” because I wasn’t sure what else to call it and that’s what made sense to me, but apparently Wyze refers to this UI element as the

@WyzeJasonJ

menu bar

Since reading that, I’ve tried to be consistent about writing “menu bar” instead of “control strip” when attempting to assist other users. Things like this would be good to know so that we’re all speaking the same language.

What’d really be helpful, I think, is an illustrated guide with labeled elements linking to definitions and explanations of the elements along with gestures that can be used with said elements, such as…

• double-tap the live view pane to zoom in/out
• pinch/spread the live view pane to to zoom out/in
• spread/pinch the microSD card recording timeline to zoom in/out

That gets back to the first few entries in this topic with some possibilities:

double-tap

Tap one’s fingertip twice in rapid succession on a control in order to achieve a specific effect, similar to double-clicking a mouse button. For instance, double-tapping the view pane while watching a camera’s live view or microSD card playback will zoom into the portion of the image that was tapped; double-tapping again will zoom out. Double-tap can also be used to zoom in/out while navigating some cameras’ microSD card recording timelines. Using this gesture zooms in or out to a defined or predetermined set point. Finer zoom control can be achieved with pinch or spread.

pinch

Place one’s thumb and index finger (typically, though other digits could be used to create two distinct points of contact) some distance apart on a control and move them together in a “pinching” gesture. This gesture is often used to zoom out of an image or other UI element, acting as if the user is trying to bring the points below the fingertips together on the screen. It is the opposite of spread.

spread

Place one’s thumb and index finger (typically, though other digits could be used to create two distinct points of contact) together on a control and move them away from one another in a “spreading” gesture. This gesture is often used to zoom in on an image or other UI element, acting as if the user is trying to move the points below the fingertips apart—spread them—on the screen and is the opposite of pinch. Synonyms sometimes encountered: stretch, un-pinch, anti-pinch.

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Incidentally, when you use Markdown headings (# example), Discourse gives you a nice little link icon that you can use to link to that specific point of a post, and you can see that if you hover your mouse pointer over a heading. You can copy that URL and use it to link to a specific portion of a post rather than the beginning of the post itself, like this:

[example](https://forums.wyze.com/t/wyze-glossary/334876#p-1019325-example-1)

example

That might be helpful for something like the table near the top of this topic, if one were so inclined to use it that way.

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1. There’s a thread of optimism running through my blathering. ↩︎

2. Quick Start Guide (“QSG”) might actually be a good glossary entry. ↩︎

3. This might be another glossary candidate. ↩︎

[peepeep]

BOOM! and AHA!

Very nice, young fellow!

If I was Wyze I would hire and pay you to be the Chief of doing things you describe here, so that over time, Wyze could suck less (in the eyes of its detractors) and inspire even greater confidence in its fan base!

You go, carbuncle! Well done!

[peepeep]

@Crease

helpful for something like the table near the top of this topic

Also, it can be embiggened by adding a <big>on a per cell basis (as far as I can tell.)

[carverofchoice]

@Crease

double-tap

Something John Wick has perfected?

@Crease

pinch

Something to be careful of on St Patrick’s Day if you aren’t wearing green in your profile picture?

@Crease

spread

When we’re betting on the odds of Wyze actually implementing a particular wishlist request feature sometime in our lifetime?

Did I get them right?

[peepeep]

@carverofchoice

…betting on the odds of Wyze actually implementing a particular wishlist request feature sometime in our lifetime?

Maybe later.

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@Crease

: Chief of doing things you describe here…

Chief of Consistency?
Clarity?
Precision?
Concision?

I like Chief of Clarity, myself. Not for me. For you.

[peepeep]

What about that thing where when you buy Wyze services in the app (versus the Wyze site) you are at the mercy of Apple & Google as far as adjustments and refunds. What are the terminologies for that?

In-app vs on-site? PITA?

[Crease]

@carverofchoice

Did I get them right?

Yes, especially the third item.

@peepeep

Concision?

Concise I am not…generally. Someone else would be much better suited to that position.

@peepeep

Chief of Clarity

That has a nice ring to it, as long as that person doesn’t consistently talk about^[1] it and actually does it. Otherwise it feels like it’s veering into the realm of a political exercise.

@peepeep

What are the terminologies for that?

Don’t do these things!

Just one big ol’ subheading, maybe with an appropriate warning from the Lost in Space robot.

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1. “Let me be clear….” ↩︎

[peepeep]

‘Let me be clear’ appears to be attributed to POTUS 44 (‘his favorite words’ ‘his catch phrase’ sez the media.) I did not know that.

I agree with your ‘as long as’ for sure.

[Crease]

He’s not alone. Seems to be a contagious verbal crutch.