I experienced something strange to night which was alarming for me. I have 3 Wyze V2 cameras at home. First one is facing to driveway, with a bridge communicating with garage door, basement door and stairway motion sensor. Second one in my toddler son room so we can watch him when he is playing with friends and make sure they are safe. And third one in my infant son room pointing to his bed so we can check him when he’s sleeping and if he wakes up and cries.
Tonight, when my little son was sleeping and I had his camera open on a tablet in front of me while I was working behind my computer. I heard some noise from the tablet and looked at screen, but he was sleeping and I looked at time tag to make sure the tablet or app is not frozen, and it was running. so I thought it was my other son playing upstairs. few minutes later I heard my little son crying from tablet and I ran upstairs and found him awake and crying, but the app was still showing him sleeping. but the time tag and even sound was live and current.
it was not matter of delay )which is normally about 20 seconds and sometimes up to 1 minute), it was frozen picture. so far I thought updating time tag means the picture is updating (because it’s being added to picture by camera, not by app) but looks like it’s not always the case which if this is true, it would be a big reliability deal in my opinion.
Has anyone experienced similar issue, or can comment on this?
I am sorry you ran into this issue, I personally have not heard of anything similar. I definitely would recommend contacting support as this will be something they would need to look into.
Assuming you are running updated versions of the app and the firmware as of today, I would look to your WiFi. The cams will’ freeze’ for intervals of time if there are connectivity issues, which can range from channel congestion to too many devices on your WiFi. There are a lot of variables but in my experience most things like this tend to result from WiFi problems
@WyzeJasonJ‘s suggestion to contact support is probably the best way to go - they have methods of analyzing your network that can point out that type of thing - our rule them out.
I experienced the same thing 2 nights ago. I had two tablets monitoring a group of 4 v2 cams each (all on firmware v4.9.5.98, Android app v2.8.24). Each pair of cams has a slight overlap in viewing area. I noticed an event triggered on one cam in the overlap area and not on the other cam. It didn’t make sense as the trigger was a moving car and I didn’t see it pass from one view to the other. I assumed the 2nd cam had a bad lag, but checked the time display and they were equal and running on both views. I waited 10 minutes with no change and ended up powercycling the cam. That was the only time I’ve encountered an anomaly over 16 cams and chalked it up to a rare fluke. If I encounter it again, I’ll open a ticket and submit a log.
I’ve had the same issues the last few days when trying to get video on my Echo Show or on my tv screen. I can hear the audio but the screen just shows a still image from the last time the camera was used. Sometimes it shows the video after a significant amount of time or it will just time out…
Modern audio/video codecs will prioritize sound over picture when they get unsynchronized. It’s because people don’t mind when the picture lags, but they get very annoyed when the sound stutters.
I had the same frozen picture issue about a week ago, I rebooted the router it is seemed to clear it up, I haven’t seen it since then
Yes, both app and firmware are updated. In case of any wifi issue I expect time stamp and sound to freeze too. I think it’s something inside camera and before time stamp layer being added.
To add more information to my original post, later that night I checked event page and there was a motion event started when I had arrived upstairs to pickup my son. That means the trigger didn’t happen when picture was frozen and it was only registered when the glitch was over.
I haven’t set the camera to create event when detecting sound.
I didn’t have to reboot app or camera, it went away by itself.
But if that’s the reason, I should see same thing about time stamp which is part of the picture.
Thanks. I did.
That wouldn’t explain the timecode updating. That timecode, I believe, is composited into the video frames INSIDE the wyzecam.
What kind of power supply are you using? Is this camera “chained” with another wyze cam?
CMOS video sensors can themselves ‘lock up’. What causes it I don’t know, but I’ve seen it in ANALOG video systems before.
I wouldn’t be surprised if low available power can cause it. Cycling the power has unfroze mine on the two or so occasions I’ve seen a cmos camera do this. (I’ve not seen it with wyze)
I know they require electricity to ‘clear’ the ‘memory’ into which the image is captured, so perhaps if that circuit wasn’t operating, it could cause an image to stick.
I bet sending a command to the cam to ‘reboot’ would cure it up since it’s probably powered off a bus in the cam’s circuit board that would reset during a reboot. Or maybe not. Maybe it would require power cycling the cam.
If the former, then wyze could implement “ImpossiblyStillness Detection” It’s pretty easy to notice that your video feed is not changing at all, not even video noise. Then it could reboot itself.
