Exactly!
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Those are good points, I didn’t think about it for those use cases, and clearly Wyze didn’t either.
I think Wyze still uses KVS for events, and has used TUTK for live view. The only thing that has changed is that they now use it for viewing notifications as well.
Events are processed like this:
Camera sees motion, starts recording.
After 6 seconds, the clips is sent to AWS for ai processing and notification. This is done after 6 seconds so you don’t have to wait the full length of the video before getting the notification.
Then it keeps recording, until max length is up, or it doesn’t see motion. The full event video is now uploaded to AWS, where it’s accessible in the app.
This makes it so if you were to view the events page right as a notification is sent, the video won’t be done recording, and it won’t be uploaded so you get an error. It can only be a few seconds if it’s a short video, but if it’s long your gunna have to wait a long time.
The new system was supposed to improve this by taking you to live view, but I don’t think it was considered that the subject may only be visible for the first few seconds.
As you suggested, an option to switch between both would be the best bet since there’s obv a real use case for both of them.
Everything I said is just how I think the system works, but I’m probably not 100% right on all of it. Im not sure how you were able to watch the event video as soon as you had clicked the notif, unless the video was only a few seconds long?
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It took approximately 5s to load the video but once I saw what triggered it then I deleted the video. I never got to the end of the event video after I realised that it wouldn’t contain any more information. All I needed to know was fox, cat, rabbit etc.
The chances are that the event videos were not very long as a fox can run through the field of view in 2- 3 seconds and then there is no more movement for the cameras to record.
I do hope Wyze takes on board the option to choose which system to use - then everyone is happy.
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Yea, that would be ideal, a per-camera setting for events or live view.
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just like their services… now they have the customers, lets turn the screws… this is how drug pushers work… lots of freebies… then comes the paying for it… don’t like being pushed into cam plus lite… even if i select $0 (which they really try to make you feel guilty about)… they rarely implement changes on their Wishlist page… ive spent many $100’s of dollars on their stuff, and just wish id gone to a different company.
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Same here - I even upgraded my broadband connection and added a mesh wi-fi system to make sure the cameras had a good wi-fi connection. Plus fitting 6x 940nm I-R illuminators so the cameras can see in the dark without having any light showing to human it animal eyes. In my case it was £ but still hundreds of them!
Then the time taken to modify some wall lights to fit the cameras into them so that they are effectively invisible to human intruders so they may not bother hiding their faces.
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Incorrect.
With Event Recording set to Detects Motion, once the Cam’s Light Pixelation Algorithm detects motion the video is immediately sent to the AWS server for credentialing, servicing and storage, it does not wait 6 sec to send the video to AWS. With AI Smart settings on in Event Recording for CP\CPL, the AI Bot immediately begins interrogation as soon as the CP\CPL credentials are verified.
If Notifications is on for All Motion Events, the user will be sent the general motion notification as soon as the server is hit with the video, not 6 seconds later. (Only if the notorious Wyze Notification Latency problem isn’t active). If a user has AI notifications on, a notification will be sent to the user when the AI Bot confirms the AI object tagging…BUT… Only if this happens within the first 6 seconds of the interrogation. If it takes the bot more than 6 sec to tag AI, no AI notification is ever sent. This was the Fix-it Friday issue brought up because with All Motion notifications off and AI notifications on, any event taking longer than 6 sec to tag never produces a notification and is therefore defeating the purpose of having CP\CPL in the first place.
The reason it worked before is because the AWS KVS service allows for bidirectional video stream in near real time. Using AWS KVS, clicking a notification or event that was still in the record process did not take you to a P2P live stream to the cam, it took you to a near real time ‘very close to live’ microsecond delay download stream of the recorded video that was still being uploaded, rendered and saved. An expensive service for sure. You weren’t watching live video, you were watching recorded video from the cloud on an incredibly short delay.
Wyze claims the change was because of stability issues for those clicking in so fast that it couldn’t render and return. But, rather than coding in a 1 or 2 second delay for the notification or event posting to insure enough video had been uploaded and rendered, they instead opted for the total termination of the AWS KVS and instead went to straight P2P live stream. Now it takes what amounts to an eternity compared to the previous method to actually see what triggered the event in the first place. Moreover, the move significantly reduces the bandwidth throughput on the AWS servers thereby reducing Wyze costs while at the same time reducing services and functionality to customers who paid for that service.
