The Wyze Sense seems of very limited value if using with a Wyze camera, or am I missing something with this applcation? I have a Wyze cam (V2) that is pointed through a window in my garage door that does a good job of monitoring my driveway. I have made the detection window smaller so as not to get notifications for cars passing by. However I was getting too many notifications for “shade movement” on my driveway. So I bought the Wyze Sense motion detection to eliminate the “shadow movement” notifications that the Wyze camera was detecting. However Wyze is one step forward, two steps back! Meaning with Wyze Sense you cannot set a detection zone, therefore the passing cars now give too many notifications. Also Wyze Sense cannot only notify for a person notification. Interesting though if I now walk on my driveway, the little person icon DOES show on the notification. Why/how? Can somebody clarify for me:
Wyze Sense does not provide for a notification zone? True/False?
Wyze Sense not provide for person detection, since different sensor? True/False?
If Wyze Sense linked to Wyze Cam are both devices motion sensors active? If this is true then why would anybody use a Wyze Sense with a Wyze Cam?
Reducing unwanted notifications is a critical requirement to make Wyze more than just a novelty. The notification zones not perfect but help, the person detection not perfect but helps. I thought the Wyze Sense motion detection was also going to help reduce unwanted notifications but is this a one step forward two steps back product?
True. It does not. You’d need to experiment with the optimial position of the sensor. Maybe put it under an eave where it won’t see car motion from the street, tilt it downward, etc. In general, though, if you’re using it outdoors, you’re going to get a lot of false positives. That’s just the nature of PIR sensors. And you should also be aware that it’s not weatherproof, so use it outdoors at your own risk.
If a person walks by and triggers the sensor, and the person appears on the recording, you should still get a person notification. But the detection is still happening on the camera, not the sensor. If your sensor is far away from the camera and a person triggers the sensor while no person appears on camera, for example, you would NOT get a person notification. Does that make sense? It’s analyzing the video. It isn’t analyzing any data from the motion sensor.
Wyze Cam doesn’t have a motion sensor, per se. It just detects differences in the pixels from the camera itself. You can use it either way. You can use only the camera’s detection. You can use only the motion sensor. Or you can use them both, and an event will be triggered when either of them detects motion.
As for why someone would use it with the camera – it may be more accurate in an indoor setting, particularly in the dark. You could also place a PIR sensor somewhere ahead of the camera, so that motion gets triggered earlier (If someone is walking up, for example) It’s really up to you, how you use it. Different people will use it in different ways. Some people use it to trigger Wyze Bulbs.
For me personally, I don’t really use it except when I’m out of town, just so that if someone is moving in my house unexpectedly, I’ll get a phone alert. I don’t use it in conjunction with my camera.
Is anyone using the Motion Sensor linked with a v2 camera? How are you using it and does it work/add value to the v2 camera? The Motion Sensor seems to have limited use cases, which might be good for some, but now finding some limitations.
I purchased the Motion Sensor to improve upon my notifications experience with the v2 camera. Specifically take advantage of the Motion Sensor not “triggering” motion from shadows. However I now discovered that the Motion Sensor does not play well with the motion detection on the camera. Tried Rules but can’t stop constant motion sensor triggers to the Events screen.
Just trying to find out specific examples of Motion Sensor applications with the v2 camera
Just depends how you’re using it. Are you using it outdoors? Indoors?
I’ve got one because it came with the starter kit. I don’t use it for much, but if I leave the house for a while, I can enable it so that I get notifications on my phone if there’s movement. (I don’t do it very often, but if I go out of town, I do.)
I don’t use it in conjunction with the camera, personally,
Since it came as part of the starter kit package, I don’t think you can just return that portion of it because you don’t like it. (If it didn’t work, of course, you could.)
As cheap as it is, I think it’s worth holding on to, even if I don’t use it often.
It’s funny/disturbing the slippery slope of “…but they are so cheap, so you can put up with…” Personal time to setup & operate, frustration with resets and clarity around functionality are factors which will impact Wyze’s growth. Hopefully Wyze continues to improve for theirs and our benefit.
