Wyze Sense may be my last Early Backing

Sensors
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I am a frequent Wyze early adopter/pre-order person. (Cams , bulbs, thermostat, watch, sprinkler, lock, vacuum, sense, scale)

Until today I would only speak highly of my experience with Wyze products.

However, my experience with the support team could not be more ridiculous. In fact I’m still not sure if i was being trolled by the chat support person.

I setup the Sense Hub, 1 keypad, 5 entry sensors and a cam to test the system.

When I try to setup a second keypad the process times out. I follow all the steps and also all the troubleshooting steps from the support site.

I open a chat with support and my opening statement with support is: “I am trying to setup a second keypad but it is timing out. The hub is online, I have it working with 1 keypad and sensors already. The second keypad has batteries, power and the light flashed when I press the reset button. The keypad is next to the hub. I’ve tried 6 times and it always times, out.”

Response from support: “please wait while I prepare”

I wait for a few minutes.

Response from support: Is your hub online? (I reply yes)

A few minutes later: “thank you, please press the reset button until the home button flashes and try to connect the device” (I dutifully try again, it times out, I inform the support person)

A few minutes later: “Does the light come on when you press the reset button” (I say yes)

A few minutes later:: “Please check if the batteries are properly installed” (I confirm that they are)

A few minutes later: “Is the keypad near the hub?” (I confirm it is)

A few minutes later… on-and-on … Basically they read the troubleshooting checklist to me. Which I had hoped to preempt with my opening statement, I actually ask them if they are trolling me because every single item they ask me to check I confirmed in my first statement.

About 45 minutes into the support call they inform me that there can only be 1 keypad per hub. (the call lasted over 1 hour 15 minutes.)

I was incredulous. The Wyze website states:

  1. That the Wyze sense keypad " Requires Wyze Home Monitoring Core Starter Kit. This device will NOT function as an individual or standalone product." <<-- This implies that it must be used as a second keypad because the starter kit includes a keypad - logically, if it requires a starter kit, then it must work with the starter kit (as sold).

  2. in the FAQ: " How many accessories can you connect to a single Wyze Sense Hub." → answer: “Up to 100 sensors and keypads” <<-- notice the plural on keypads

So after 45-60 minutes of mostly waiting for the next question from support - questions that I had already answered, I am told that the problem is that the Hub cannot support more than a single keypad. The app was perfectly fine attempting to add a second keypad with no exception, the website implies that it should work. I can’t believe that it took well over an hour to get to this result.

To add to the bad experience: I decided to call support while I was waiting on the chat responses. (maybe that would be faster since it often took up to 2 minutes between chat responses. If we do the math barely 30 chat responses per hour… Not very good if the questions are already answered in the opening statement.)

(after 20 mins on hold) The person on the phone, after I explain in the same detail what my issue is and what I’ve already. The phone support starts the exact same troubleshooting process/questions as if I had not spoken a word about the troubleshooting steps I had already taken. I was mystified!

I explain to them that I have already gone through the troubleshooting step and need a higher tier support. The line goes dead… Suspicious, but I can’t say for certain they hung up on me. I did not call back.

In both cases, there was no acknowledgment that I had tried to troubleshoot already. And in both cases the fact that I was trying to install a second keypad did not raise any red flags.

This process wasted my time and Wyze’s finite support resources.

Question 1: Has anyone else had this type of support experience?

Question 2: I’m not sure I can trust the word of such badly trained support staff - is the website correct or the support person correct - can a second keypad be used?

I sincerely hope that this experience was an exception but that may be overly optimistic.

I hope that someone at Wyze can get into this and improve the support process before it tarnishes the brand.

1 Like
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I can understand your frustration. I would be really frustrated too.

I can confirm that multiple keypads definitely work fine. I use 2 and they are both fully functional.

I will clarify the following too:

What it means here by saying that the keypad is not a standalone device has nothing to do with the number of keypads, what it means is that the keypad does not connect directly to your router (works by itself), it is saying that you cannot use ANY Keypads without having a Hub to connect them to. You can definitely use 1, 2, 3, or a few dozen keypads on the same hub if you want, but you cannot use any without the hub. That’s what it is trying to say.

I know support can be frustrating because no matter you say to them, it is my understanding that they are forced to adhere strictly to following a script. Even if you already told them that you have done something, they still must ask you to do everything on their script before they move on to the next steps (including advanced tech support or replacement options). Until they finish the whole script, they can’t offer either of those to you.

