Oops, spell check, lol
I know some on here think a hub for the cameras are a lost cause, if they stop working. Just let me say this…I would rather pay $19 for a hub, than $100+ for a new router, if it goes bad, so I can add more Wyze things. Much more logical and less strain on the wallet. To each his own though.
2 Likes
It’s not an either/or sollution.
A WYZE hub does replace a router. You would need both.
I have never had a router die.
I have had 3 routers die. One Netgear and 2 Linksys. I have a smartthings hub for a few years. I never had a problem with it. It controls 16 lightbulbs a fridge and a clothes washer and dryer. The router only sees the hub. With TVs computers and cellphones, if everything was connected just to the router, I would have slow bandwidth if I added the 12 camera to the router. I never said either/or I just don’t want to buy costly APs or extenders. If money wasn’t an issue, then we wouldn’t be talking this subject, mainly because I wouldn’t have bought Wyze cameras.
Umm, what do you envision a “hub” doing for Internet connected cameras? They still have to pass streams and notifications and home-phoning through your router, no matter what. The small little command and control stuff that a hub handles doesn’t eat much bandwidth anyway. If you’re like most of us, even local stream viewing passes through your router / AP. Not seeing the point. I finally started getting into automation just as hubs became old news as devices went WiFi, and I’m glad for that.
Finally watched the video. All the valid “clean up your own act” criticisms aside (all the false alarm flaws they highlight are still very much present in Wyze products) it was unfortunate how much they idolized one of the most virulent racists of the 20th century. I didn’t even know he distributed the stuff at Ford dealerships. 
Ford's Anti-Semitism | American Experience | Official Site | PBS
Being able to connect more devices to my router without having to buying more costly APs. My router seems to have issues when I connect more than 30 devices. I could connect 30 hubs, with each hub having over 100 devices, connected to just one router. Like I said earlier to each his own. I don’t have to justify my preferences. This will be my last post on this subject. Too much drama happening. I’m talking low cost. Everyone else is making more out of it. If you can afford the extra APs or extenders then why even respond to my post. As I have said, to each his own.
Not sure why you seem to be taking offense. Smart home hubs cost more than my $40 router. I was questioning the value of a hub, not your personal habits. 
1 Like
Is that with a wifi 5 router? I just bought a wifi 6 one but havent hooked it up yet, but wifi 6 is able to handle more devices.
Nice pitch… IMO you need to find a slightly better balance… I’d rather pay $50 for a camera that works REALLY well, than 20-30 on one that barley gets by… My nest cams cost an arm and leg but the way I can scroll through hours of video smooth as butter is SOOO nice, I almost want to ditch my wyze cams. Looking back over video from the SD card is SOOO painful… slow… buggy… audio doesn’t sync right… it’s a mess… You get what you pay for… I like that you are shaking things up… I think you just need to tip the balance (or atleast) have some more mid-range options instead of bottom of the line.
2 Likes
Yes it is a linksys AC2200 tri-band router. The router itself may have a problem, as I have said, I have had 2 of them go bad. They were N routers. I also have 400Mb internet speed. I was just talking about my preferences, when I have 100+ things that use wifi, Wyze could make a cheap hub to control the cameras, plugs and bulbs. I can’t open my business so I want to play with my toys, ie. home automation. I have to limit what I can buy for awhile. I would like to get a good high speed mesh router, but that is out of the question. I don’t believe hubs are out of date. That is what I was talking about. Then a couple of people seem to take offense about using hubs. I didn’t have any problem talking about it but it started getting " hubs have problems " and the like. My smartthings hub connects 16 bulbs 3 plugs, my refrigerator and washer and dryer and the many Wyze cameras, outlets, door locks which by the way has a hub and bulbs. That is 22 devices that only use one spot on my router. Not including the Wyze products. My kids and grandkids have xboxes and playstations, laptops and tablets and phones. I use the other 5ghz band for my wife’s and my phones and computers. Once my business starts back making money maybe I can afford more expensive things. So as of now I have to take care of my family, but I still want some play things while I’m locked up at home. This is my thoughts and that is all it is.
1 Like
No one was offended. We just have different opinions.
You can do the same thing with subnets without using proprietary hardware.