I guess everyone has to make their own decision on this…
There are many ways to effectively use the motion sensor but as @nerdland said ( Just depends how you’re using it )
I suggest you click on the hourglass top right and search “motion sensor” you will find a lot of tips
I didn’t say anything about “putting up with it.” I said I don’t use it much personally. That’s not because it doesn’t function well – that’s because I don’t have a personal need for it. It works exactly as I’d expect it to. I said it’s cheap enough to hold onto, in spite of the fact that I seldom use it. (And because if it’s not broken, I don’t think I could return it individually anyway, since it was part of a package.)
Personally I use my motion sensors where I don’t want cameras in all the private spaces of my house. Like I don’t want a camera in my bedroom but I don’t mind having a motion sensor in there.
Motion sensors in the bathrooms and stairwells to turn on lights. Other sensors on doors to notify of entrances/exits or to turn on lights like in closets or the garage. Cameras in the public areas of the home to record while no one is there.
Multiple Motion Sensor issues (my motion sensor is paired with a Cam v2)
Cannot turn off motion sensor notifications. Keep getting “Smart Video Alert” in the Event notifications even though “Allow Push Notifications” is turned off for the Motion Sensor Device. Is this a bug?
On some occasions the video CLIP in the EVENTS tab for these “Smart video alerts” show no motion. Appears the clip is from slightly after the motion was sensed. Again this is the clip recorded in the Events section (NOT in View Playback)
I do have a rule setup to record video on nearby camera BUT Wyze drives two separate notifications, one from the motion detection sensor and a seperate notificaton from the camera. The Motion Sensor pushes a notification to Events that is noted as “Smart Video Alert” under the camera device name. If the camera “sees” the motion per the camera settings the camera pushes a notification to the Events identified as “motion” under the camera device name. So why have an on/off setting for notifications in the Motion Sensor if it doesn’t do anything?
Note I have notifications set to “off” on both the motion sensor device and also the camera notifications are set to “off”, yet Wyze still sends notification to Events. I can tell this is triggered by the motion sensor device because the label under the device name in Events states “Smart Video alert”.
So there is no way to turn off notifications for the motion sensor device!
Push Notifications are notifications that go to your phone’s notification system.
It doesn’t control what shows on the Events page in the Wyze App. Since each device is registering an event, it seems logical that they would both be noted in the event history in the app.
Wayne I appreciate your view, but I respectfully disagree.
What’s the purpose of the Events page? Its not an event history because clearly many events are not reflected on the Events page. Of course you will find zero documentation on what does or doesn’t appear in the Events page.
I strongly believe this is another problem with notifications/events. This appears to be not very well thought out by Wyze when they released the motion sensor.
What you’ve turned off is motion notifications. That’s different than event notifications. With motion notifications, you’ll receive a notification on your phone the moment there’s motion. That’s independent of whether or not your motion sensor triggers recordings on a camera.
If you’ve set your motion sensor to trigger recording an event on a camera, that CAMERA will still send you an event notification when it records an event, if you have notifications for camera events enabled. If so, that will probably arrive on your phone about 15 seconds after the motion event.
All of that seems like expected behavior to me.
Is your motion sensor directly next to your camera, pointed in the same direction, etc? Is it outdoors or indoors? If it’s outdoors, you’re always going to get a ton of false positives. The environment outdoors is too unpredictable. Wind carries heat with it, a bird can fly in front of the sensor, etc.
Are you getting NOTIFICATIONS for these? Or they’re simply appearing in the event history, without your phone actively notifying you about it?
Obviously they’d show in the event history. Why are you triggering a camera with a motion sensor if you don’t want to be able to review the event in your event history? I’m not sure I understand your problem.
The on/off setting for the sensor’s notifications only affects the “sensor detected motion” and “sensor clear” notifications. Any notifications involving videos captures, which includes both smart alert videos and motion videos, fall under the camera’s notification control.
You are correct that you cannot turn off the saving of sensor events to the Events page. However, notifications and events are two separate things. Notifications refers to push notifications which pop up on your phone even if the app is not active. These are controlled by the notification settings.