Ideas for Wyze Doorbell V2

Please add SD card to any and all future Video Doorbell, Peephole Camera, or any other camera that gets produced. Control over our own information with locally accessible storage was one of the main selling points of this ecosystem for many customers.

Thanks for all your great work!!! :smiley: :+1:

Please add your own thoughts, comments, and use case scenarios to add importance to this topic. Iā€™m sure there are creative Wyze users out there that have great reasons to add this that might not have been considered. :nerd_face:

4 Likes

Absolutely agree. As I stated in separate forum, the SD card support is a big part of the reason for the mass popularity of the original Wyze cams. They allow the average person to go back and view recorded events. The market for video doorbells is really being flooded with a lot cheap Chinese stuff that allows for basic functionality like 2-way audio and notifications. I think adding SD support is an absolute must if you want to continue to differentiate yourselves from the competition.
I also want to reiterate that, as a long time customer with many of your products, I would absolutely be willing to pay a little more for this feature.

7 Likes

When talking WYZE up to other people the question always comes up, ā€œBut how much do I have to pay every month to see my footage?ā€, which I follow up by saying ā€œ$0! They give you 2 weeks of free 12 second footage every 5 minutes.ā€ They love that, but then most follow up by saying, ā€œWhat about all the footage in between that?ā€ Thatā€™s where I slap the SD card comment down and they love that they can just purchase the SD card and have their footage stored locally and access continuous motion footage. I totally want WYZE to stay in business and if subscribing to CAM Plus is what needs to happen for that to get great, inexpensive hardware, then Iā€™m all in for WYZEā€™s sake. Iā€™ll probably be subscribing to CAM Plus myself for my doorbell for the benefits of it since it doesnā€™t have SD Card, but I do so pretty sad that I canā€™t brag up the SD card access in the doorbell to my friends and family. I love what WYZE has created and love their ecosystem and will continue to support them, but if SD Card support is possible inside of the doorbell, I would love it and will continue to sing its praises. Thank you, WYZE!! Your work and mission is highly appreciated.

7 Likes

Also, please come with a battery version and sd card option too.

Also add the feature to view live

6 Likes

Love the ideas! Funny how we wonā€™t even get the first one until 2021 but we are already asking for a v2 lol :slight_smile:
Always good to give Wyze more ideas!

Thanks for making this forum

3 Likes

THIS PLEASE!!! Continious recording on the front door just make sense and would definintely put the Wyze Doorbell above all others out there! Especially considering it is hardwired to power!

Put the SD card on the back so the only way to access it would be to physically remove the Doorbell Cam from itā€™s mountingā€¦ seriously, how often does anyone really mess with their SD card in the V1 or V2? I know I never do/have once set upā€¦

Since doorbell cams are high theft risk, Iā€™d not want a thief taking an SD card as well. Youā€™d want to wipe it constantly.

But the price of this cam makes it more appealing than costlier doorbell cams - less theft loss risk.

100% yes please

In my opinion SD should have been included in the v1. It was explicitly excluded for some reason and I would suspect that reason is recurring revenue from subscriptions. So what people are asking for arenā€™t really features they are looking for in a v2, but actually the features they expected out of the v1 which appears to have been in some level of development for close to 2 years (before the subscription model and a time when Wyze actually had SD support in all models).

3 Likes

Before I purchase this product I want the option for local SD storage.
And, ideally, the ability to access this storage via SAMBA and my personal PC.

2 Likes

Yep, I was all excited for this and ready to buy it until I read it has no local SD storage. Iā€™ll either wait for v2, or just get a Ring if I have to pay a monthly subscription.

As others have said, local recording with no subscription I think is a big selling point for the Wyze cams. Leaving it out on the doorbell was a huge oversight in my opinion.

What is the use case? The same use case as for the cams. Some event happens and I want to go back and look at or pull the footage for it, without needing a monthly subscription.

I can see how one might argue that being outdoors and possibly difficult to remove the doorbell from the mounting to retrieve the SD card would make it not feasible. But I counter, the new outdoor cam has it. Also, I can still view the full recording via the app. But lastly, itā€™s not like Iā€™m removing the SD card on a regular basis. Iā€™ve never removed it from my wyse cams. It would only be in the event of a situation that I needed to explicitly pull the video off to share with someone. So fingers crossed, never, But MAYBE once every few years (unless you live in a bad neighborhood).