I’ve had amazing success with the Asus ac1900 (RT-Ac68U). So much so that I’ve purchased 7 of them for three of my properties. . My largest property has 3 apartments with a total of 9 bedrooms. They are students, and some tech heads that have all kinds of stuff in those apartments. They run multiple routers (aside from the router I provide) for all kinds of things.
They are very heavy users and I’ve had zero issues. I’ve never even had to reboot the routers.
I have one main router for the internet and each apartment has its own line ran to a router in each apartment (same model). I’ve used both merlin firmware and stock firmware without issues. Merlin gives me a bit more features and I do like it.
The stock firmware is okay, but you can flash it to merlin. It’s very easy and merlin is the stock firmware with some added features. They have been rock solid. Even the stock firmware is rock solid. I’m not sure about linksys, but everyone I’ve ever had died and kept needing to be rebooted allllllll the time!
The Asus routers seem to also share common firmware, which is smart because the more routers and devices you have using the same firmware makes it more bulletproof. You find a bug in one, you fix it for all,
Both firmware makes having a mesh system easy. They have and support something called ai mesh. It let’s you make a mesh network simple. I’ve personally had a few issues where I keep being bounced between routers and I lose internet for a few seconds. I think I need to move them because I’m literally in the middle.
One of the things you might like are the parental controls you get. It will log and block all websites. Let you track each device and even limit bandwidth. It would be very insightful. The merlin firmware will also let you make up to three guest networks. It’s pretty crazy.
2 Likes
Wyze needs to remain focused and agile. Having too many products means more headaches regarding hardware and software (firmware) etc. you end up being good at a lot of things but master of none of the things…
Although I got the band and scale and like them both and I got rid of my old fitness band and using just one app, there were some issues with the band in the beginning.
This goes back to whether wyze is into security, home automation, or fitness/health?
With its myriad of products what is Wyze? Granted both Fitbit and GoPro are niche products and are getting slaughtered because they didn’t diversify, given that Wyze is a smaller more nimble company, maybe having a limited strategic roadmap is the way to go.
Even GM had to shed some of its brands and focus on a few and at least try to do them well.
Honestly it seems as if they’re in the “what undernoticed imports can we rebadge and ramp up quickly” business. As some have said, that’s not necessarily bad if they do it well.
1 Like
I think the cams are rebadged xiaomi products but not sure about the other items like outlet plugs bulbs and locks.
Even if they do rebadge things it does cut a lot of R&d money. But despite rebadge they do have to spend time and money with integration. Which as you’ve said they have to do well and remain focused which is the key.
Having a larger product line will only cause more issues in the short run.
2 Likes
Their why/mission statement/purpose/etc has always been the same:
“…launch high quality, affordable smart home products that enrich people’s lives and make great technology accessible to everyone.”
So far everything they’ve done and every product falls into that category. People may want to project onto Wyze to stay in a small niche of just security or just health or just something else, but they are out to reach a market of any and all IOT type of devices to be more affordable.
Amazon may have started with selling just hardcover/paperback books, and people told them they needed to stick solely with only paper books forever…but that wasn’t ever what Amazon intended. Their mission statement from the start was:
to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online, and endeavors to offer its customers the lowest possible prices.
Why tell Amazon to stick to only selling paper books? Or just paper books from one author or series? Could anyone really tell them that if they expanded to sell other authors or other book series, or other formats of books or other products that they are a failure? It is true that Amazon had some struggles and almost collapsed, but look at them now…49% of all ecommerce goes through them. Billions of dollars. They are far from a failure, despite their huge market Wyze sticking within any kind of IOT device is NOT broad.
IMO, having more devices and a broader market actually makes Wyze more agile.
Still, your point here, is a good one:
It’s a valid theory, however, that is only relevant if we assume they don’t expand and add more people to be dedicated to the new devices, and instead, completely ignore or neglect the previous devices to focus on the new ones.
For example, let’s say they start with 2 employees (just a random number for the example) doing the coding and focusing on a couple of devices.
After launch those 2 coding employees then focus on 2 more devices.
Then 2 more devices.