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I bet you will never get Wyze to admit it is all a cost saving exercise - I thought Wyze was different to the run of the mill tech companies… I was wrong.
Over here in the UK we have British Telecom (BT) - My broadband went wrong, giving me 5mb download. It took them 7 weeks to mend it - asking me to run tests and reboot the router regularly. Admitting something was broken would cost them money so eventually I stopped paying them. Within a week it was mended - the engineer said he had to replace a circuit board in the exchange - but BT never admitted there was a fault. Everything is to try and save money which never results in a good service
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Remember we all loose if Wyze goes out of business… But I do agree, it would be nice if this feature could come back as an option for some usecases.
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Hello ShardlowM,
Thanks for the feedback. It is a deep discussion about the live event feature on the specific scenario. Let me show more tech details about the feature.
1, For most cases, the average spent time between the motion detected by the camera and the notification arriving at the phone is around 6 seconds.
2, For an alerted user, when he/she hears the notification alarm,take out the phone, unlock it, tap the notification bar and the phone builds a connection to play the live video, it would take another 9 seconds.
3, The camera will finish the CamPlus event recording process after 8 seconds if there is no motion can be detected.
The attached timeline will be more straightforward. And I think this model can be used to discuss the urgent scenario the users need to figure out what was and is happening.
For this scenario, under the current TUTK live solution, the user will miss the first 15 seconds of the event, which means he/she can start watching the event from the 15th second.
If the motion is still ongoing, such as the fox wandering in front of the camera, it should be fine for this case. The owner will get an alert from the live view and yell the fox away. – This case is not your top concern, right?
If the motion is finished before the TUTK live establishing, which means the fox is running out of the scope of the camera lens and the user didn’t see anything from the live view, the user ought to leave the live page and go to the Event tab to check the latest event that is uploaded to the AWS storage. The event will play it from the very first beginning. I think this is the case you suggested we consider. We thought about it for sure: for this case, how many seconds the user has to wait to know what was happening from the app. It should be 30 seconds at most.
The longest waiting time will take place when the motion stop right before 15th second. And the camera will include all captures from 0 to 23 seconds to the cloud. It might take another 7 seconds to finalize the upgrading process and download it to the phone app. The user will be able to access to the playback event from the 30th second.
On top of my head is we should set up a shortcut on the live page to direct users to enter the Event tab to watch saved events.
Hopefully, my explanation won’t confuse you or complicated the application of the feature.
To echo your suggestion, I guess it would slow down the response of the app if we set up 2 live streams for the feature.
To fill the 30ish second gap for the urgent event, personally, I advise the users to set up the camera in a better place at a better angle, leaving more cushion to track the motions. For example, if the camera directs the gate of the lobby, it only can track 2-3 seconds of motions when people get through it. If the camera is set at a corner of the lobby, it will track 15ish seconds when people walk through the lobby.
Hopefully, my explanation can solve your questions.
Best wishes,
Xiaolong
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That makes sense, and I thought the same thing, on the live view page have a shortcut to the latest event, so then the user can choose what they want every time.
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So no change from the present situation then.
I am not interested in seeing the live view of the event - the fox has passed by and it is out of the field of view in 2-5 seconds.
I need to see what triggered the event - just like I could before you made this change.
How does changing the angle of the cameras apply in my situation?? In 30s a fox can be 100 yards away - that is why I need to see what triggered the event - that’s why I need to rewind the event video.
It is plain to see that Wyze have made a decision on this - unfortunately just another example of tech-centred people providing what they think users want.
What makes it worse is that the functionality that myself and other users need was provided and then taken away - all in the name of stability etc …
@Xchen - did you read my earlier post with the screen shot? One event yesterday was still going to live view 4 minutes after the initial trigger … How is that acceptable? Ok, it was unusual for it to be that long but it shows that it is possible.
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This is so frustrating - The latest event will still have to do it’s processing and I still will not be able to see what triggered it using the slider.
What happens after the trigger is useless - live view is useless- animals move quickly and are gone from the field of view … So live view sees nothing. Moving the camera angle doesn’t work - the fox has passed by and causing damage and mayhem.
By the way - I am referring to the fox in the singular when in fact there are several. When I tested Wyze it had the functionality to allow me to manage the situation but this is no longer the case.
When this change happened at the last update I thought it was a mistake as it is illogical to me to remove a function purposely. But now I see that it is not an accidental error - it is a money-saving measure.
I will start my search for something more functional and hopefully rebuild my system based on another company.
