Loss of Communication/Network Connection Notification & Log

A feature I would like to see is to get an alert notification if my camera is disconnected/switched offline outside of manual activation in the app. This would help in cases folks could be alerted to power outages or at least get a heads up if someone/something potentially unplugged the camera.

[Mod Note]: Please note that this wishlist topic is not limited to cameras. It covers all WiFi-connected Wyze device types.

Would be nice to have push notifications when a camera goes offline or back online.

40 Likes

Hypothetically, an intruder sees the camera outside and cuts the cord or throws an object at your camera. A second later your camera goes offline but Wyze app doesn’t even warn you. Is it feasible to implement a feature where Wyze app will sent a notification to a user when connection has been lost?

30 Likes

I like this idea, let’s say your out of town and you internet goes out you will be alerted that the camera is offline very useful.

23 Likes

I would consider this feature as high priority. An intruder can pull the cord out for 30 minutes, rob you, then plug it back in and you won’t even know :clap:
At least send a notification when the camera is back online. It will raise a flag to a user that something was triggered.

25 Likes

Agreed, this needs more votes since it is something that everyone can benefit from in the end.

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I had this feature on my izon cameras: When they disconnected I got an alert. I sure wish Wyze cams did this so that we knew when we were unmonitored and could do something about it.

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This is one of the only features I miss from my Nest camera. That and the opportunity to see events in the timeline of your playback.

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am not sure how Nest does this ( Nest server pings each camera periodically?) but a simple way this could be done just using the app ( no server side code chgs needed) is for the app to check if the last event happened more than 90 ( user configurable) minutes ago, assume camera is disconnected & alert phone owner.

5 Likes

When wyze cameras lose their power supply they do not record or give notifications. The user simply won’t get any recordings or notifications for the duration the power is out. This is a critical security flaw and weak point that could be exploited.

I would like to see a feature where we are notified when a camera loses or regains its power supply. This would let a user know if a certain amount of time was left without surveillance.

9 Likes

Be careful what you ask for. You might get it.

My AmbientWeather sensor has the ability to send a notification when it loses connection for 20 minutes.

It went off constantly. I had to disable that notification.

Fair enough. But in a quasi-security application having a heads up of my cam unexpectedly offline is not insignificant. I also have a weather station that gives me notifications if offline after 30mins. It’s positioned remotely at a vacation property to monitor crawlspace temperatures. The impact of a loss of weather station signal is a little different than someone disconnecting my camera (intentional or not). If I am not getting legitimate notifications or am losing signal that often that would be an indication to me of something else (poor signal, poor wifi, poor electric power?) rather than a product shortcoming. But that’s just my specific need so YMMV.

4 Likes

It would be great if there were notifications sent when the camera is powered off or on, I understand that the “power off” would likely be handled by the cloud notifying when the camera is unreachable for some time. Sometimes those to be monitored unplug the camera. Knowing that it had been unplugged (and a clip of the person doing the unplugging) would be very useful.

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When connection goes down i don’t know until I check it randomly then i find that no connection due to bad internet connection or loss of power
Is it any way to get notified when WYZE camera stops working or no internet connection
Thanks

5 Likes

That would be a great future! Even my home thermostat that runs through my Wi-Fi notifies me every time it becomes disconnected due to power failure or host connection failure. It also sends an email when the connection is re-established. It is a wonderful future!

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This should be a dead simple feature to add. A basic implementation would go something like this:

  • Every 15 seconds (or however frequently), a heartbeat message is send from the Wyze Cam to Wyze’s AWS servers. All this message contains is a timestamp and a MAC address (and maybe some sort of cryptographic proof of identity?).
  • If the servers miss X heartbeats in a row, the user is sent a push notification.
  • In the advanced settings, users can adjust how long of an interruption (i.e. how many missed heartbeats) constitutes an offline camera (default would be something like 1 minute / 4 heartbeats). This would allow some leniency for spottier connections (e.g. outdoor cameras, basement cameras, etc).
  • An option would also exist in the settings whether or not to notify the user when a camera is back online (i.e. the heartbeats have resumed).

I really believe that Wyze should implement an offline notification. It wouldn’t even make a dent in the camera’s firmware memory (a simple curl command set up as a cron job is all it takes to send a periodic message to a server), shouldn’t be wildly expensive server-side, and would add some real value to an already fantastic product.

In the meantime, perhaps some sort of ping monitor could work instead. Wyze Cams do respond to pings, so it should be easy enough for someone with a Raspberry Pi, home server, or NAS with scripting capabilities, as well as a router that allows for fixed IP assignment, to set up a script with a list of camera IPs to ping, and send a push notification of one of them goes down. If there’s enough interest in this idea, I might slap together a quick and dirty example.

Alternatively, cameras with RTSP enabled could be connected to an NVR with notification capabilities. I believe Shinobi can notify users via email or Discord if a camera goes down, but I haven’t tried it.

21 Likes

I am really considering buying a lot of these for the house but I need the notification if someone turned off or unplugged a camera. Any update on when that feature will be added? Otherwise I will have to look elsewhere.

6 Likes

I bought 1…the alerts aren’t working on my phone. I have motion detection on and notifications turned on in my phone as well as in the app. I get zero alerts and no events have been captured.

1 Like

My router can tell me when a device disconnects from it. You might look into doing that.

5 Likes

What router brand/model is that?