Can Wyze Cam Record to SD Card Without Internet Connection?

I have the same exact experience. I set up the Wyze cam at our old apartment as we are moving to a new home and new home does not have Internet/ WiFi yet. plugged the camera and initially I get this yellow and blue light and a beep. Then solid blue after that. Left if for few minutes and checked the memory card in my laptop. It was empty. The files that were saved where the ones from the old apartment only.

Haha, well, I’m a self-loathing, distrustful ego mania with an inferiority complex. You’re not attending the meetings, we STAY on paranoid camera issues.

Has this been fixed?

According to the release notes, this bug was not fixed in the latest release 4.9.4.37.

https://support.wyzecam.com/hc/en-us/articles/360010068231-Wyze-Cam-v2-Firmware

Thanks so much! Is there any work around? I am using this on a vacant rental house with no internet. I had my HVAC unit stolen and want to try to catch someone

Here’s a workaround:

At this point I’m not worried abut this cam restarting, worse case ill load a different firmware on it and use it with blue iris software. I’m still waiting on a firmware update for recording to the SD card w/o internet. Not looking for work around just for the cam to work correctly.

The 90-minute reboot problem when there is no Internet was fixed in 4.9.4.37:

Fixed the issue with no internet connection causing reboot

However, you will need an Internet connection to get the camera up-and-running, like a hotspot (test before you go!) After that the cam will record to SD card with no Internet as long as it doesn’t lose power.

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I’m told that this bug fix went out. Could you please check if you were running into this problem?

I realize that a sample size of one is only partially useful, but here is my report. My dashcam was updated to 4.9.4.51 a couple days ago. On Wednesday, I drove to another location for work. The camera lost WiFi connectivity at about 0550. Last night when I returned home, as often happens, the camera did not re-join the WiFi until I power cycled it. After it was back on the WiFi, I checked out the recordings from the uSD card. The camera recorded properly until about 1230 and then stopped. The camera is powered from an unswitched power socket, so I have no reason to believe that there was any power interruption to the camera. I am at work as I type this and will check tonight after I get home and see if it recorded all day.

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The old loss of Internet problem was a reboot that occurred 90 minutes after loss of Internet. It was a watchdog to see if the camera could get itself back on the Internet. They took it out because the people who wanted it were convinced it wasn’t there, and it was interfering with all those that wanted to use the camera off-line. In any case, if it was that routine it should have rebooted your cam at 0720. Since you didn’t have an interruption until 1230, I would say there is a good chance this is something else. So if it’s a new bug, more data would be good!

Yes, I am aware of the 90 minute “bug”. That appears to have been resolved.
The recording stop after about 7 1/2 hours is a return to what it has been doing for a long time. The other one I have not tested (yet) is if a camera will start recording if it does not get an internet connection after power up. That did work at least last July, but many reports that this capability had changed. I expect to test that in the next day or so.

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I look forward to hearing your results. :slight_smile:

Well, finally remembered to test this. While I was away from home, I powered off my dashcam (a V2 with 4.9.4.51 firmware), and then powered it back up. 10 hours later, I returned home and the camera connected to my WiFi. Later in the evening I went into “View Playback” to see if the camera started recording to the uSD card when it was powered up, or when I got back home and the camera connected to my WiFi.
The answer is that it did not start recording to the uSD card until it connected to the WiFi. The camera will get updated to beta firmware 4.9.4.89 this evening.

Yes – it sounds like it didn’t have access to the Internet when you first powered it up.

The cam won’t function until it can contact the Wyze servers for authorization. After that, it should run without Internet until it loses power. So if it didn’t have Internet to start, I can see it waiting 10 hours to start functioning when it finally got connected. They key is you need Internet at the start. After that it should work indefinitely.

On this principal there should be no difference between the firmware versions you quote.

The issue is that it did not behave that way in the past. Last year, I took two of my Wyze V2 cameras to my July 4th professional fireworks show that I crew on. They were powered down for about 14 hours, and then powered up shortly before we shot the show. Other than the clock being wrong, the cameras recorded the show just fine. I have done similar things as well,
Somewhere along the way around six months ago (plus or minus quite a lot), that changed and the cameras will no longer record to the uSD card until they get an internet connection.

I believe that’s probably correct. I’m thinking the current method is not how the cams originally acted. However, at some point they added the server authorization requirement, and a 90-minute watchdog if there was no Internet. The 90-minute reboot interfered with offline users like yourself, and the people who wanted it were convinced it wasn’t there. So they eliminated that one. Gwen has checked with the developers on the server contact requirement as recently as last month, and they told her that is expected operation and they don’t expect to change it.

Can you prime it at the remote location with a hotspot?

Or, if you use a pass-thru charging 5V battery bank, you can prime it at home and then take it to the remote location functioning.

Do you have a special adapter to power it in your vehicle?

That eliminates a lot of utility of the cameras.

I’m guessing they were responding to the security hounds,