Also not a fan that it disabled the original mechanical chime, but thatā€™s a different post.

2 Likes

Great point. I already posted this somewhere in this community: If the Doorbell could be linked with a base station the problem of being able to record locally would be solved. With regard to the subscription, I agree with you, whatā€™s the point of a video doorbell if you donā€™t get live notifications when a person or movement is detected? The subscription would be suitable to expand the 12-second limit, cool-down period, and other features, but it should never condition the live notifications and local recording on the base station.

Best regards.

To be clear, you DO get notifications with motion detection withOUT the subscription. The subscription only removes the 12-second limit on the recording and the the 5 minute cool-down.

Also, I personally donā€™t care about a base station. I just want onboard microSD recording like the Wyze Cams have.

2 Likes

Thanks for the information. I thought notifications were only available if you had a subscription. Anyway, the base station idea is to be able to record all captured events with safety and without the cooldown period. My opinion is that if the microSD card is in the Doorbell it could get stolen along with the doorbell itself and if by any chance you are within the cooldown period you wouldnā€™t even know what happened (5 minutes is too long). Thatā€™s the logic behind my comment about including the base station, perhaps not a base station per se, maybe a microSD in the chime (or in a smart speaker) might also work. Best regards.

1 Like

The ā€œbase stationā€ you refer to presumably means a sync module (Blink brand terminology) to keep battery powered PIR outdoor cameras from draining, and keep the whole system online. Those modules donā€™t seem common with hard-wired power setups like doorbell cams. I agree that having the SD card indoors would be ideal, though.

1 Like

I think you still have a bit of a misunderstanding. The other advantage of microSD recording is that it is recording ALL THE TIME, always, regardless of motion detection or cooldown. A constant video stream as long as the size of the SD card can hold (and then deletes the oldest video as it records new video). With a 64 GB card in my Wyze Cams, I have about 2 days of recording.

Even the subscription is ONLY recording with motion detection. The subscription advantage is that it records ALL motion instead of the 12 second clip every 5 minutes. But still records only when there is motion.

I see your point about having the unit stolen with the SD card in it, but the other factor I think of is cost of the unit. I guess if theyā€™re going to rip it off the wall, they can have it. One thing that makes Wyze products popular is their low cost. The more features people ask for and Wyze would add drives up the cost. If people want all those features, theyā€™re gong to have to pay more. At some point, the cost of the Wyze device will get high enough with all the extra features that we might as well buy a Ring (as an example).

I feel like on-board microSD card recording is a bare-minimum feature to stay on par with their Wyze Cams and wouldnā€™t add too much to the cost of the device. Starting to build in features like the base station I think would raise the price too much.

4 Likes

ā€œThe other advantage of microSD recording is that it is recording ALL THE TIME, always, regardless of motion detection or cooldown.ā€

True, if you choose to turn on that setting. It has disadvantages, like wearing out the card prematurely with too many write-cycles. More of a problem with smaller capacity cards that would have sectors overwritten more often.

The engineers may have unmentioned reasons for not including SD, and cost is the most logical one.

3 Likes

Thanks for your reply, Itā€™s not a misunderstanding. I know I can keep my Wyze cams recording all the time, but personally, I donā€™t like that idea. I prefer to record events detected by motion. Anyway, thatā€™s not the point, each user may decide what to enable or disable as long as they have options to do so. Currently, there are not many options with the Doorbell and the ā€œbase stationā€ (as called by Wyze when they launched the Outdoor cam) seems to be a logical option since it would not need major developments to work with the doorbell. By the way, thanks to all for the interaction, clarifications, and ideas. Best regards.

Beating a dead horse here, but ā€¦
ā€¢ SD Card option (or local on-site storage.)
ā€¢ Integration with existing doorbell chime (see Nest and Ringā€™s solutions with attachment devices INSIDE of the chime. Maybe something connected to a Wyze Bridge?)

5 Likes