Motion detection was turned off (under Event Recording/ Detects Motion). In Off-line recording (i.e., in environments where there is no internet connection, it’s not possible for the camera to send 12-second Events to the cloud.
According to the User Guide, the Record Events to SDcard feature is INDEPENDENT of the 12-second alert videos sent to the cloud. The User Guide says quite explicitly that “if you have motion detection turned off, you will still have clips saved to your microSD card when motion events occur”. That is in direct contradiction to your explanation.
So I’m totally confused about how recording to SDcard is supposed to work.
Here’s the section from the User Guide explaining MicroSD Card recording:
When you select Record events only, the camera will only record video if motion is detected.
How it works: The camera breaks the video feed into 1-minute increments. If motion is detected at any point within a 1-minute increment, that 1-minute increment is recorded to the microSD card. This means that the camera will record continuously when there is motion, and will not record when there is no motion detected.
Note that this is independent of the 12-second alert videos that are captured and stored on the cloud for 14 days based on the camera’s motion detection settings. The 12-second alert videos have a 5-minute cooldown period, so when there is constant motion the camera will record a 12-second alert video every 5 minutes and save that video to the cloud for 14 days. With a microSD card installed and set to Record events only, the camera will save video to the microSD card as long as motion is detected.
Note: Alert Settings do not impact the Record events only setting. For example, if you have motion detection turned off, you will still have clips saved to your microSD card when motion events occur.
We need to clarify that part and I’ll talk to the team about that. The microSD card recordings rely on the sensitivity settings from the motion detection setting but are not held to the same cooldown. During the cooldown you can still record to the microSD card. Could you please try this test with the motion detection turned on to your desired event recording sensitivity?
Just to clarify: you want me to turn on Event Recording/Detects Motion which will enable the recording of 12-second clips to the WyzeCloud, even though the camera has no internet connectivity? Needless to say, the camera will be unable to transmit any 12-second clips to the WyzeCloud. Will the absence of internet connectivity not make the camera unhappy, generate errors in the log, produce negative karma?
I will try the test you’ve asked for, but at the moment the camera is in a rather inaccessible location (it’s on a ‘special mission’). When its assignment is over, I will reconfigure it as you requested and see what gets recorded to the SDcard.
I’m not quite sure what the problem is and I’m not reading through all the comments.
But “Off-Line recording” is not dead.
I just turned my wifi OFF and went out to make a video. Then after a minute passed I turned the camera OFF and pulled the SD card.
(I hope you appreciate the work. It’s 112º outside right now.)
Brought the SD card inside to read it from my computer.
The video was there and it did record off-line with no wifi.
If course the Wyze App won’t work because you have no wifi to view videos from the cloud, but I can assure you the camera kept recording without wifi.
If your camera is properly set up to record videos on the SD card it will record without wifi.
You’ll just have to pull the card to see the videos.
Without a wifi connection the videos cannot make it up to the internet cloud.
@azwayneb
It might be helpful to read all the comments.
Unplug your camera.
Take it far away, somewhere where there is no WiFi (and no internet). IE, off-line. And hopefully where it’s not 112F:-)
Power it up, perhaps using a USB power pack.
Leave it a while, letting it record video to the SDcard (or so you think).
Disconnect the power. Take it back home. Pull the SDcard and see if anything was recorded while it was off-line. I’m betting there won’t be.
In the scenario that you described, you turned your WiFi off, but the camera was still powered it, and still thought it was registered to the Wyze servers. That’s why it recorded when you went out to make a video.
If you want to catch up quickly, response 74 shows how the camera currently works (particularly item 2).
For you, no problem. You had Internet when you started your camera. Beyond that the SD card will record, no problem.
@Kyphos however is truly off-line. No Internet to start up the camera.
Needing Internet to start up the camera also affects people who put the camera in vacation homes that have no Internet. They start up the camera using a hotspot before they leave. Power goes off, SD card recording comes to a halt, even if the camera powers back up.
If the camera has no WiFi connectivity, it can’t communicate with the Wyze servers.
