Outdoor Camera Not Working

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#1

My camera is no longer transmitting video as it used to. I put my camera into my detached garage, about 37’ from the base station, to monitor a rodent problem I have. It was working for almost a week–I could get events and stream video. Now it detects and plays events OK but when I go to stream video the video freezes after a few frames (< 1sec) with a very pixelated picture (the event videos are OK). I also eventually lost connections all together and after doing a power cycle it’s back to freezing on the video (no events detected yet). This happens on my Pixel 3A and also under BlueStacks.

I moved the camera closer to the basestation and it seems to work but when I put it back into the garage it freezes. It’s as if the WiFi range suddenly decreased. I did not drop or otherwise mishandle the camera. I did recharge it once but it worked for a while after that.

Anybody have this problem? I’m probably going to open a ticket but want to check if there is anything I can do (including waiting for a firmware fix) before engaging support.

Thanks.

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#2

You are not alone, the WCO was prematurely released to the public… I believe the camera is solid, firmware/software not so much

#3

My experience is that the hardware tends to be buggy and the software has to do all kinds of things to get the hardware to work. Still I think they released it too early given all the issues I’ve had. This one I don’t have a good workaround for.

#4

I would like to agree with you but the camera never leaves my home but software/firmware changes happen all the time… That’s wherein the biggest problem lies… They manage to repair one issue and either introduce or re-introduce other issues

#5

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#6

I hope not!

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#7

Similar experience since the “maintenance” that took place last weekend. I’ve noticed if I don’t go “full screen” with my live stream things are fine. Shortly after going full screen I have your exact problems.

#8

What’s puzzling to me is that the event playback works just fine but the real-time streaming freezes. The WiFi for the event video transmission (to the Wyze cloud servers) seems to work. I’m assuming that it’s WiFi.

I’ve reset both the base station and the camera and it hasn’t helped. I noticed that the base station is very hot.

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#9

I too am going with it being a local WiFi issue. In other words, an issue with the base and WCO communication. I had 1 bar of connectivity until last night. I moved my base a bit closer and managed to get up to two bars. I haven’t done any testing yet today, but will be running through a few things again tonight.

#10

I have zero bars right now.

It must be that Wyze handles events and real-time streaming differently although I’m not sure why. They both go over the Wyze local network to the base station? I’m hoping that this straightens itself out shortly because I don’t want to engage with support if I don’t have to.

#11

When I was talking about bars earlier, I was referencing the 3-bar connectivity meter found when you click on the base station with the app. Is that what you’re talking about when you say you have zero bars? If so, your WCO will not communicate with the base properly.

#12

Yes, from both the base station and the device.

Anyway, at one point I had one bar and it seemed to work. We’ll see if I get any more events later tonight [Update–getting event videos with zero bars!]. The base station is 37’ away from the camera. Too bad I cannot change the channel that the base station uses–maybe I can get a stronger signal that way. I’m away and so my options to experiment are limited.

#13

Very interesting. I’m not sure that I would trust my WCO to work properly when it has zero bars of signal strength with the base. With the base being less than 40’ from the camera, are you in a very wifi saturated area or do you have several obstructions between the base and the camera?

I’m about the same distance +/- 5’ and float between 1 and 2 bars. I completely agree that we need MUCH more control over the base.

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#14

Just discovered that the camera streams just fine to my Echo Show 5 (with the Wyze skill). Not much is happening in the stream but date and timestamp updates clearly and regularly. So Events work, Echo Show works, but streaming to the app on my Pixel 3A or the Blue Stacks emulator does not work.

My guess is that it’s not hardware but rather there is something going on with the Wyze backend or camera firmware that leads to a poorly formed stream that the app cannot display. I’ve seen this kind of thing before with events on my phone.

#15

Finally someone appreciated my Camaro joke.

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#16

Cus, ya needs to get out more…

#17

Things seem to be working now. I’m not sure why but I’m able to stream video now. I strongly suspect it had something with the way the camera was streaming to the app.

By the way, I have 3 bars, not zero. I was reading the display incorrectly. Signal strength at the camera is -70dBm.

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#18

Update: I now have better understanding of the issues. The video streaming seems to work well from home (on the local internet) but when I am farther away the streaming has problems. The strange thing is that the away streaming works on Echo Show and Fire TV just not on my phone or android simulator on my desktop.

Also with regard to the signal strength: I tend to see 3 bars but they are not solid for both the base station and the camera. I first and correctly thought that that meant no signal strength. Now I’m seeing varying numbers of solid bars with the base station and the camera sometimes showing different numbers and also sometimes both showing no sold bars.

So the bottom line for me is that the outdoor camera is not working from remote locations on the app and that there are issues with the signal strength indicators and/or wifi reception of the camera.

#19

If possible, for testing purposes, try moving your base closer to the camera. I have mine about 35-40’ apart and when I click on the base within the app it shows two solid bars to the cam. I haven’t had any issues for quite some time now.