I’m not sure if this needs to be an official request (or if adjusting the setting of the camera will help) but I am using images instead of video to save data on my wifi hotspot. For the most part this works great, Anytime motion is detected I get a notification on my phone and without even opening the app (or unlocking my phone) I can view the picture that is sent over. The only issue I have is that the pictures are taken as soon as motion is detected and therefore it’s often before someone’s image is captured. For instance, it captures the light of open doors before any people walk through. It captures shadows of people walking by before they walk into the camera frame, etc. I tried changing the detection zone but it doesn’t seem to help because the light reflects off all surfaces in this small area. I’ve lowered the sensitivity but I’m worried the motion won’t be detected at all if I go too low. I was thinking that it would be cool if I could set a delay between when the motion was detected and the picture is taken to be sent over for notification, maybe just a few seconds. Has anybody had this same issue? Would lowering the sensitivity even further help? (I think I have it set to 25).
Unfortunately this sounds like a case of “be careful what you wish for”. You’re saving bandwidth because you’re not sending up a longer sequence to analyze, and you’re not getting a relevant photo because you didn’t send up a longer sequence.
Yes, reducing sensitivity might help a tiny bit. Your delay idea might work but I kind of doubt they would implement it for the free tier users. You of course can record the whole event to the local SD card and play it back at will.
What you are describing is essentially what it does for all my notifications and I am confident most others are like that too. The snapshot thumbnail in the notification and on the Events Tab is usually not showing the object that was AI Tagged.
I am assuming you are on CamPlus Lite because you mentioned you are using pics instead of video. But, it probably isn’t saving you any data until you click on the notification to open it or the event tab thumbnail to open it.
The cam is uploading full video to the cloud so long as it is detecting motion regardless of your thumbnail\video settings. All notification pics are thumbnails regardless of your thumbnail\video settings. All Event Tab snapshots are thumbnails regardless of your thumbnail\video settings. Only when you click on the notification or the Event Tab thumbnail will it download the Thumbnail\12 sec video depending on your settings and open the viewer. That is essentially where you can control your download data.
I believe upload data can be reduced by decreasing sensitivity, therefore less motion activations. But, if you have any Event Recording setting on, every motion activated event video is sent to the cloud. If Motion Events is On, it saves all motion event Videos. If this is off but Smart AI is on, it will not save motion only but will save only AI tagged events.
Hope this helps, Good Luck!
Is that right? Is *pictures" different from the thumbnails one gets if one declines Lite? Because I’ve never heard of Wyze downloading on demand as you describe. Instead, clicking the new thumbnails can link to local SD card recordings.
No. Same thing… as I understand it. Perhaps I should have said image instead of pic. But, I’m not an app coding cloud P2P streaming network protocol computer science WiFi hotspot certified (or certifiable) expert guru. I won’t be testifying before Congress any time soon.
But, as I understand it (please feel free to correct any misunderstandings I have):
A thumbnail in a notification or in the app is a ‘picture’, or image file, that has been downloaded from the cloud. Thumbnail refers to the format ratio size, not the underlying image file format. Any number of image file types can be displayed as a small ‘thumbnail’, a larger ‘tile’, or a full frame ‘picture’ image.
Thumbnail images in notifications are downloaded to your phone automatically as soon as it is sent. Both the very small thumbnail one to the right on the notification and the larger tile one when the notification is expanded but not opened. These come from the cloud, not the uSD.
When you open the App and choose to view the events tab, those are all also thumbnail images automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as the app opens the Events Tab. Those too are from the cloud, not the uSD.
When you choose to click on a notification or on an Event Tab thumbnail image, the app takes you to the Event Viewer page. That is viewing the same thumbnail image (only larger… and even larger in landscape) in Basic\No subscription; in CPL, it opens the Event Viewer and downloads either the same thumbnail image (only larger) or streams a 12s video depending on the video\image settings; in CP, it streams a full length video. In all of these scenarios, however, all are downloaded\streamed from the cloud. Anything shown within the Event Viewer screen is from the cloud, not the uSD.
The ‘on demand’ terminology you use would only apply if you choose to click on the notification or the Event Tab thumbnail to view it in the Event Viewer. When you click on the notification with the small thumbnail image or the Events Tab thumbnail image and the Event Viewer pops up, the app again downloads the image, because you ‘demanded’ it by clicking it, from the cloud to view in the Event Viewer.
If you turn off WiFi and Data after loading the Events Tab, then click on a thumbnail image (either basic thumbnail or CPL thumbnail) it fails to load because it cannot stream the image file from the cloud to render in the Event Viewer.
On a V3, which is what the OP is using, clicking on a thumbnail image in a notification or a thumbnail image in the Events Tab will never take you to the uSD footage. It will always take you to the Event Viewer showing cloud sourced images and video.
There are only 2 ways to view uSD footage on a V3 through the app: 1) click the “View Playback” bar while in Live View, which has already increased the bandwidth streaming and data usage; or 2) click the SD card icon button for Playback while in the Event Viewer after opening the Event from the Events Tab or a notification thumbnail image, which again has already downloaded the image from the cloud and increased the data usage.
My point was this… Get a notification with a thumbnail image = data usage. Open it to the Event Viewer = more data usage. Open the app and Events Tab = more data usage. Open an event thumbnail image in the Events Tab to view the full image = more data usage. Open an event thumbnail image to view the 12s or full length video = lots more data usage. No matter how you do it, doing anything in the app = data usage. I am not convinced there isn’t streaming data usage when viewing the uSD footage since all of the video controls are app based and cloud controlled. But I haven’t the time or energy to map that data usage flow… and I am on unlimited fiber so it’s a moot point for me.
I would be interested to see a quantification of the data usage that all of these notifications, thumbnails, images and tab loads produces.
That is what I have been doing in instances where I think something needs to be reviewed. And while this may not be something they would do for free tier, I don’t think Cam Plus pay service focuses on any kind of picture functionality does it (pictures are more of a negative for most people rather than a positive right)? I thought about upgrading to Cam plus but I believe it would actually be a negative for me because it would use more data on my limited plan. I’m not even sure if I would still be able to do the 12 second videos through cam plus or specify pictures only?
Oh sorry, to clarify I have limited data on hotspot in a remote location with my cams and that is being uploaded to the cloud. My internet at home is unlimited so I’m not concerned with the data being downloaded from the cloud or the events tab, only the data being uploaded. I’ve done extensive testing to determine that when images are uploaded to the cloud they use significantly less data. Another user thought that even when images only was selected the cams still uploaded the full 12 second video clips to the Wyze servers, clipped the image once it arrived, and then displayed that on my app/cloud/event tab. I’ve determined that this is not the case because images use a lot less data than the clips. Now if only the cam was a little smarter when taking pictures to know that the motion trigger is usually before the person has entered frame. A short delay setting and I’d be pretty happy, but as it turns out, I often need to open the app to stream data through playback anyways because I can’t see who walked into frame 1 to 2 second later. This makes me have to unlock my phone, open the wyze app, view playback and ultimately uses more data because the picture was taken just a tad bit early. I’d really like to use as little data as possible and setting a delay between the motion trigger and the picture capture would be ideal for people like me who have limited data on the cam side of the connection with the added bonus that I wouldn’t even need to unlock my phone or go to the wyze app at all unless I see something suspicious in the notification image.
A variation of that idea could include multiple snapshots, say maybe at 1 second, 3 seconds, 6 seconds, and 10 seconds.