How to use all Wyze cameras (including doorbell) that I own to send My pictures (by law copyrighted by me - not by Wyze) the way I want without having to pay anybody extra to sell me my stuff over and over again?
Are you asking how to display a Wyze Camera on an Alexa Show or Google counterpart without needing Cam Plus?
I have Cam Plus and use Alexa all the time, hence my question, Not sure if Cam Plus is required for streaming via Alexa, I seem to recall that there was an issue in the past.
@carverofchoice , do you know if Cam Plus is required to stream Video to Alexa?
2 Likes
Cam Plus is not required to stream to Alexa or Google or the app or Tiny Cam, etc, just to the Wyze Webview/browser.
If some cams are saying they aren’t supported, try updating the firmware and if that still doesn’t fix it, try unplugging and plugging them back in. Otherwise, report it in the forums with what firmware version is on the cam and as many other details about the issue as possible. If it is beta firmware then please report it in the thread about that beta firmware release.
I am a little confused about the description though. I don’t understand how copyright is involved, or how it was implemented or why it makes a difference, so I may misunderstand what is being asked, but if we’re simply asking if something can be streamed to Alexa or Google without Cam Plus, the answer is yes, Cam Plus does not make any difference for streaming to Google or Alexa devices. The Doorbell does not always work for streaming, but that is due to the aspect ratio issues, it is not paywalled. V2’s and V3’s should stream fine though.
2 Likes
I did not think it was required, but wanted to verify, thanks for confirming this. I, like you, am a bit confused as to what is being asked or what the actual issue is. I am hoping to get some clarification from the OP.
Thanks again, as usual you are thorough in your responses. 
2 Likes
The question begins with “How to…?”
The “pay” thing is the root cause of the problem that created the question “how to…”.
I understand that you do not understand the connection this is why you started with the 'pay" problem. I will try to illuminate it for you.
Had Wyze and others did not keep trying to infringe on our copyrights they would have made it easy to connect everything with everything.
In the past - the cameras and other devices had built-in HTTP servers. So you could connect to your content and your devices when you wanted and you did not have to pay anybody for using what you owned.
But the crooks decided to steal your stuff and sell it back to you. If you try to intercept your stuff - they shall hunt you with the Copyright violation. But they violate your copyrights in the first place.This created proprietary cameras forcing you to send your stuff to CHina or worse directly to hackers. Do you understand yet?
So the question remains: How to… ?
I understand the How To. I did not understand the Copyright statement or that you were concerned with where your video stream was being sent to. I am not sure why you believe it is being sent to China or others, but that is your concern and are welcome to it.
Sounded like you were asking if you could use these devices with Alexa or Google and the Answer is Yes to that. If you are concerned about how it gets there, then I would reach out to Wyze to get that answer.
Sorry could not be more help on this.
1 Like
As for “How To” send the video stream to Alexa/Google, I just say the following:
[“Alexa” / “Hey Google”] Stream [Camera name]
So for my “Dining Room Cam” I just now said “Alexa Stream Dining Room Cam” and it said “Okay” and then showed the stream of that cam on the 8" Echo Show screen. This is a direct connection between my cam and my Echo show. It’s not being sent to anywhere else and rerouted back to me. It is a direct peer-to-peer connection between the camera and the echo show.
Same with my 7" Google Nest Hub. for my “Front V3” cam, I said “Hey Google, Stream the Front V3” and it said “Sure, streaming Front V3” and loaded the video from that camera, again, direct P2P connection, not being routed through Wyze, or through Amazon, or through China.
That’s how I do it and it works great. It works without Cam Plus, and works with Cam Plus. I hope that helps.
Thank you for your reply. But HOW did you set it up? What steps do you take to make it work?
To verify your conviction that it is a connection between those two inside your home - just do one test.
Disconnect your internet physically or turn off the WAN connection any way you can. And then tell your devices to do what you want.
I can tell you that it does not function the way you think. Your picture/video is sent by the cam to the cam’s home (and China was already identified as “home” for some Wyze actions), and then it is handed over to the Amazon or Google “home” to be sent to your screen device.
Yet another proof is after the AWS went down, the Wyze doorbell failed to send or connect to the Wyze app on the telephone on the same WiFi network as the doorbell. Think why that would be?
Please read some other threads on this forum. Obviously the internet cameras and devices, these days work, in a way that escapes you.
On the Wyze forum, many people published already the traceroutes that clearly show that Wyze devices (as nearly all home internet devices) travel all the way to e.g. China and back to get you what you think is local.
I have read threads and have seen a lot of information on that with no real factual basis or assumptions on what is being obtained. You are entitled to your opinion as are others. Trust me, the way these camera’s, and others, function doesn’t “escape me” as you put it. I fully understand how and where my data goes as I have a number of monitoring tools in place.
As I indicated, I would contact Wyze if there is a concern you have with where data is going. If you think it is a security issue, I would contact Security@wyze.com to report it.
My apologies for any misunderstandings here.
To my knowledge the secure encrypted authentication is performed through the internet, and necessary in order to establish the P2P connection. The video stream itself is connected peer to peer. Most other camera companies do the exact same thing (do a secure authentication and then grant a direct peer to peer connection). But regardless of how the streaming works for p2p connectivity, Amazon and Google also require their devices authenticate and maintain an internet connection in order to use their display devices, so disconnecting internet will indeed end all services with those devices. This does not mean they have access to view our video stream or that the video runs through them (it doesn’t, none of them could afford the bandwidth costs that would come from routing the actual video to Wyze then to Amazon/Google, then back to your device…the strain that would put on them would require them all to charge high fees for all that HD streaming, it’s just not possible to support. This is a common assumption about how camera video streaming works (I used to think this too until I researched it), but it turns out this is not what actually happens). Regardless, now that I understand we’re looking for a purely local solution not needing internet, Wyze isn’t set up for that.
I also love local solutions. I even set up home assistant and I have cameras from some other companies as well as other devices (some local only, and a lot that are IOT including over 100 Wyze devices).
If a purely local, non-IOT device and solution is being sought, then I recommend asking for suggestions in the Home Assistant Forums. The people there are really great at giving recommendations for alternatives they use that are totally local only. Wyze, Google and Amazon have no plans to do this [100% local only], especially since their AI’s require internet, but it’s possible that the new Matter initiative may help to make more things local-capable. I am hoping for this.
But I also enjoy all the benefits I get from Paying Wyze for extra services like their AI services, cloud storage, security, etc. Especially for the cost. That’s all worth it to me. I totally get that those aren’t things some people want though. Seriously, I highly recommend asking for alternatives for Home Assistant. I love that platform, and other companies have designed products to meat the local-only demand…Wyze and several others haven’t been heading in that direction though, as so many people like the interconnectivity conveniences.
The only purely local Wyze solution for cans right now is to load Dafang firmware onto V2 cams. Otherwise, Wyze is not currently a viable local solution. They’re focusing on building an interconnected IOT ecosystem, so I don’t anticipate they’ll be switching to purely local solutions anytime soon.
I hope you can find something that fits what you’re looking for, but Google and Amazon both require internet for their devices to stream anything, so you’ll want to look at something that will stream to a computer monitor. I think Home assistant has some good options to help with that.
Hope that helps. Best wishes.
1 Like