I guess you are referring to something outside of the thread. Sad if true.
Wyze’s Discord guy seems to be acting like this shouldnt be the case.
Not at all. You referenced a comment Gwen said midway through this thread that the cameras should be able to record to the uSD card without an internet connection after power up. My reply was that her comment was 2 1/2 years ago and the firmware has changed - by intent. The cameras have not been able to record to the uSD card after power up until they are able to check in with the Wyze server for several years.
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She says it was intended in May 2019:
But then she says it was NOT intended here Oct 2019:
It’s a long thread, have to read the whole thing. She even goes on to say to send logs if that doesn’t work, which I did last night,
It even looks like timelapses may have been fixed if you read other posters following that, but I haven’t tested that.
The point remains. What Gwen said was accurate in 2019, but the firmware has changed since then and you can no longer record to the uSD card after power up until the camera is able to check in with the Wyze servers.
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Thanks for the heads up lol.
I’m gonna make a shitfit and talk to support about it because I use these for business purposes even though needing a few hotspots wouldnt be the biggest deal.
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After wasting three hours with support replicating and explaining the issue, they recommend flashing the older firmware 4.36.7.22 lmao.
God forbid you set one in a property and decide to change outlets with no wifi.
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That’s still a relatively recent firmware (Nov 2021). Have you tested?
I found out about this issue with my V3 back in Sept 2021, which is when I posted my question regarding this to this forum.
I would go back AT LEAST two years. Maybe more than that.
So I don’t want to do this, because I don’t care. But you guys that keep rehashing this undying thread need to do a TEST. Set up a cam to record continuously to SD, then turn off your WiFi, then power cycle your cam. 10 minutes later, did it record anything? Report, don’t rehash maybes, or ‘what ifs’ or ‘i think’, lol. TEST
I did perform this test, here was my procedure
- set up cam and get running with sd on continuous
- wait at least 5 minutes
- cut wifi
- wait at least 5 minutes
- cut power
- wait at least 5 minutes
- restore power
- wait at least 5 minutes
- reconnect wifi
- wait 5 minutes
- review sd card footage.
My results were that when power was cut there was no SD card recordings again until wifi was restored. This means it has to call home. I did this with a v3 on the most current firmware as of this post. I reported this to the team and need to do further testing, any one else who wants to test can also. What I have been told to look for is if the recordings between the time power is restored and wifi is restored are actually on the SD card but with messed up time stamps therefore not showing in the app. I should have time to do this saturday or sunday. I would do this with an empty SD card so it is easy to find misnamed recordings.
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Oh that last part is important, I’ve only been checking the timestamped folders I would expect the recording to be.
I think there is a time.ini file on the uSD card with a text like, “[TM] utc=1608863738” and that is where the time starts w/o getting anything off NTP. You can convert the number via (Unix Epoch Clock)
One good way is to have the test camera pointed at a real-time clock.
Thanks for doing the test, Jason. The timestamp theory sounds a little like a hail mary pass but it will be interesting to hear.
I have not done a specific “test”, but I have observed countless times in the last year or two with essentially every beta firmware version in between that the cameras will not record to the uSD card after power up until they check in with the Wyze servers.
Yes, they would record to the uSD card without ever seeing internet when I first got my early cameras. However some while later, a firmware change took that capability away and Wyze stated at the time that it was an intentional change and they were not fixing it.
As for the time error part, I can concur. Here is a video that both recorded without internet after it was powered up, and showed a time that was about 15 hours off because it has not been able to update time. This is the finale of my July 4th fireworks show in 2018 (starts about 20 seconds into the recording). The recording is really from about 2120 (9:20 PM for those that can’t understand 24 hours time). Note the timestamp on the video.
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I experience the same thing and have also been told in the past that this should work AND that it is intentionally this way. Mixed answers, the answer I get currently is this should work without having to call home after the power up, theory is the timestamps are getting messed up. Now that the recent response is that it should be working I want to show that it isn’t so it can be fixed. I stopped testing when I was told it was intentionally this way.
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Hey WYZE and beta testers: Ever heard of a power outage? Many power outages are paired with ISP related issues.
File this under DUH:
As soon as power is restored these “security cameras” (think home monitoring) most definitely should be recording to the uSD card with or without Internet service.
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Is this still the case? That if when a power outage occurs, once the camera if powered back on and Wi-Fi is down for the camera does not record?
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Yes. The cameras are essentially brain dead until they can check in with the Wyze servers.
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Hoping post #200 will hit a threshold where this will work again… or at least make it clear on the advertising lingo. Essentially, it will NOT record, offline
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