According to the Wyze KB, “If you have a microSD card inserted and Local recording to microSD card turned on in your settings, the camera will continuously record to that microSD card, even if offline,” but it doesn’t exactly work that way for me.
I opened a ticket, submitted logs, and am waiting for an engineer. This could take a long time, so I am wondering how many other users have this issue.
When the Cam v3 is started with wi-fi available, it will keep recording to MicroSD when moving out of the wi-fi range. When the camera is started without wi-fi available, it will not record to MicroSD until getting back to wi-fi range.
This is a critical problem for use as a dashcam (in a car). When I start the car away from home, it does not record until I get back to my driveway.
To my knowledge, the Cam V3 must be started on the WiFi Network to which it is registered in order to initiate uSD Recording functions programmed in the app. Because these are cloud commands, Internet is required.
In order for it to work, it cannot be turned off once you leave the WiFi.
@K6CCC has one of these used as a dash cam. Perhaps he can provide more detail.
I am still having trouble understanding this is “how it works.” The camera was set up for continuous recording to MicroSD. It remembers its settings, so why does it need to communicate with the cloud to start recording to MicroSD? It seems like it should just wake up and start recording until the cloud tells it to stop (if the user changed the settings).
I was inspired by the dashcam post from @K6CCC . I wired the Wyze Cam v3 into the fuse box and hid the wires, but I feel disappointed it records only about half my driving.
That is the way it works. The camera will do pretty much nothing until it can check in with the Wyze servers after powerup.
Are you connected to a fuse location that is ALWAYS powered? As long as the camera does not lose power, it should continue to record to the uSD card. Under “normal” circumstances, my cameras in my truck (a V2 and a V3) connect to my WiFi at home, but have no WiFi once I leave the house. The cameras are plugged into a"cigarette" power outlet that is not switched.
It “remembers it’s settings” only from the last power up. Those settings are not stored on the cam. They are in your cloud account and reloaded at every power up thru WiFi. If you loose power, you loose settings.
At some point, while you are away, the cam is loosing power and can’t recover. Many new car systems have power drain protection that will shut off circuits that have a detected power drain. Check to make sure you are not hot wired to of one of those circuits.
As a software developer for 27 years, this feels like a weird choice, but they had their reasons.
I intentionally plugged the hardwire kit into a fuse that turns off when the car (2012 Prius) turns off because about half the reviews for multiple brands complained that the low voltage protection features were useless and always drained the battery. I could switch it to another fuse, but I’m worried about draining the car battery.
Probably a stupid question, but why not buy a dashcam designed to do what you want? Seems like an excessive amount of effort to make the Wyze camera do something it wasn’t intended to do.
When the cameras first came out, they did not require the checkin after powerup. That was changed a couple years ago and Wyze absolutely insists on keeping it that way.
I have only one time run the starting battery in my truck. I drive a full size 4x4 pickup so it is a larger battery than most passenger cars. As I said, I have a V2 and a V3 that are powered 24x7 and recording continuously. The only time I ran the battery down was when I had covid and never went out for many days. My router pings each camera (and my other IoT devices) once an hour and sends me an E-Mail if a device does not respond. After five days of not going out, the router reported both cameras in the truck were not responding, and I immediately suspected the cause. Sure enough, the normal vehicle battery was dead.
As for the Prius, I really don’t know how the power system is designed between the propulsion battery and the 12 volt system.
One of the things you could do is put a timer in line that will keep the power to the cameras powered up for some amount of time after engine shutoff, That way for example, the cameras will power down overnight, but stay up while out shopping or running errands. We do that at work on the police cars. The radios stay up for a while and then shut down.