Ok, I'm ignorant. Cloud? What's that?

Alright now I’m beginning to regret bringing up the ‘Cloud’ without first obtaining permission from it. It’s looking like some derogatory comments concerning the Cloud without it’s being able to defend itself, might get out of hand. (not to be confused with a Gary Stewart song.)

Except that there is also the Playback icon at the bottom of the events screen, which apparently lets you view events recorded locally.

There should be an Events For Dummies web page hosted by Wyze, summarizing all these behaviors.

I’m making a stab in the dark here in assuming you didn’t see where I knew where to view my events. I wanted to do it online.

Yes, I saw that. Presumably the SD card playback option wouldn’t be available with a web app, just as I don’t believe it’s available from the smartphone app when you are away from the local WiFi network.

No, the SD card playback has nothing to do with Events or Wyze “cloud” servers.

Don’t know why you’d think that. It should pull from the camera fine. (Assuming your SD cards work in the cameras. Mine hardly ever do.)

The Live View and Playback work through the server. Wifi is only used to connect the camera to the server.

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I think the camera just tosses recorded events up to the server and does not interact directly with the smartphone app. I’m not 100% sure what playback does now, other than let you scroll through the timeline and play events, all from the server.

No, Playback has nothing to do with the server. It has nothing to do with Events.

So, even live view plays through the server? Does the camera provide a live feed when the app requests it, and just uploads a video stream whenever there is motion?

SD clips are pulled directly from the camera whether you are on your LAN, mobile data or Wifi away from home.
Only the event clips are stored on WYZE servers. 12 second clips by default and longer clips if you have CAM Plus.

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No, the app itself touches base with the server for management but the stream is established directly between your phone and your camera via “P2P” services.

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You get a direct connection to the camera when viewing live. It doesn’t bounce through WYZE servers.

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Interesting. Does the camera open a streaming connection to the smartphone app (via its public IP) or the other way around, out of curiosity? Just thinking of issues such as PnP on the home router, which might interfere with the smartphone app trying to reach it.

No. They use a 3rd party P2P service to establish the link. It’s expressly in order to avoid router/firewall issues.

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Thanks for the details.

Without any technical explanation, we can view the Live camera via the App through a secure connection. We do not connect directly to the camera, that is why we can view the Live feed from wherever we are. Same for Playback, if we have a SD card.

The clips are on the Wyze server. We transparently switch to a different connection to view the SD card.

Either way, Wyze authenticates our access before accessing the server or the alternate secure connection.

I don’t think that is correct.
I’m fairly sure we authenticate through a WYZE server but connect directly to the camera for live view and SD playback. It would be a poor design to have everything stream through a WYZE server.

Yeah I think we’ve entered semantics. He’s saying the Wyze servers are still involved in the connection process. At least that’s how I took it when I decided not to quibble. :wink:

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Actually, it could be either. Which is it? For live feeds, is it via the server? For SD playback it could be the camera or the server, which is it?

Way back in this or another thread, I mentioned we need an Events For Dummies summary. I think the questions are very simple: Where do live feeds originate? Where do SD playbacks originate?

No. It’s not in question. They have explained at length (years ago) that they use the ThroughTek P2P service network to establish ad hoc direct connections between phone and camera across the Internet. This by definition has to apply to both live view and SD card playback.

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Makes sense to me. I love immutable rules.

Can someone confirm that all streaming (live and SD) requires involvement of the back-end servers??