Wyze is not the company it used to be!

Cameras
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1

Three of my older Wyze cameras stopped working immediately after the latest firmware update.

I spent about two hours with support. The front-line reps were excellent—patient, professional, and clearly doing their best within the limits they’ve been given.

But the process itself is the problem.

As a network engineer with 30 years of experience, I can say confidently: this is not a network issue. This looks like a firmware regression affecting older devices—something that should have been caught in testing.

Instead, the support flow is stuck in a loop of basic troubleshooting (reboots, connectivity checks) with no effective path to engineering. Add in multiple chat disconnects, and the experience becomes unnecessarily frustrating.

This points to a larger issue at Wyze: a support model that’s internally focused rather than customer-focused. When front-line teams are isolated from engineering, real problems don’t get solved—they get recycled.

I suggest Yun Zhang, Melissa Kirmayer Eamer and Dongsheng Song admit their support system stinks and redesign it from the ground up.

What would help:

  • Stronger regression testing across legacy hardware

  • Clear escalation paths to engineering with feedback loops

  • Reliable support tooling (chat stability matters)

  • A rollback option when firmware updates break working devices

Wyze built its reputation by doing things better than the incumbents. But gaps like this are exactly how companies lose that edge over time.

Wyze’s core advantage is price, not engineering rigor. Once you move up even slightly:

  • Firmware quality improves

  • Support improves

  • Failure rates drop

…but you’ll usually give up:

  • ultra-low cost

  • free cloud features

I hope this gets fixed—not just for me, but for everyone relying on these devices.

2

As further evidence and to help Wyze customers understand. I will use the tale of RTSP.

After spending time digging into this, here’s something most people don’t realize about Wyze cameras and RTSP support.

RTSP was introduced back in 2019 for the Wyze Cam v2 and Wyze Cam Pan — but only as beta firmware. It was never integrated into their main firmware line.

From there, it essentially stalled:

  • Firmware diverged (RTSP vs. normal updates)
  • RTSP builds lagged behind on features and fixes
  • Support was minimal to nonexistent

There was a small revival around 2022, but nothing changed strategically. It remained a side project, not a real feature.

Here’s the key point:

RTSP fundamentally conflicts with Wyze’s architecture and business model.

RTSP enables:

  • Local streaming
  • NVR integration (Blue Iris, Synology, etc.)
  • Reduced reliance on cloud services

Wyze is built around:

  • Low-cost hardware
  • Cloud processing
  • Subscription revenue (Cam Plus)

Those two directions don’t align.

There’s also a technical reality most people overlook:

These cameras run on low-cost, resource-constrained SoCs (often from companies like HiSilicon or T31 Ingenic). The firmware stack is optimized for:

  • event-driven recording
  • motion detection pipelines
  • cloud upload workflows

RTSP requires a different model:

  • persistent streaming sessions
  • additional encoding/bitrate handling
  • buffer and memory management under continuous load

Retrofitting that into an already tight firmware footprint increases:

  • instability risk
  • thermal/load pressure
  • regression risk across millions of deployed devices

And then there’s the support side—which is where things really blow up.

RTSP introduces:

  • codec/profile mismatches (H.264 variations, bitrates, GOP tuning)
  • client incompatibility (VLC vs. NVRs vs. mobile apps)
  • network edge cases (NAT, firewall traversal, multicast vs. unicast)

Every one of those becomes a support ticket.

For a company already operating at scale with consumer-grade support, RTSP doesn’t just add complexity—it multiplies it. You go from a controlled app experience to an open-ended integration surface with effectively infinite failure modes.

So instead of becoming a standard feature, RTSP stayed in a kind of limbo:

  • technically possible
  • occasionally updated
  • never fully supported

If you’re coming from a networking or systems background, this explains the disconnect. RTSP isn’t missing because it’s hard—it’s missing because it doesn’t fit the product strategy—or the support model required to sustain it.

If local control, stability, and interoperability matter, you’re generally better off with vendors where RTSP/ONVIF is part of the core design—not an afterthought

3

RTSP is available in production firmware/app for the v3 and Panv3. They are working on other models, but it is unlikely they’ll add it to the older v1 and v2 (just my own guess given the age of those cams).

4

Frustrating for sure. I invested in the Wyze ecosystem because a competing company (starts with a B and rhymes with Stink) messed up my account access and would not provide a way to unregister the products or just hard reset everything. Those products are now either in a box in my garage or in a landfill somewhere. ANYHOO.

To your point,… As an IT pro for decades, I too am frustrated by planned obsolescence or inconsistent product development and support protocols. I get it… to stay in business and sell relatively inexpensive consumer goods, the business model often conflicts with the end user’s expectations, however, I’m not going to shell out thousands of $ on top-tier products, just to watch a squirrel or delivery guy walk near my driveway, although there is peace of mind knowing I can have a look around whenever I want to. I hope to never need security devices to provide evidence after the fact, in the event an unfortunate incident occurs.

As a final footnote - I do believe these products have purposeful value and have spent considerable time and money striving for an integrated DIY solution for the same reasons most others do. Inconsistencies and disappointments are inevitable in life and business, and it often sucks but that’s the way it goes. Good luck and kudos for demanding some accountability from companies who rely on customers to make payroll.:sunglasses: