I thought I’d write a more comprehensive answer I can refer to later since I see so many users believe their connectivity issues are solely Wyze’s fault. Some will cite their good/strong signal strength or Bandwidth as evidence it’s definitely Wyze’s fault, though the issue is way more complicated than just signal strength or even bandwidth alone.
I used to experience a lot of these issues (devices losing connection and having to reboot often, etc) in the past myself. It was VERY frustrating having to reboot my Wyze Cams, Routers, and other devices so often. So I can totally relate. I tried so many things and did so much research and testing. I learned a lot about this. I finally got my connectivity resolved and I rarely have to reboot anything anymore even though I now have over 200 Wyze devices on my network including more than 2 dozen cameras using Cam Plus and uploading video constantly, etc. So after my experience I am now pretty confident that most of the time the issue is NOT Wyze since it is possible to have everything working reliably with few to no problems. My connectivity issues and my issues of needing to reboot basically all disappeared after I worked through some of the following.
ISP -
- I had Comcast/Xfinity and it was absolutely horrid. I swear half my problems were related to Comcast. When I switched ISP’s, I had a huge improvement. (At my previous house I had no choice but Comcast, then I moved and had to have Comcast here too. Then my city installed fiber and let us pick nearly any ISP we wanted. I switched and it was exponentially better.
DNS -
- When I switched from my default DNS (Comcast/Xfinity) to either openDNS or Google I saw some stability improvement. Honestly, it’s a huge mistake to use your ISP’s DNS as your default DNS. Lots of ISPs are notorious for messing with your bandwidth and rate-limiting and prioritizing things against your consent. You don’t want your ISP seeing everything you do and being able to mess with it for their gain since they are the ones controlling your bandwidth. Make every effort to keep your DNS separate from your ISP. Switching to an Alternative DNS server also has the following Advantages:
- Usually faster
- Better name resolution
- More Privacy Focused
- Reliability (less likely to have outages or downtime compared to ISP DNS servers); but also all connections are treated EQUALLY by them vs your ISP messing with priority and screwing up some connections (you can choose different priority locally from your own router still, but at least your ISP/DNS won’t be screwing with things against your consent).
- Trustworthy (ISP’s often redirect “not found” requests to advertising pages because they get paid to, and reputable third-party DNS providers don’t engage in this practice)
- Security - many DNS providers block malicious and harmful connections/domains instead of rate limiting competition or things for personal gain.
- No rate limiting or profitable censoring
- Advanced security services or filtering (vs profit-oriented)
Cable/Daisy-chaining issues -
- Because cable shares bandwidth with the whole neighborhood (or city), devices often have issues during peak hours. We may have a good bandwidth in theory, but when the entire neighborhood is competing for limited resources, we all get screwed. You can sometimes even run a speed test and it might look okay since the cable company might temporarily prioritize you over others, especially to look like your connection is still okay. Our router then has to prioritize what it gives priority and IoT devices often don’t have priority. Rebooting my router or Wyze devices helped to reset things and re-establish the needed connection from scratch and it would then usually work for a while again. But if a cable company has a limit of X bandwidth for a neighborhood and the combined neighborhood is using more than that, they also have to decide what they’re going to prioritize… And net neutrality is currently in danger for telecom companies like this, so we can’t expect they’ll give Wyze equal priority as some company paying them for priority. Dropped packets, slowed packets, show connection etc… I’d look at the provider first.
- There might not be much you can do about this if your cable company has a monopoly and your options are limited.
2.4ghz congestion/interference issues.
- The more devices competing for the same channel and band, can cause a lot of dropped packets and basically jamming experiences. There are apps out there that will analyze all the congestion near you and tell you what would be the best channel to broadcast your 2.4ghz bandwidth SSID on. Some routers try to do this automatically, but many just default to a certain channel on their own…the problem is that the channels they usually default to are the same ones others default to, so they are also the ones with the most congestion and problems because everyone else does the same thing. Many people don’t even know you can change the channel, but sometimes it makes a big difference to switch to a non-overlapping channel. Some routers even offer more channels than others. This is one of the best solutions to the issue of average speed per device limitations (discussed more below in the Router performance limits).
- 20 MHz setting vs 40 MHz setting for 2.4G Radio settings. Part of your problem could be based on whether you are using 20MHz or 40 MHz. 40 MHz has a higher throughput than 20 MHz because of what’s called “channel bonding.” The problem with channel bonding is that it reduces the number of non-overlapping channels, which increases the chances you are getting interference. For some people it’s better to use 40 MHz if you have a ton of use going on and it’s mostly just you near yourself. For others in crowded areas or apartments where lots of other people are also using lots of WiFi, it might be better to use 20 MHz so that you can more easily let your router switch to a channel that isn’t so congested. It’s a tough call to tell you which is best for you, but this could be a big problem for some people.
- Consider all the common interference issues listed in this article:
- Your Neighbor’s Network
- Separate Wireless Networks in Your Own Home (This could also include things like your printer, “WiFi Extenders” WAP’s, various smart home devices, etc)
- Bluetooth (Headsets, keyboards, mice, and countless other things use “frequency hopping” and will skip around the 2.4GHz band up to 16000 times per second ruining some of the Wi-Fi traffic and causing delays which doesn’t hurt things that can “buffer” a TV stream, but hurts things that need a “Live stream” with no latency, and can cause disconnections and channel changes, etc)
- Baby Monitors, Walkie-Talkies and Other Radios including key or Pet trackers.
- Microwave Oven - uses EMW’s of 2.4GHz to heat food, which can mess with nearby 2.4GHz WiFi with “leakage” of waves (Most Microwaves are 1000W and WiFi AP’s are only 0.1W max, so even a little leakage can overwhelm and destroy your WiFi even if it’s not dangerous to you.
- Concrete and Masonry Walls
- Thick Timber Walls
- Metal and Floor Heating
- Water (ie: Hydronics for heating you home, really big aquarium, etc. can all block signals going past them)
- The TV (don’t put your router or other things behind the TV)
5GHz SSID and 2.4GHz SSID with Matching vs Diff names
- Related to interference: For whatever reason, some routers (but not all) have issues with being able to properly route some devices when the 2.4GHz and 5GHz band SSID (network name) are the same name. Sometimes when a Wyze device (or those from other companies) can’t connect or continually disconnect or have connectivity issues, it turns out that there is a conflict related to the different bands having the same SSID name. When a person then creates a separate SSID (like a guest network) where the 2.4GHz band has it’s own unique name, suddenly the devices are able to connect and maintain a good connection. If you have consistent connectivity issues or can’t connect a new device to your router for some reason, this should be one of the first things you try to see if it makes a difference. It’s irrelevant whether “other devices” work fine with it, even other devices of the same model from the same company, or even whether this particular unit has worked fine with it in the past. For whatever reason, sometimes this problem creeps up and only resolves by making a unique name for a 2.4GHz band. This can mostly be considered a router issue because a person who has this issue can swap out for a different higher quality router and often not have this issue anymore. Thus, if the router’s connection and routing is programmed well, it can often avoid this issue. Though it is also true that device manufacturers can often mitigate this issue with using better chips and improved programming as well on their end.
Memory leak issues -
- Many times when people have to reboot their routers (or their MODEM), or their devices, it is due to the router (or modem) or the device having a memory leak issue that just keeps building up and causing more issues over time until it gets rebooted and cleared. These are actually fairly common, especially with routers, modems, and computers. Rebooting either device fixes the problem [temporarily] and re-establishes the connection. This is why a lot of people schedule to reboot their router/modem every night in the middle of the night. It force clears the memory leak issues so everything is fresh and works cleanly the next day. Often, if your Wyze devices need to be rebooted every day, my first instinct is that the router/modem has a memory leak issue. This can often be mitigated by scheduling a smart plug to cycle every night while you sleep.
Power Issues -
- Long Cords or 3rd Party Cords - Not all cords are equal. Some 3rd party cords are poor quality, and long cords lose power. If you are using a long 3rd party cord, please refer to this thread for ways in which you can improve your experience and compensate for the power drop issues.
- Power Adapter - Consider swapping out the power adapter for a different one. This has resolved many people’s problems.