The cameras were the core product of Wyze but now the product range is so large that I feel the cameras are now an add-on to the scales, the door locks, the sprinklers, the gun safes etc etc etc. I know you have to progress your business model but it seems you are doing this at the expense of the cameras.
You obviously have removed the functionality from the cameras to save money - and nothing is going to change that.
I am writing this in the early morning - it is quite cold here yet I am sat with a window open because at least I will know if something is happening to my hens, or cat, or my neighbours cat. The technological solution is now useless.
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@ShardlowM It’s frustrating to get anywhere with these guys. It’s like talking to a concrete wall as my dad would say. Just let me Rewind my current live event to see what triggered the motion. The robber’s at the door. Or the coyote has attacked my cat. Or the wild pig has entered my property and wants to eat my plants. So yea don’t make me wait minutes until the video is finished recording to let me see what set it off. How much plainer can we get? And don’t tell us to re-angle our cameras or purchase more to account for wider views. You really don’t want to tell people that. Really.
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I really thought that Wyze was trying to break the mould.
Every tech provider I deal with really go to great lengths to prevent you getting any help from them. My latest was my broadband provider that has a help line phone number but it took me days to find it - then they were no use. I was reduced to using a “diagnostic bot”.
There is a culture in tech that assumes they are always right and the customers are just stupid and unintelligent … " Just tell them to reboot the equipment or power-cycle it" etc etc.
Wyze seemed different - but they are not. There are just a few users on here with the problem we have got but there will be many more out there who never look at forums so just go to the customer support and help pages in the app.
Those users will just give up and leave Wyze. Many tech companies have gone bust by not listening to their customers - even Netflix is suffering because a lot of the stuff they produce is no longer what subscribers want and the competition is slowly taking their customers…
As you say - we just want the features we use to be reinstated but that will not happen. If it hasn’t been there in the first place then they probably wouldn’t implement it, but it was there when we bought into Wyze and was instrumental in our choice when buying.
I have been through this many times with other tech companies - they sound so helpful, then they use tech jargon to put you off, then they direct you to their help line which is usually useless, then they blame your equipment and ask you to reboot it and check it is powered on, then they say they are looking into it.
I, like you, just want to rewind an event before it has finished processing which was there before they changed it.
Realistically they will not change it back - they can say that "many"users requested it’s removal or if was to increase “stability” .
I suspect that the real reason is that Wyze is trying to save money - which means we have no hope of getting the feature reinstated
I can get the same functionality on this problem by spending £20 and buying PIR motion detector that pings a plug-in unit in the house. It will be simpler, cheaper, faster and will give me as much information as £100’s worth of cameras, wi-fi, broadband etc
It will tell me something has moved outside but won’t tell me what the something was… That is what Wyze does at the moment
Sorry for going on at length - but this matters!
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I thought I’d chime-in here with another real-world case for bringing back the rewind in live events functionality.
Just last night my wife and I were wakened by Alex (the name I have given the male voice version of Alexa) that a person had been detected outside a daylight basement window, where there normally shouldn’t ever be a person. I was frantically refreshing the Events screen, waiting for the event to stop recording so I could see what triggered the event. The camera didn’t show anything of interest during the remaining “live” phase of the event, which lasted 4 min, 41 sec!
Turned out that the garage lights of a house some distance away was flickering a bit as a result of a tree branch blowing in the wind. Apparently, Wyze’s AI interpreted this to be a person. I then remembered that I had recently turned off zone detection for all my v3 cameras because of the new bug where AI detections no longer work with zone detection turned on. The trees which triggered this false detection would have normally been masked and prevented this event from occurring in the first place.
If Wyze is trying to make people believe that they are a security company (depending on what you read), this recent event is a prime example of how broken it is.
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Yep - been there numerous times every night!
Your experience could easily have been a stranger lurking around your house and you have to wait nearly 5 minutes before you know for sure. Not like any security system I have ever known.
Wyze seem to want to ignore the real world and how fast incidents happen. The lag while the recording finishes is just not acceptable.
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This is an issue that all of us need to take directly into the next Fix-it Friday posting to get visibility. There should be one coming out next week.
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Yes, please bring it up in fix it Friday, and remember to vote on the wishlist post.
What bug are you talking about ai not working with detection zones? I’m not aware of this, are you sure Wyze is aware of it?
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Is there a link to it - I looked for it and found a very long thread - is it’s just one thread for all dates or separate ones for each date?