Can I simply use this camera with an SD card?
@brendaJo, welcome to the user forum!
You can use the cam V3 with an SD card only if that is what you want. BUT… (There is always a but) the Cam is completely dependant on internet access and the Wyze app\Cloud, so it will still need to be installed in the app for you to setup\run\maintain the cam and on your WiFi to get access to what is on the SD Card. You can also pull the SD card to read it on a computer.
The cams all come with a trial period of CamPlus Lite, which you can still get for free, or CamPlus (this may have changed recently).
Once the trial is over, you don’t have to sign up for either. The base plan will get you thumbnail alerts and SD motion or continuous recording with a 5 min cooldown.
EDIT: The 5 minute cooldown on the base plan and CamPlus Lite ONLY applies to cloud recordings that
go to Wyze and show up in the app as events in the Events tab and can alert you with a push notification. It does not apply to what is recorded on the SD Card. But you can’t get push notifications from SD card recordings, only cloud recordings.
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You can, you can set the sd card to record events only, or continuous. You’ll still get thumbnails for cloud events on the events tab, but no videos unless you subscribe to cam plus.
You also won’t get AI detection as those must go to the cloud.
Edit to add: @SlabSlayer beat me to most of this.
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Thank you.
I think I saw that once you use the cloud you can’t un-use it.
So if I do all the set up and qr code is there a place to choose to not use cloud?
I really need continuous record for an issue in having.
That is not true. You will always be using the cloud regardless of the 4 levels you choose.
Base plan (free) will give you motion events that will record a snapshot thumbnail picture to the cloud and send you a push notification if you choose with a 5 minute cooldown lockout between events. The SD card will run continuous and keep recording.
If you use the trial, you can cancel it at any time and revert to the base plan.
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I just looked back at my settings on my CamV3’s. I think it would be possible for you to stay out of the cloud on the base plan if you had your Event Recording settings off and still had your SD recordings set to continuous. That way, it would never trigger a motion event to the cloud but you could still access the SD card playback.
All the settings for the cam in the app however are stored in the Wyze Cloud.
Hope this helps.
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Perfect. Thank you very much.
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There is continuous grievous trouble so I need long records to show the issue and the duration. Whether I use the cloud or not I must have ownership of the video data to present when needed.
I’ll will be looking into this much further.
I appreciate your help.
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This is very pertinent info. Now to buy an sd card. I have the specs.
You have really helped a lot.
Thanks a million.
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You are most welcome… On SD cards… The V3 will take larger cards now, however there is some discussion in the threads right now on the ability for the cam to use the full capacity on cards over 128GB.
Also, your SD card capacity \ video age will be lengthened considerably if you reduce the video quality from HD to SD.
Recommend you get a very high quality high endurance SD card specifically designed for continual recording in a security cam or dashcam.
Good luck!
That works as 256 will cost mega bucks.
LOL
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Also, if you do use the cloud event for motion (even if it’s just thumbnails I believe) you can click on the event to view it and there should be an option to view playback from the event. That will take you to that exact point in the continuous sd recording. From there, you can rewind or go forward to pinpoint the exact start, and you can then play and click the record button and record the entire duration. This should save it to your phone.
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That’s mostly true. But, it does actually work if you use rtsp and disable internet access to the cam from the router but the cam’s firmware crawls to a halt and it stops working even locally about 24 hours later until re-enabled with internet access. They have some server connection failure code issue in there.
I have to test this again but needing to run longer without trying that for the time being.
“The cams all come with a trial period of CamPlus Lite, which you can still get for free, or CamPlus (this may have changed recently).”
Didn’t you mean that all cams come with a free 2-week trial of CamPlus? Not CamPlus Lite?
Had a discussion w\ OP that indicated their cams came off the shelf with CPL trials… No confirmation yet but I didn’t want to commit to saying all of them are still CP trials if Wyze has downgraded that too.
I just received a V3 that came with the CP trial. In any case, your statement “all cams come with a free trial of CamPlus Lite” still confuses the issue. No? I’m not meaning to pick a nit. Just wanting to clarify for any newcomers who might lurk here.
The statement is:
“The cams all come with a trial period of CamPlus Lite, which you can still get for free, or CamPlus (this may have changed recently).”
SlabSlayer is unsure and cautious. That’s a good thing.
None of this is related to the OP’s question that has already been answered, re: using an SD card for later retrieval of footage.
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Understood. They come with a trial of something. Until I get solid confirmation from the inside, I can’t be sure. That may have been a quiet change to reduce AWS space on useless recordings as well with the CPL rollout. If that is the case, it would depend on the shelf date of the cams purchased. Box stores and POS retailers have a longer shelf hold than direct purchase, those older cams could be the older trial offers, if there is such a thing.
Again… Don’t know so not going to commit either way.
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My questioning that statement is in regard to the use of the word “all” which is the opposite of unsure and cautious. Mine did not, which makes the statement inaccurate.
This is what i mean about being insulted by establishment figures’ comments vs the response from @SlabSlayer who replied in a relevant and measured way. Thanks again @SlabSlayer.
…
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