- These power issues are most common when people use 3rd party solutions rather than the original Wyze adapter and cord, however, it is always possible that an included power adapter and cord can malfunction. Swapping the power adapter and cord for a different one (that also gives off adequate power volts/amps for the model camera in question can make a huge difference in the experience. It can improve video uploads to be reliable, resolve issues of the camera randomly rebooting, resolve the camera suddenly going offline sometimes, and many similar connectivity issues that are caused by inadequate reliable power that manifests as a seeming connectivity issue.
Router performance limits -
- Routers have RAM limits and different processors that can handle different amounts of strain, power limitations, among other constraints. As others mentioned, different routers can handle a different number of devices and type of use. Most have a recommended limitation. Often people have a cheap router that can’t handle many devices, and have a bunch of IoT devices have problems because of this.
- There’s also an issue about Maximum speed (which few to no devices will ever hit) vs the average speed per device. This can be an issue, particularly on lower end routers.
- Related to this are router incompatibility issues. I won’t get into this too much, but some routers have struggles with IoT devices or their chips in some cases. For example, openWRT based routers have a known issue with certain IoT chips. They work totally fine with others, but they have issues with certain chips. Apparently, it is related to the WMM feature in some way since since people can get them to work better by disabling the WMM in the firmware.
The Wyze V1 bulb happens to use one of the chips that openWRT has issues with sometimes. I believe the V1 Plug also does. It’s my understanding Wyze uses a different chip in later models, but the point is that sometimes a router, or more accurately the router firmware has a compatibility flaw in it that other routers have no problem with. - My suggestion?
- Look for a router with WiFi 6 capabilities. I’ve read a ton of articles where people said that switching to a WiFi 6 router made a huge difference in their IoT stability. Some of it doesn’t make a lot of logical sense considering WiFi 6 shouldn’t actually affect most legacy IoT devices using 2.4ghz, but for some reason something about it seems to make an improvement with allowing lots of devices to connect simultaneously instead of waiting in line.
- Good Mesh Routers are helpful. They reduce the processing strain off the primary node as well as giving increased signal strength to other areas. My Primary node signal is STRONG enough to get through the entire house, but having a second node that other devices can connect to can make a huge difference. You need to learn how to change when a device connects to which Mesh Node. On my Mesh system, almost every device will just connect to the main node by default if I leave everything at the default settings. So I changed the settings to force more of them to connect to the second node if they are within a certain RSSI (signal strength) of the second node. I just moved this number up or down until I felt there were enough devices using the second node instead of the primary. Mesh routers can also usually communicate with devices on one channel while communicating with the primary Mesh node on a separate dedicated channel (wired or wireless backhaul) so there is no conflict…extenders cannot do this, so they often cause interference problems and have to split what they’re trying to do. Extenders do not typically work anywhere near as well as a Mesh network that can use dedicated backhauls, but in many cases they can help with issues related to overload or signal strength if those are the primary issues at hand which need resolving.
- When I was looking for a new router, @spamoni gave me some recommendations to look into, and ultimately he and I both concluded the ASUS ZenWiFi AX6600 was the best of all the options we were considering at the time. I have 2 nodes handling hundreds of Wyze devices, including more than a dozen with Cam Plus frequently uploading events, several of them nearly constantly. I have CLOSE to every device Wyze has made and I rarely to never have to reboot a device, with a few exceptions for things like all the beta testing I do on some of the devices, or testing things out to help forum members or trying to replicate issues they are experiencing. But compared to the aggravating connection and rebooting issues I used to have…those are far in the past for me despite having increasingly added more and more devices to my network. I am pretty confident that myself, @spamoni and @R.Good are EASILY in the top 1% of users with the most Wyze devices active at a time (partially because 2 years ago Wyze sent me an email saying I was in the top 2%, and my collection has grown exponentially since then and the 3 of us have a friendly contest about who has the Wyze-iest house).
And the thing is that despite our excessive addiction to a ridiculous number of Wyze devices, we rarely have the connection problems others report…so that’s worth considering what the difference is…The ASUS mesh router has treated me really well. It’s a big pricey, but it’s amazingly effective at handling tons of IoT devices in my experience so far. I am confident that this made one of the biggest differences because I made this change a month or 2 before I upgraded my bandwidth, and there was a marked improvement just from the router alone. I should mention that I went through trying at least 5 different routers in a 2.5 year period…7 if you count my attempts at replacing the stock firmware with Gargoyle Router firmware (an openWRT based firmware). I also tried using some WiFi extenders, and I tried changing a couple of routers into repeaters. Those both extenders and repeaters seemed to cause more congestion and conflict for me, sometimes bringing new issues (whereas Mesh nodes can often connect on either a wired or separate wireless backhaul channel without causing extra issues). All those solutions (extenders, etc) still had issues for me. It was really aggravating. Some of those things work well for others (ie: signal strength or mild load issues), but for me, switching to this ASUS Mesh router was the thing that primarily saved my sanity (Thank you @spamoni for recommending I check out reviews and videos and such on it…you saved my sanity more than I can say). I have had few issues with this router compared to all the others I tried.
- DHCP Conflicts - It should be noted that if you are using routers from 2 different companies at the same time, you may be having both of them trying to manage DHCP separately and causing IP address conflicts. It’s also possible your router with a single company doesn’t manage DHCP and IP address leasing well and causes these conflicts, which often kicks one or both of these devices offline. If you are using 2 different router brands, see if you can turn one of them into “Bridge Mode” or otherwise somehow disable DHCP on the secondary router(s) and assign static IP addresses for as many devices as possible. This can be a good resolution to a router that is causing devices to go offline due to IP address conflicts.
- Coverage, Placement and Antenna orientation: Some people’s problems are solely or partially due to their placement & coverage limitations or a misunderstanding about their antennas. You can use some apps to test this, but know that it absolutely does often matter where you place your router, what way it faces (right side up, upside down, vertical, etc), and how the antennas are pointed (external/intenal antennas).
Bandwidth Limitations [especially upload limits]
- This was kind of addressed with the cable/Daisy-chaining, but we can point out the bandwidth limits in general can make a big difference, especially depending on how often they are using that bandwidth. If you have a low upload rate, but you’re trying to use Cam Plus on multiple cameras, you’re going to have problems, especially if you are also using the internet for other things that require upload access. I can’t say what the limit is or what you need since it will all depend on your individual use…what other devices you have, how much you use different services and when and so many things. I don’t know what’s enough for any particular person. I can only say the following:
- Once I upgraded to 1gbps up and down, I’ve never had bandwidth problems even with my excessive amount of IoT and constant use of tons of cams and devices. I’m not saying whether a particular individual needs more or not, we can only guess…but bandwidth does play a HUGE part, especially Upload bandwidth, which is usually exponentially smaller for most people than their download bandwidth.
- Keep in mind that if you are trying to live stream between your camera and your app on your phone, while they are connected to the same router/network, GENERALLY they will connect locally over the router and not use the internet at all (note this is apparently not the case for the webview, which uses internet through Amazon Kinesis). So if you are having problems with streaming locally, then you likely have a router problem (as addressed elsewhere in this post), OR you can have big problems when the Network in question implements different things like “device isolation,” because then the phone and camera are prevented from communicating with each other directly on the router locally. They will have to use the internet to connect to each other even though they are on the same router/network. This is often the default setting for things like a second SSID or Guest network, for example. So, some people who have everything on the same network still sometimes connect to their devices through their internet bandwidth instead of locally on the router. This is a safer best practice that is generally recommended, but it has negative impact on people with low internet bandwidth or ISP or DNS or other problems and it adds multiple other potential points of failure into the mix. There are tracking programs that can tell you if it’s running locally or not, but that is probably beyond the abilities of the average user.
Router FEATURES causing issues
- It has been demonstrated that things like QoS (particularly adaptive QoS) can cause IoT devices to have connection issues since it determines to give priority for other things like streaming or gaming over your IoT devices. Lots of people have had major issues with this, while others don’t. If you are having issues, consider disabling it and see if it helps at all. Or consider telling your QoS to give the Wyze devices priority (I know people who tried this it didn’t help as much as turning it off did, but you can try it)
- WMM/WiFi Multimedia sometimes causes issues with some devices as I mentioned earlier. This option forces the router give priority to multimedia stuff over other IoT devices, and has been shown to cease connectivity for some chips in particular. If you are having problems and this is an option on your router, try disabling it. Some routers (some OpenWRT based routers for example) may force WMM to be on, and the only way to turn it off is through manually changing the firmware by logging into it using something like WinSCP or Putty. WAY too complex for most people…but I had to do this with one of my routers to get IoT devices to stop having problems. Usually just easier to buy a new router!
