Explaining why RTSP could be useful to you

The plan I mention is not the dollars and cents but rather where they are going. There are dozens of these if you search.

Thank you. A few excerpts from the article (emphasis mine):

We believe smart home products should be simple so we decided to build a Wyze smart home ecosystem with one simple Wyze App.

Regarding the structure of our business, we operate with a low margin, high volume model.

We ask ourselves these two questions every day:

  1. What products are you proud of making for your best friends?
  2. What price would you offer to your best friends?
The answer: Great products priced at cost.

Our business is growing and we continue to double-down on our user experience and the value we add to our customersā€™ lives. This means ā€¦ correcting bugs as they are identified, adding new features and products customers demand, and providing great customer support along the way.


From this I can draw two conclusions:

  1. Wyze's short-term business model is selling a high volume of low cost cameras.
    • This would seem to fly in the face of your claim that "Wyze can not make a living selling $20 cameras" since they are apparently doing just that.
  2. Long-term they expect to offer a range of smart home products (ostensibly at the same high volume and low cost) integrated through one simple Wyze App.
    • This does validate your statement that "Generic cameras are not part of that vision", however it does not exclude the possibility of integration with third-party products (as already shown by IFTTT and Alexa integration). Perhaps RTSP is the way to go, or perhaps they can work with third-party security solutions to add basic live feed support just like Alexa and TinyCam Pro. Being able to view the live feed in another app along with other cameras doesn't mean abandoning the Wyze app, and it aligns with Wyze's commitment to "adding new features ... customers demand."
Finally, please don't view this as any kind of personal attack. I'm simply pointing out that from the information available to the general public I see room for RTSP or similar integration. I believe the Wyze team has a solid vision and they've shown that they won't compromise the quality and ease of use of their product in order to chase feature bloat.

Your first point is incorrect. There have been several online interviews with breakdowns on costs. They may not necessarily lose on every camera but do remember they have been funded by venture capital. The Venture capital firm backed their vision, not making cheap cameras available to everyone.

Even if they were trying to make a living selling cameras, how much do you think they make or need to make on each camera. Remember of course that this is an American company with American wages and taxes and contribution requirements and insurance requirements etc. Also remember there is the free 14-day online storage and server infrastructure. The website and support costs. Office and other infrastructure needs. Lots of overhead so they need to make real money on a $20 camera. How much is that???

Other Integrations do make sense and they have done that with Alexa and IFTTT. Those two rely on an API and I would love to see that published. I look forward to other services and more cool devices. RTSP is simply a dumb streaming protocol. RTSP would require smarts on some other platform to do something with the stream.

I have other cameras and record their output to my NAS devices. I know their value. I just hope Wyze keeps their vision foremost in their plans.

Ā 

My first point is not incorrect, itā€™s just pointing out their current business model as they themselves describe it. Clearly itā€™s unsustainable, thus the ā€œshort-termā€ designation. Itā€™s obvious their business model will shift long-term, but as of right now by their own admission they ā€œoperate with a low margin, high volume model.ā€

I havenā€™t overlooked all the costs associated with the current Wyze offerings, I just donā€™t see how theyā€™re relevant to a customerā€™s discussion about feature requests. As far as I can see integrating with third-party software costs next to nothing and adds additional value for customers. As a customer the reason I bought a Wyze Cam was the low initial cost and no recurring subscription costs. I had no idea they were a venture-funded startup at the time, I just recognized the incredible value and purchased a camera. Iā€™m not a Wyze accountant or investor so itā€™s not my job to consider how a feature might affect unknown future revenue sources. Iā€™m leaving that to the professionals :).

I have an idea about where Wyze is headed long-term, but for now their stated objective is to add ā€œnew features and products customers demandā€ so I see no reason we canā€™t make our voices heard.

I appreciate the link to additional information about Wyzeā€™s vision and business model. If you have a link to the cost breakdown that would be an interesting read too. From the May 2018 article it seems they sold 300,000 cameras in 6 months at a revenue of $6 million (assuming all $20 cameras), or $1 million in monthly revenue, which is pretty amazing for a startup with 2 products. Even with a low (10%) product margin thatā€™s still $100,000 per month.