Since you’ve already done it all, you can either pretend to do it again until you get to the end, or you can do the email support. They will still ask you to do all the troubleshooting first, but at least now it’s all at your leisure. If you’ve already done everything on their list, you can just respond back that it still didn’t pair. They’ll send more things to try, and do this with a few emails until finally, they’ll move on to what you’re looking for from them.

Don’t take it personally. You may be quite capable, tech savvy enough and smart, but they have to deal with a lot of people who are not but still THINK they are. They just have to make sure you really tried things correctly because you’d be surprised how often those simple troubleshooting steps resolve things for lots of people who never actually did them and the real issue was THEM, not the device. Wyze doesn’t want to risk wasting tons of shipping, and replacement devices over something that has nothing wrong with it.

As for the first guy who told you it only supports 1 keypad, I guarantee the guy just misunderstood something he read. They aren’t Wyze experts, they just follow a script, he probably ran a search about one keypad and saw something that said the core starter kit only includes 1 keypad and so he assumed this meant it can only use 1 total. He has no idea how any of it works, he just reads a script. Sorry you went through that frustration. Give Email a chance. Then you can do it at your convenience…it will take a few emails over several days, but at least you can skip through all the unnecessary stuff you’ve already tried a dozen times and just try any new things, and then get to the higher tech support or a replacement situation sooner.

I hope that helps. Best of luck. Let me know if you figure it out or how it turns out.

2 Likes
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Thanks, this was good timing to read because the chat support person is now on email saying I can only return the entire system, not just the keypad. Which means I probably have a bad keypad (since 2 should work) and they/he now wants be to send it all back.

I’m looking for Elana Fishman’s contact info because she really needs to be aware of this. Sense may be their most complex product launch and it’s going sideways and can/will damage the brand.

She actually is quoted with the bullets below, but can only act on them if she’s aware (I don’t think they know how bad it is with the Sense product line and support)

5 lessons in reputation management:

  1. Put Long-Term Customer Relationships Ahead of Short-Term Profits
  2. Make Customer Service Everyone’s Job
  3. Talk To Customers Like You Would Talk to a Friend
  4. Own Up to Mistakes and Explain Them
  5. Don’t Skimp On Details

Here → 5 Lessons in Reputation Management

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I guess it’s possible they only have replacements for the entire kit and not individual keypads…I ran into something similar with the video doorbell, They could only replace everything, not just one piece.

You could still try to tell them the keypad that came with the starter kit works fine, it’s just the extra second keypad that needs to be swapped out. I’d at least try that.

Regardless, you don’t have to send everything back first. You can wait until your replacement comes in first.

In addition, you could probably just take the keypad from the new kit and send the rest back with your old keypad. Works out to be the same thing in the end I bet.

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Hang in there… I understand the whole process can be a bit frustrating.

I can definitely say that a second keypad does indeed work with the HMS…

So If everything works other than the second keypad, work with Wyze to get that new HMS starter kit sent to you… And in theory, when it arrives, just remove the keypad from it and pair it to your existing HMS kit. I say in theory because you never know if per se, once you activated the HMS system, there may be some sort of association with the activation and some internal code/serial number of the HMS kit itself that Wyze is using as reference. (Unlikely, but possible…)

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Thanks for the second confirmation - I am now asking for a replacement keypad instead of returning the second one.

Unfortunately, I am communicating via email with the same person as on the “chat” who told me that a second keypad does not work - so I’m not optimistic that this request will go quickly/smoothly. AS carverofchoice mentioned, I can always start fresh with an e-mail ticket and a fresh support person.

It is really disappointing though - I used to tell everyone about how wonderful my Wyze products were. Now I’m much less confident that going all-in with them was a good choice.

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If you have your case number handy, you can provide it to @UserCustomerGwen … I’m sure she be able to assist further!

(And FYI: I just received my third keypad for my HMS setup… installed it with no problems … To me, that would indicate that if you had just two keypads, the system should be perfectly fine in handling the second one…)

Side note… I recently fully migrated to all Wyze products for automation and now with the HMS… yeh sometimes things can go a bit sideways/finicky, but hopefully with all the folks on the forum, you will be able to piece together a viable solution.