- Auto-blocking (or manual blocking) features - Some routers have different blocking features, whether using an AI or various other things that may overzealously and inadvertently cause some blocking that you don’t want it to. Or some people might do something like try to block ALL Google IP addresses, only to find out that many IoT devices send a ping to Google IP addresses as a check to see if they are actually connected to the internet, so blocking Google (or whatever other IP the person blocked) makes some of their IoT devices think they are offline, when they aren’t actually offline. Some of them will even say they are offline in one place while showing online elsewhere or working with some stuff and not others. Sometimes this is caused from auto-blocking features sometimes blocking some things but not everything. PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT SUGGESTING TURNING OFF YOUR FIREWALLS OR PROTECTION!!! I am just indicating sometimes Overzealous router protection features can be part of the problem for some people.
Wyze VP seemed to acknowledge they are working on some things to try to help improve the connection and stability issues as much as they can. When asked about it, he responded the following:
There are lots of other good responses in the AMA interview that could be related to this, including trying to make more things be locally based (which would reduce a TON of the strain), so I’d recommend reading the entire thing since Wyze might be coming out with some good solutions to connectivity frustrations in the near future.
I’m sure there are several others I am not thinking of off the top of my head, but I think I covered most of the major issues I personally experienced in the past. If I think of more I will try to add them in later.
The point is this. I too once had to reboot my devices all the time and I too once had connection issues, so I do totally empathize with how frustrating is. I also blamed Wyze initially. I totally get it. I really do. I’ve been there. But I found reliable people who I trusted who told me they never had any of these problems I was having, so they were confident it wasn’t Wyze that was my problem, so I spent all the time learning and testing and trying so many things with the above issues trying to figure out what the real issue was. Right now, I hardly ever have any of the issues I used to have after changing so many of the above things. Here’s what I have in rough order of what made a difference to me:
- ASUS ZenWiFi AX6600 - 2 nodes with optimized load distribution (rarely to never needs a reboot, though I do it sometimes for testing purposes)
- Bandwidth - 1gbps up and down Fiber (not a daisy chained cable connection anymore!)
- ISP and DNS that is not Xfinity/Cable!
- 2.4ghz Channel set to a different channel than the popular defaults near my house
- QoS turned off
All I can really say is that having the above things has made it so I can have dozens of cams active with Cam Plus, 200+ total Wyze devices, plus multiple computers, TV’s, a Teenager, Toddler, and many other variables using our internet constantly now, and I don’t have the problems I used to think were Wyze’s fault. Therefore I’ve pretty well concluded that in my experience, the majority of the connection issues are resolved somehow else.
Having said that, it is possible there are things Wyze could do to make things more efficient or be prioritized higher by the routers or whatever by default since it seems like sometimes other devices are able to pull this off in some cases (though then we might have people complaining about their TV stream being affected ). The Wyze VP also acknowledged that while they are actually doing objectively better with connectivity than competitors, there are still things they can do to make improvements and they are going to do more. I don’t know enough about all that to be confident in elaborating on what Wyze could or should do differently, if anything. I can only say that it is definitely possible to resolve Wyze connection problems in other ways that seem to suggest a lot more of the responsibility lies in things Wyze has little control over and aren’t their fault, but with which we can often improve ourselves.
I hope the above is helpful to someone who is at their wits end like I once was. I spent countless hours trying to figure out what helps and maybe some of the above will spark some ideas to bring someone else some peace.
Keep in mind there are plenty of exceptions to the above…AWS issues, occasional Beta firmware/app issues, etc…but I am talking about ongoing long lasting pattern of connectivity issues being the problem, then the above is what helped me basically resolve all that.
UPDATE/EDIT: Also make sure you are using the correct power plug and cords for the devices having problems. There have also been cases where someone is using a different plug/adapter OR a really long 3rd party cord or something and thus the device in question is not the correct power (Volts, Amps, etc) that it needs to be reliable. Some Wyze devices have different power requirements than others. For example, using a V2/V3 plug for a V3Pro could cause the V3Pro to be less reliable, or using really long cables can degrade the power coming into the camera.