Wyze V4 camera, Quality question

I’m continuous recording to SD card (cloud recoding off) camera is set at 2.5k. Wondering if playback quality would be better if I took the card out and put it into my computer (m2 Mac mini)

I don’t have a v4 but with the OGs and Panv3s I have the quality is better when playing in the computer, since you’re playing the original file instead of re-recording and re-compressing the video. I would assume the same would hold true for the v4.

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Just curious. How did you turn cloud recording off?

Easiest way is to just remove the camera from your subscription. But assuming you want to keep web view and/or AI detections, I’m not sure if you can, someone with Cam Plus might be able to confirm. I seem to recall @habib letting his subscription expire to get rid of the extra bandwidth used by cloud recording, implying you can’t turn it off without removing the camera from the subscription.

Even if you could, note that AI detection still has to send video to the cloud for analysis, so if saving bandwidth is your goal, you can’t use AI detection features at all.

I’m curious how the OP turned cloud recording off. Or if he only thinks he turned cloud recording off.

Cloud (event) recording is independent from SD recording. Just toggle off Motion and Sound under Event Recording.

I don’t have a subscription, but turning off “sound” there does stop sound events from recording or notifying me (on the cams that I have set to events only).

Actually I’ve always wondered if having sound turned off disables the smoke/CO alarm notifications. Haven’t tested it to find out.

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Sound cloud events have never recorded for any of my cam models with sound detection toggled off. Same for motion cloud events. Some of my cams have both toggled off because they are purely IR emitters. Those IR cams aren’t tied to a subscription either. I also have v2 and v3 cams tied to Cam Plus Lite and both toggles work on or off. Smoke/CO alarm is independent from both Motion and Sound toggles and also generates cloud events. It seems odd that smoke/CO is not treated as an AI sound type and the setting is located in an obscure location (Alarm Settings).

Sorry I wasn’t clear, I only have micro SD, no subscription, and the settings under that screen you refer to do affect the SD card recording. So if you turn them off I’d think it would impact both (unless you want 24x7 card recording and don’t care about event tagging, but it is particularly useful in 24x7 mode).

I think what we’re discussing is the ability to disable cloud recording but keep event recording to SD card, which doesn’t seem possible?

To clear up any confusion I may have caused. I never paid for or activated their subscription. But I do have it set “Event recording” > “motion on”.

Watched some video playback today and it was all chopped, it would play 1 second then pause 1 second. Is this normal?

No, those cloud detection settings are independent from SD recording. In fact, stick an SD card in any Wyze cam model that has never been setup, plug it in and it will start recording without having been setup. Setup just grabs the time synch and start placing the video in the proper directories.

Are you watching the videos using the Wyze app connected to your cam or are you viewing the videos from the SD mounted on your Mac?

Odd. I haven’t toyed with it a lot but I know sound detection will notify me of sound events. I never checked to see if it recorded or tagged them on SD card. So the screen you refer to is only for cloud and notifications (still frames in my case) and the SD card is either “all” or “motion only” with no sound option?

Fine by me since I don’t want sound events, but that clears up some confusion.

If watching from the app that is definitely not normal. Indicative of a poor wifi connection (regardless of what the signal meter may say). My furthest cam that has borderline signal will pause for a second here and there but is mostly smooth.

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Yes, but the sound option for SD recording is in another obscure location (Advanced Settings > Record Sound). So if you don’t want any cloud recording, but do want SD recording with sound, toggle off Motion and Sound under Event Recording, toggle off Smoke and CO, and toggle on Record Sound under Advanced Settings. That will record video and sound to SD, but there will be no associated sound type notifications.

live streaming is smooth but playback from the sd card is bad…I’m just trying to be sure.

Yeah I have sound recording enabled for SD, just not sound triggered events/event recording. If I turn the sound trigger on, even without cam plus, I get a notification for sound events (no idea if it causes a recording to SD, based on what you’re saying, probably not, probably just a still frame and no icon on the timeline).

In that case, possibly the card can’t keep up? Viewing and recording at the same time puts extra load on the card. What kind of card is it? I use the Samsung Pro Endurance and they are not rated for super high speeds but they can keep up fine, playback is smooth even during recording.

Perhaps a bad card or you could try formatting it (ideally, use the SD Card Formatter utility from the SD Association’s website, at least for the first time format of the card). If you have the time to let it go, do the full overwrite format, which can help mark off bad cells and confirm the card is not a fake. If the card isn’t new, it could just be that it has bad sections and needs to be replaced.

Also, have you enabled the “hardware decoder” in the app? On both the phones I’ve tried that on, it caused various problems with playback and I shut it back off, though it affected livestream as well in my case, but worth asking.

As long as the camera isn’t streaming (to another device or to the cloud) when you’re playing back video, then your wifi should be sufficient, since it can handle the live stream and the bandwidth is the same for both.

Bought the card with camera brand new from amazon formatted with Wyze app. it’s a ((SanDisk 256GB Extreme microSDXC UHS-I Memory Card with Adapter - Up to 190MB/s, C10, U3, V30, 4K, 5K, A2, Micro SD Card))
Looked for the hardware decoder and found out it’s not available on IOS.
Thanks for helping.

If you can access the card, take it out and do a format using your computer, preferably the utility I mentioned before.

Did the card have a white label on the package (which would mean it was from a 3rd party and not Amazon)? If so, those are highly suspicious usually, but doesn’t mean it is definitely fake. I’m not sure if Sandisk has a authenticity validator utility (samsung does). But if you have a couple hours, put it in a computer and use the SD Formatter utility to do a complete overwrite format, that will not only ensure the card is formatted 100% to SD spec, but also confirm it is the size it claims to be. It should format it to ExFAT file system.

Even if it passes the capacity test, if it did have a white label on it, might want to verify I can read/write at decent speeds. It probably won’t hit 190 especially on write, as long as it can do 10-20 on both read and write you should be good.

Going forward after that, formatting in the camera should be fine, I just like to always run new SD cards through that utility to make sure everything is clean to start off.

If it still does it, then I’d suspect a bad card or bad slot in the camera. But if you pull the card and the files play fine in the computer, that implies the slot and card are probably ok…