If reboots don’t unfreeze it, then at least it could alert/kill the stream so you’re not getting false information.
Do you have 24x7 recording to an SD card? (Crossing fingers in hope) Because it would be very interesting to pull the card and see if it’s perfectly still or if there’s still some noise in the picture during the freeze.
If it unfroze without you touching it at all or if you power cycled it, that’s also important to document. I’m sure your hands were full in the moment with the kiddo, but whatever you can recall, please write it down.
If you have a spare cam or wyze can gift you one to help identify this issue, then I’d set it up size by side on a separate power brick, and then wait for the issue to recur.
I’m using original power supply and original power cable. it has a 32GB card, but only recording motion triggered events, no 24/7 recording. the camera is installed indoor in room temperature. I don’t have person detection or CMC services. Frozen picture issue was fixed itself after about a minute without any reboot/reset.
oh man! Why did you put a memory card in it if you’re not doing 24x7 recording? The card isn’t for much else is it? I’d recommend you turn 24x7 recording on so if there is another glitch you will capture it.
I have not seen any mention as to what the specs of the tablets and or smart phones are being used in these issues of lag and or freezes of image. I have gone through my wifi setup so much from the times I had Arlo cams which lagged badly and I got that lag from those cams from 30 secs to 15 secs, but still that was a fail to me, among so many other fails of their app and cam build quality (2K cam falling off mount due to mount screw hole pulling out easily) and their prices for such perfomance not to par with the expense.
Now enter my time I first purchased Wyze cams (v2) where the lag was at most 3 secs! …and price thats a 10th of what I spent on Arlo… (this is not an ad, honestly).
What I did find was when I used an older tablet (2015 Sam. galaxy tab 4 8.0 I believe) I found with time the lag grew from 5 secs initially to almost 15 secs after about 15 minutes. This test I did was done while I also had my sam. gal 9+ phone logged onto the same cam and it remained 1 to 2 secs lag! Now imagine the testings with the Arlo cams… LOL… …like I said, those were a fail to me.
I have since tested the Wyze cams with an old Motorola phone from 2017 (moto g plus 5th gen) and that lagged out to a freeze within 20 minutes with the lag initially at 4 secs but grew fast to around 8 to 15 secs with auto reloading occurring after freezing.
In all the freeze instances I had, along with the built up lag before the freezes, the audio was current, around 3 to 5 secs lag, while image was around 8 to 15 secs lag.
So what I have concluded with my setup and near zero lag needs as a caregiver watching over my grandmother, is that the lag is mainly due to the slower processors of the older devices, and using my Samsung 9+ as well as my wife’s Samsung 8+ and a new samsung galaxy tab 6, I have nearly instant streaming with perfect audio sync’d at 1 to 3 secs lag at most on those devices. Also, it may help that I have over 450mb/s download and over 25 mb/s up with Spectrum net service using a Netgear Nighthawk R8000P router (looks like a dead upside down insect with the 6 antennas) …I have tried hard to get rid of the camera lag with the Arlo cams and truly wish I found Wyze cams long before!
Now while using data on my phone while not on the same network as the cams, the lag is still at around just 3 to 7 secs with Wyze, but that is still great, given the 3 bars signal I usually have while at the store and checking in on my Grandma.
I hope this helps some and maybe help bring up the issues around the lag vs. stats of devices, both budget and top of the line flagship models.
I will be testing the new galaxy s20 ultra phone in about 3 to 5 months after the bugs are weeded out, so lets see how that goes!
…I forgot to mention, I am in an apt, so neighbor wifi congestion is an issue here, so finding less used wifi channels will help. Also the test I did while at the store using my phone data was done while on the phone with my wife, so I can hear her clap her hands then see her on the Wyze app just about 5 secs after I heard it over the phone. I have tested everything I could because the more lag my camera system has, the longer it takes me to respond to the many micro emergencies my grandma has with her dementia. So you see just how important it is for me to not have so much lag. …and to hear/read about others having 30 secs to a minute lag is purely painful and I wish I could help more, so I only hope my two cents here helps a little.
Thank you Wyze for your camera and app build that works exactly how I needed!
Well you can view it remotely and see everything happening in real time. Gives me peace of mind knowing I am looking at everything as it is happening in front of me, in that moment 