Notifications only when connected to WiFi or data

Phone calls and text messages are different and are linked to your cellular service provider. Wyze notifications require you to have access to the internet. It’s like email, if you don’t have an internet connection you won’t be notified of any new emails or even be able to check them.

1 Like

As @kjay mentioned, phone calls and SMS text messages are delivered over the air via your cellular service. Any other notifications, apps, or connected services that rely on a connection to a remote cloud/server/external connection requires a data connection. The notification itself isn’t what’s requiring data to display, it’s the information being transmitted to the Wyze App on the phone to tell it to push a notification to you .

Unless you’re using your phone’s data plan for a lot of navigation apps, multimedia streaming, or social media, your data shouldn’t be a problem unless your plan is only allowing for a small allotment. The Wyze app doesn’t use a lot unless you’re trying to view the camera live streams quite a bit.

Thanks for the explanation wolfcorner. I am a light user of data on the phone and normally buy 100 MB per month and live within that limitation. I’ll try turning on data whenever I am away from home to see how much it uses but suspect that I will have to try another security camera option. It’s not the data sent by Wyze that concerns me because if there is someone in my house I want to be able to see what is going on. The issue is more that keeping data on all the time means I am constantly using it to download new emails, etc. for which I normally wait until I am home so I can use WiFi. As an enhancement suggestion it might be worthwhile to have the camera send a text notification when sound or motion is detected so it would not be necessary to turn on data unless there was a problem.

I’m not aware of any current Smart Cameras that use SMS natively as a means to deliver a notification.

However, you can easily create a rule via IFTTT that will send you an SMS message if whatever condition you specify is met. Example: If motion is detected on Camera, send text to (XXX) XXX-XXXX. I believe IFTTT only allows for 100 SMS messages a month, but it may be worth checking into.

1 Like

Thanks again. I’ll give it a try. I’ll report back here if successful.

Welcome to the community, @IvanH1. Although there isn’t a current solution with the app that will work for you in the manner you’re asking about, you might be interested in voting for this Wishlist topic. (You vote at the top-left of it) :slight_smile:

1 Like

So out of sheer curiosity I may have found a way to do this.

Apparently you can receive emails as an SMS on most major providers by sending the email to XXXXXXXXXX@CarrierSpecificAddress where the XXXXXXXXXX is your 10 digit mobile phone number.

i.e. the recipient email address would be something like:
1234567891@txt.att.net

See the following link to find your carrier address:

So using IFTTT linked to Wyze you can create an applet that sends an Email whenever the camera detects motion. Sending email via IFTTT is limited to 750 emails PER DAY which should be way more than enough if just using for Wyze notifications.

Seems like a decent failsafe if you have limited data or have an unreliable data connection.

I created a test applet to try it myself and will report back whenever I get some motion. I sent myself an email from a computer and the sms notification popped up on my phone pretty quick.

4 Likes

Seems to work although I had to make a new IFTTT account using the XXXXXXXXXX@CARRIER email address.

I guess this could be good for some things that need critical monitoring as well. Doesn’t hurt to double up on notifications if your armoury door gets opened :joy:. It might also help some people who have wierd delays on regular Wyze push notifications.

SMS notifications were coming in on my phone within a minute of the event showing up in the wyze app.

Thank you for the suggestion wolfcorner. I installed IFTTT and it worked perfectly.

1 Like

Thanks kjay. I set up IFTTT to send a text message when the camera detects motion and it seems to work. I am about to order a second camera.

1 Like

Hi DreadPirateRush. I set up IFTTT to send a text when the camera detects motion and it works without having data turned on. Give it a try.

Perfect! If you notice that during the month, you stop getting text messages from IFTTT, then it’s because you hit the text limit. If that becomes a problem, the workaround @kjay provided would work perfectly as those are a MUCH higher limit, I think something like 2500 emails a month via IFTTT rather than 100.

1 Like

Yea 100 notifications would be used up in like 3 days for me if I was getting all wyze notifcations. I’m actually tempted to set something like this up since a member of my household keeps forgetting to lock the door despite being able to lock it from anywhere. Pretty sure she has notifications in the wyze app turned off but SMS is always on. 100/month should be enough to get the point across :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

How are the IFTTT text notifications working out for you? I just setup a Wyze Cam and Motion Sensor last night to monitor my mother who has dementia. Notifications seem to be working all right with wifi, but I’d also like to get notified when I’m away from home and don’t currently have a data plan. If I do upgrade it will probably be to a low cost plan with a small amount of data like 250MB.

I’d like to try IFTTT first. Do I install the app on my phone, or does it need to be on another device that will stay in the home all the time?

Thanks.

Depending on your phone perhaps turning data. “Off” on the individual apps you do not want to sync can help. For example on my iPhone I can pick which apps use data. So in your case turn the email and other apps of individually and leave Wyze on.

But that is still a small data plan.

If I recall correctly you don’t need IFTTT installed on your phone. You can set up the applet from a computer browser and it should still work.

Thanks for the quick reply. I’ve been trying to set up IFTTT with the android app and also on my computer browser, but neither can detect any of my Wyze devices. :frowning_face:

Did you add the wyze service to your ifttt account? It will ask you for your wyze login and password.

Also what method are you trying to set up?
If you set up SMS directly there is a limit to 100 SMS/ month.

If you set up email to SMS the limit is like 750/day.

I got the connection working. I must have used a different Wyze email/pw for the website and the app. I just set up the SMS directly and will see how it works, but I’ll look into email to SMS. I didn’t know that was an option and it sounds better. Thanks.

100/month is not a lot. I probably get over 100 notifications within two days across all my cameras and sensors. If you only need a device or two to send you critical notifications it might be ok.

If you do decide to go the email to sms route you will need to setup a new IFTTT account based on your mobile phone number’s email address.

See: Notifications only when connected to WiFi or data - #12 by kjay

You can quickly test to see if you can recieve an email as an SMS by sending a quick email to your cell number (see instructions in link to find your mobile number’s email address). If that works you can follow the rest of the instructions.