If the camera boots up with no connection to the servers, it won’t record to the SDcard.
They would last year - I made many videos with my camera off-line (no internet connection), but that capability stopped working last fall following a firmware update. As described in post 74, the cameras now require live connection to Wyze servers at boot time in order for them to do any SDcard recording.
Not entirely true.
As long as you start the camera while having an Internet connection and keep the camera powered up is the key.
I just connected my camera to a solar charged battery pack and as long as the battery pack has voltage, the camera recorded to the SD card after I took it far enough away to lose the Internet wifi connection.
When back home I pulled the card and there were 1 minute recordings of my walk into the desert.
As long as the camera is connected to a battery source like UPS and set up while on the Internet it will continue to save videos to the SD card.
Load the UPS into your car and drive to your remote Fortress of Solitude and if the UPS still has power you can plug it into the line power and you’re good to go.
Put a piece of tap over the motion sensor so the camera doesn’t record needless videos before it’s set up.
A decent UPS backup should last quite a while.
The only way it will record and still save videos to the SD card.
I noticed that after a certain amount of time the leds started flashing yellow and blue. Which I guess means the camera was trying to reconnect to wifi.
I suppose Wyze could go the extra mile and install a Bluetooth capable radio so we could set up the camera while off the grid with no Internet connection.
That might cost an extra $1.50 per camera though.
Why so argumentative? kyphos and others need total off-line operability. We’ve been thru all the options like battery packs and the like. People want a totally off-line mode with no technical expertise, or worry about power loss. Yes, even a pass-thru charging battery pack will lose power if it is out long enough. Plus you can’t view the SD card without taking it home to your computer. It’s very messy.
In other words. the camera was on-line in order to get it to boot up, and then start recording. That’s not what this thread is about.
That’s problematic if you’re flying somewhere. Airlines require that WiFi devices be turned off. Or driving a long way. If/when the camera loses power, it can no longer be used to make SDcard recordings, until it gets another internet fix, which in an off-line environment is not possible.
??? tape over the motion sensor? The motion detector is the CMOS imaging chip, coupled with some firmware. If the camera was configured for continuous recording, putting tape over the lens won’t stop it from recording.
Flashing LED indicates that the camera is not able to connect to the Wyze servers, not that it’s trying to reconnect to WiFi. It’s quite possible for the camera to have WiFi connectivity but with no backhaul to the internet. Think of scenario of cabin in the woods - there’s power (until it fails), there’s WiFi from a local access point, but there’s no internet service, since cabin is deep in the woods.
Not sure how this would work. Even with a $15+ long-range BT radio, the camera won’t be able to connect to the Wyze servers without an internet connection. BT just doesn’t have the range.
The ‘extra mile’ for Wyze to travel is to re-enable the camera to boot up in the absence of internet connectivity and still support local recording to SDcard. They used to work like that, but no more.
This is the problem. You are just re-hashing what’s already been said. You really need to read comments before you post if you want to add anything new.
That is how I felt about the time-lapse situation. But at least they got that working again. Hope they can regain the capability to boot up without CALLING HOME.
With the latest firmware, I need to re-run one of my test cases, but perhaps you already know the answer:-). It’s well known that in order to download a time-lapse recording, the smartphone (app) and the camera have to be on the same WiFi network. (IMHO that’s a stupid restriction, but they seem to think it’s an important restriction). In previous tests, I found that if the camera was connected to my iPhone hotspot, the app refused to do the download. The phone had LTE service, so the camera happily booted up. The download failed: the app told me that it had to be on the same network as the camera, But the iPhone and the camera WERE on the same network. Specifically, they were both on the subnet created by iOS hotspot. They each had an IP in the /24 subnet created/managed by the hotspot. Yet the app didn’t recognize that fact, and refused to download the TL file. Strangely, Live View and all the other features worked just fine.
I’ll have to retest this use case with the latest firmware, but I thought you might know.
I frequently got that error during my time lapse testings with prior firmwares but it has not happened yet with the .108 FW. And ALL the times before the cam and phone were on the same network in my house.