I have over 8 Wyze cameras, including a doorbell. Each one has a microSD card, and up until December 2025, I also had a Cam Plus subscription on all of them.
About a month ago, I cancelled the subscription. Since then, none of the SD cards are working—they’ve all failed, won’t record anything, and even formatting them gives an error.
It feels like too much of a coincidence. I’m starting to wonder if this is intentional to push users into keeping Cam Plus.
I’ll do some troubleshooting to confirm. If I find that recording to SD cards has been deliberately disabled, I’ll be getting rid of all my Wyze cameras.
Since you didn’t mention which camera models you’re using, I’d note that Wyze appears to be actively investigating microSD issues for some specific models:
I’d be inclined to check out that topic as well as to participate there by sharing details about what cards you’re using, what specific issues you’re seeing, whether the cards work in other devices (including a PC), whether you’ve used something like the SD Memory Card Formatter to do a full/overwrite format, etc.
I’ve personally experienced microSD card issues for a couple of years with one of my two Cam Pan v3s (but not the other), and this was prior to my use of any Wyze subscriptions. In other words,
microSD card recording can work as expected without a subscription,
microSD card problems can occur on Cams without a subscription,
microSD card problems can continue to occur even when a Cam is subscribed, so
subscribing to a Wyze plan does not fix microSD card problems, and
subscription status has no apparent effect on microSD card performance despite frequent suspicions that this is the case.
That’s the conclusion I’ve drawn based on my own experience and what I’ve read to this point, anyway. I’d really like to see a definitive resolution to this issue for all users.
Edit @ 2026-04-13T22:47:48Z
You mentioned Cam Pan v3 in a subsequent post below, so I updated your topic’s tags to reflect this.
Is it possible the SD cards died gradually over the years and now that you don’t have cloud clips to view, you’re just noticing them?
I would try the reset services that has been suggested, but there is definitely no intentional disabling of SD cards if you don’t have (or cancel) a subscription. In fact they’re actively working on adding RTSP support to multiple models of cam so any conspiracies that they’re trying to force subscriptions are even more debunked by that fact (since that gives you even more non-subscription flexibility).
Try pulling one of the cards and formatting it using the formatter from sdcard.org. Do a full overwrite format (will take some time). If that fails, the card has gone bad. If it succeeds, you can attempt to fill it with files as a test to confirm that it is able to write to the full capacity of the card without issues.
Or if you have a spare known good card you can swap that in one of the cams and see if it starts working again.
I suppose it is possible that the removal of the subscription has confused things. Removing and reinstalling the app, or even factory resetting and re-adding a camera might be worthwhile things to attempt if none of the above works, but I don’t think that should be necessary. The fact that even formatting the card fails leads me towards the cards being bad or somehow getting corrupted all at once, possibly from a power outage etc.
so is there s definitive answer as to whether the cameras will work without any subscription? I was on a Cam Plus with QTY. 4 v2 cams, but Wyze was going to double the price of the subscription at the next renewal, so I stopped using the cameras. I guess the question’s more academic at this point – I replaced the cameras with ones from Eufy for less than what the updated subscription would have been for the year. Still would be nice to know – the cameras are in working order.
I spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting and testing, and it seems the issue depends on the camera model. My Wyze Cam Pan v3 won’t recognize the SD card despite trying everything—factory reset, restart, using a new SD card, and even formatting the card externally.
However, I tested the same SD card with an older Wyze camera, and it worked without any issues.
Yes, they 100% definitely will work without a subscription, there are obviously some benefits you’ll lose but core functionality, SD card recording, etc all work perfectly fine. The main changes are that you can only tag/notify one event max per 5 minutes (well technically 2, one motion and one sound) and there are no “Smart” detections for person/vehicle/pet/package/etc unless the cam you have has some of those built in.
I’ve never had a subscription, going on about 2.5 years, 9 cams of various models.
If you have Cam Plus Lite the V2s should continue to work with that for no cost also.
Have you updated it to the latest app and firmware? That has solved this issue for some (but not all) people. Also if you have the cam mounted “upside down” with the cam on the bottom, that unfortunately can cause various issues as water can eventually work its way in. Thoroughly drying the cam in a bag of rice or desiccant (over night at least) and cleaning out the SD card slot may help in that case (but also may not).