In this case, your statement is very valid. Suddenly there are no improvements or updates or bug fixes or anything happening with the previous products, especially when there are issues caused by the new ones. Their 2 coders don’t have the time to do all the troubleshooting needed for every product while also focusing on code for new ones. This will make products significantly lower quality and make things worse.
There is a simple solution to this which will allow Wyze to continue to have top of the line “mastery” of their current products while still being able to continually add tons of new products as per their mission: hire more quality people. They already got $20Million invested and are here pitching to new investors. They don’t need everything to be coded by just 2 people. They can hire LOTS more coders to be dedicated to lots of new products. With Millions invested they can afford to improve the structure and expand. The old products continue to be kept up on by people dedicated to improving that product, or a couple select products, while other people are dedicated to newer products. There would not even be a drop in quality as you feared.
Having experience with owning and managing businesses, I can tell you that sometimes as the business expanded and we hit bigger markets with bigger incomes, we actually improved our services everywhere and became better in every single way. We could hire people to be dedicated to certain things so those with higher demand skills could focus on things they were the best at. We could afford more services that we couldn’t before, and give even more value without increased costs to the consumer. We became more efficient with more options and conveniences and dedicated masters for specific things…instead of a few employees broadly good and responsible for a lot of different things, we could have specialized employees solely focussed on individual things.
Thus, I really believe that Wyze will actually get better as they grow. I’ve seen/experienced it.
Seriously, I’m celebrating that they’re expanding their market and growing…
My only fear is that they’ll sell too much company control to investors who will start making them jack up prices because the investors become in control and want to increase profit margins.
1 Like
Though you make some good points and have personally experienced growth in market share, etc. but comparing Amazon to Wyze is really apples to oranges.
Just to clarify without AWS and Alexa, Amazon is simply the worlds largest retailer. They sell stuff but not necessarily support them except for its own Alexa lines. And granted prior to AmazonBasics they were really just selling stuff like Walmart/Target. With Wyze, though it third party its hardware manufacturing (just like Apple) and probably design (though with the lock and band I am not quite so sure compared to the cam which are basically rebranded Xiaomi models) it still spends to support the device it sells. Yes, in theory they can always hire more coders which is what normal business do whether its selling tech or pizza. As demand increase you reach a nadir where productivity then falls if you don’t increase you human capital. We get that.
As you yourself just stated, they have to go outside to get more funding. Yes, I get it everyone including Apples gets outside funding (Apple who has always loathe to take on debt has been loading up on cheap debt thanks to the Feds, but that’s another story). How much margin do you think Wyze makes selling $25 cams? Not sure if you were aware that about 1-2 years ago the CEO of Wyze had to take out a equity loan on his home to cover payroll.
And as you stated, as you have more investors - the likelihood of founders losing more control is always a risk. And my guess the investors are expecting a return on their investments and therefore somethings gotta give - increase margins, subscription models, etc.
Apple used to focus on a few things and they were good at it. And though they have the manpower and $$$$ for it, I feel that they have lost focus in the past couple of years. HAving 100 different version of ipads, iphones, macbooks - but I can’t complain since my Apple stocks are making me $$$$$$.
Maybe Wyze will get to the size of Apple/Amazon, someday…but hopefully won’t get lost on the way with the wrong roadmap.
1 Like
I got the Tplink deco mesh and I have to admit, its the best thing since all you can eat sushi…JK.
It is awesome. I tried getting AP’s, extenders, etc and with the mesh its all seamless and I’m getting speeds way that is just fast. But I have to admit, my house has ethernet outlets built so that each mesh node is backhauling through ethernet rather than wifi.
amazon had a sale and i bought it and sold all my extenders on ebay…best investment ever beside wyze cams, lol.
Great response with awesome points. I liked the comparison to Apple. I definitely don’t think Wyze will get anywhere close to that level of success when trying for a profitability model based on lots of sales due to low margins and better programming (than the Xiaomi models), but the idea of people able to expand to more than just one or two products and instead have an ecosystem without everything falling apart is what I was getting at…though at a smaller scale and slightly different model.
We definitely agree on concern about the potential of investors getting them lost though… If they changed their business model too much to cater to higher margins they’ll definitely lose a lot of people.
1 Like