Can Wyze Cam Record to SD Card Without Internet Connection?

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,

I have a cigarette lighter plug adapter that has two USB outlets (my pickup is old enough that it does not have USB outlets). Just plug the power cable into the adapter instead of the AC power supply.

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So recently my power and internet went out due to storm damage. The power came back on but the internet did not for about a day. I thought nothing of it and told myself my cameras local record so I’m fine to check the footage from when the power came on till when the internet came back up. Opened the app went to the camera and clicked playback and there was no footage. I don’t get why it wouldn’t just started recording on its own. Am I missing something, or is it this true from what I read it won’t work.

You’re not missing something.

If the camera powers up with no internet connection, it won’t start up. Won’t record to SDcard. Won’t do much of anything. It will stay in an undetermined non-functional state until it is again able to access the internet and connect to WyzeHQ. Sad, but true.

More info can be found here:

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Thanks for info. Seems kinda pathetic they would do away with this feature. Seems quite logical especially in the sense it’s a security camera.

Note that if your camera had lost internet but not power, it would have kept recording to the SDcard during the internet outage.

It’s really not a ‘security camera’. It’s an Internet Of Things thing.

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Did you hard wire it to your trucks fuse box? If so what type of Cable did you use? Thanks

No. I have a cigarette lighter to USB adapter that plugs into a non-switched cigarette lighter socket. The Wyze white cable plugs into that.

I wanted to update this old thread because I had bought this camera because of the reviews saying that you can use the cam without wifi. As of August 5th 2019 this is no longer true. Once it is set up and you unplug your router the camera will try to connect and will stop recording to the Local SD. You will have a few minutes of record time until you get the yellow/blue blinking light of death.

That feature alone made this camera stand out but it is no longer working that way.

Just bought my first Wyze Cam V2 for the purpose of building a dashcam setup. Pretty disappointed to see this tech being held back. There should be an option to completely turn off cloud recording and use an SD card only or a hybrid of both. Is there any way to flash the firmware back to an older version where the local recording worked?

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NVM just read more threads to see how complicated the reverting is due to iOS app versions. At this point I think I’m just going to look into a 4G modem with mint mobile to run dashcams.

I agree completely, a option to only record to the SD card would be amazing.

Hi,

On Feb 9th, I posted this and was told that this bug would be addressed.

It now seems that this VERY useful feature - a µSD recording capacity without an Internet access - has been taken off from the Wyze Cam V2.

So for the transparency in the use of the Wyze Cam V2 product, could it be clearly indicated in the Wyze cam V2 specs, as in my case, I’ll have to abandon the Wyze Cam V2 products in favor of some other proposition explicitly having this a recording capacity without a direct Internet connection.

Brgds,

Lipari