Ā 

I did some cost calculations because I was curious about ballpark numbers, and hereā€™s how cloud storage breaks down:

  • Cloud retention:
    • 14 days (336 hours) of storage
      • 12 alerts possible per hour if there is constant motion 24/7 (5-minute cooldown between alerts; unlikely, but possible)
      • 1 or 2 alerts per hour is more likely, so I included both for comparison
    • 12-second clips use approximately 1.2MB of space
      • 1.2MB * 12 * 336 = 4838.4MB per camera maximum storage required
      • 1.2MB * 1 * 336 = 403.2MB per camera
  • Assuming highest Amazon S3 storage rate of $0.023 per GB:
    • 12 alerts per hour maximum
      • $0.023 * (4838.4 / 1000) = $0.112 per month per camera
      • $0.112 * 300,000 = $33,600 per month for all 300,000 cameras
    • 1 alert per hour (average)
      • $0.023 * (403.2 / 1000) = $0.009 per month per camera
      • $0.009 * 300,000 = $2,700 per month for all 300,000 cameras
  • If we assume the camera lasts 3 years before being replaced:
    • 12 alerts per hour
      • $0.112 * 36 = $4.032 per camera (maximum) over its lifetime
    • 1 alert per hour (average)
      • $0.009 * 36 = $0.324 per camera (average) over its lifetime
So the cost of 14-day storage for what I assume is average usage is pretty low.

Ā 

And now, I think I should apologize to everyone for posting an incredibly long and largely useless post :slight_smile:

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Ā 

Your first point was about them making a living. The only reason they are a going concern is the VC funding. Take your $100,000 monthly. More than I make in a month for sure but it needs to pay 25 people, employer withholding, taxes, infrastructure costs, health insurance, office rent, Internet, phones and all those other things that keep a business going. As I remember, the $20 for the camera covered the wholesale cost of the camera and online storage and such. It didnā€™t cover the business behind the camera, the Wyze team.

In the end, we do not know where Wyze will go. I for one do hope they forgo any direct local access RTSP or ONVIF. Those devices are available elsewhere. I like my other cameras for what they do. My Wyze cameras are totally appreciated for what they do.

Ā 

Ā 

My 2 cents. I think he IS a pain.

No one is saying that RTSP or ONVIF arenā€™t useful or even desirable. They absolutely are. But offering just a cheap generic camera isnā€™t in Wyze best interest. They canā€™t make a living just selling cheap cameras and they will be out of business. I for one want them to stay in business and see their vision through, bringing affordable smart technology to everyone. And if you donā€™t care that Wyze goes out of business as long as you get cheap generic cameras, sorry if my views differ from yours.

How about we let Wyze consider this and stop assuming for them?

Can you stop speaking on behalf of Wyze? You are being incredibly obnoxious.

There is an expansive community dedicated to utilizing the Wyze Cams for RTSP and other currently unsupported features via OpenIPC, so it is fair to assume there is ample interest and usefulness in the feature deanwsmith requested. I, too, am interested, but I would prefer native support - hence why I have not moved to OpenIPC. If Wyze can implement it, then they should, but that is their decision to make - and for whatever reasons they decide.

You keep saying itā€™s not in their business plan or interest or they will be going out of business for selling cheap cameras with RTSP support as if you were the drinking buddy of the CEO. If so, my apologies, as you may have useful insider information, but if you are like the rest of us - analyzing from the outside - then those are just baseless assumptions and pejoratives. Wyze is the company that needs to respond yay or nay, not you.

Itā€™s fair to suggest a feature, and itā€™s also fair to share your opinion against a feature, but quit making matter-of-fact statements on behalf of Wyze - theorizing how it will affect their finances, resources, functionalities or bottomline.

Finally, your statement ā€œAnd if you donā€™t care that Wyze goes out of business as long as you get cheap generic cameras, sorry if my views differ from yours.ā€ is clearly counterintuitive, as the OP thoughtfully included his opinion about Wyze and their native support: ā€œIt is excellent. Reliable, cheap, and has a passionate and dedicated staff to support the system.ā€ Surely, he can just go and install OpenIPC and forego this entire conversation, but clearly he sees absolute value in the native firmware and services of Wyze. So, ask yourself, if heā€™s ok with them going out of business, then where will he get his excellent, reliable, cheap, passionate, dedicated support and services?

I know, itā€™s rhetorical!

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Why canā€™t it be more like the Foscam R2 I have?
 

Youā€™re comparing a $20 camera centered around cloud-based SASS consumer model with a $60 camera that is targeted towards a more professional home security market.

The real question is what if Wyzecam v3/Pan supported RTSP but was $35/$50 (or more) instead of the $25/$35 of the v2/Pan.

Would you all jump ship from your current RTSP solution?

Vincent M

I donā€™t believe it is anything to do with firmware functions. To add wyze to tiny cam you have to use your wyze credentials.

The relevant content of this topic has been moved to the ā€œofficialā€ RTSP topic here:

You can vote for RTSP support by clicking the VOTE button at the top of that page.

This topic is being closed.

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