I’m following these comments from folks wrestling with the motion sensor inside mailboxes and will share my experience, with the suggestion that maybe it takes more time, as in a full day or more, for communication to be properly established. (Yes, this sounds ridiculous, but read on.)
My set up is similar to others in that I have a line of sight 75’ - 100’ distance with the camera that has the sensor receiver plugged into it. The camera is behind glass and the motion sensor is behind the metal mailbox.
Along with the other sensors, I get occasional false readings, but overall, I get very good results as far as notifications go.
Every few weeks it seems I have to power cycle the camera and that fixes any communication failure for a while. But I’ve got 50+ WiFi devices in my home network which utilizes the required AT&T combination router/modem without any additional access points, over 3 stories, i.e. basement, main level & upper level. Of the 50+ devices, 8 are Wyze cameras and three are sensors, and the most frequent incorrect status I get is the basement door showing open when it’s not, and that is as far away from the camera with the receiver in it as possible in my house, i.e. diagonally in the back, 3 floors down with the camera being upper level in the front of the house.
This will sound elementary and I don’t mean it to be, but my suggestion is to:
Power cycle the router and give it at least 15-20 minutes to “find” everything in your home.
Power cycle the camera itself after unplugging the receiver.
Plug in the receiver and re-discover the sensors, or remove them and re-find them in the Wyze app.
Give everything a day to percolate, then check/test the 3 sensors over a day or two and see what you get.
Power cycle the router and give it at least 15-20 minutes to “find” everything in your home. <=== I assume you mean the wifi router.? How do you “give it” 15-20 minutes? The devices find the router wi-fi signal, the router does not find the devices (per my understanding)
Power cycle the camera itself after unplugging the receiver. <=== by “receiver” do you mean the Wyze hub?
Plug in the receiver and re-discover the sensors, or remove them and re-find them in the Wyze app. <=== again, is the reciever the Wyze hub? I’ve done this multiple times over the last few weeks. The sensors work for a few minutes then stop.
Give everything a day to percolate, then check/test the 3 sensors over a day or two and see what you get. <==== I’ve now had my sensors for weeks. I’ve rebooted my router multiple times. I’ve moved the Wyze hub to a different camera. I’ve moved that camera to a location almost exactly in the middle of where the sensors are located. They will simply not stay online. My experiece is that the sensors quit functioning the moment that they touch or get near metal (my mailbox and garage door are metal and why I bought the sensors in the first place).
My home is one level and 1500 sq. ft. and the sensors are no more than 30-40 feet from the hub, but my home is a 1930’s stucco, so that means a metal mesh in the walls, so it’s a faraday box. I can only assume that is one of the issues. I setup the motion detector and it only worked for a few hours and has never worked since. I deleted it from the app and have never been able to get the app to find it again even when I’m mere inches from the hub when trying to install.
So I’m so glad to hear that you have been able to get yours to work!! I’m not having any such luck.
Well, let me try to address your 4 questions. My wording is imprecise and my technical understanding limited, so I’m just going to explain what occurs in my house.
You’re right, the devices acquire the WiFi signal, not vice-versa. When I power cycle my router (not by going to its LAN address, but by physically unplugging the combination modem/router from the AC and plugging it back in, it takes a long time for my 50+ Wemo switches, Wyze devices, other cameras, Nest thermostats, printer, etc. to all acquire the signal and appear online. I should have added that if you have a stand alone modem and separate router, unplug both and restart, with the modem going first then the WiFi router.
Yes, I meant to say remove the hub from the USB port on the camera which I suppose is closest to the mailbox right, then power cycle the camera and then insert the hub back into the camera.
Well, I don’t know what to add here (yes the receiver is the hub) other than this works for me for weeks at a time. Not 100% (sometimes I don’t get the “close” notification).
And finally, I think you’ve done everything possible to eliminate a WiFi issue and if you have real stucco (not drivit) then you would have wire to hold it into place. With regard to being unable to get the motion detector to be recognized again in the app, try deleting the app from all devices and then going through the nosebleed of reinstalling cameras and sensors. And, I’d also try this: have the sensors physically inside your home but a room or so away from the camera with the hub in it, and see if things will work reliably. If it does, maybe that proves the Faraday cage explanation. One level and 1500 square feet should be easy for the Wyze devices to operate in unless the stucco is fouling things up.
Looking forward to hearing if any of this genuflecting works for you!
Charlie
thanks for the tips. This has been so frustrating, but the wyze cams themselves are awsome! I’ve used them to replace my Nest cam that cost 5 times as much and you have to pay a monthly fee to use all of the feature.
Other than the cameras, I don’t think the motion sensor and the contact sensors are worth the time and effort to make them work, based on my experience, I don’t think they work and not sure why Wyze sold them in the first place.
I removed all of my cams and sensors from the app. i deleted the app from my phone. I removed the hub from my cam. I hit the reset button on all of my cams. I reinstalled the app. I reinstalled the cams from scratch. I put the hub back in (it was very warm when I removed it). I tried to reinstall the sensors from another room approx. 25 feet from the hub. Wyze sees which cam the hub is attached to, but would not reinstall the sensors even after multiple attempts. The process always times out. I moved the hub from my regular cam in the center of my house to my pan cam in another area of my house. Same issue. All attempts to readd the sensors times out. So basically I now have three pretty pieces of plastic and metal that serve no function.
Hmm. I don’t know what else you can do, other that flush the DNSs out of the router and reboot the modem. Have you tried that?
And also, as I said earlier, and this is strange, but give everything more time to get identified.
Can’t a network engineer chime in here? I’m out-driving my headlights!
The wyze USB device is a separate bridge (router) just for the sense devices. It does this at a different frequency or any use of your home wifi router. I had rampant issues with the attached sensors randomly going offline. The newest ver of firmware has corrected this for me with only one issue and that of the bridge losing all communication with the sensors after over a week of use, reboot of cam fixed it.
My bridge is on a pancam, initially to verify the power supply I used a 5v@ 3a (the cam will only draw as much as it needs) to see if the supplied wall wort is at or close to limit but that made no difference.
Methinks this is a new product with some firmware bugs, getting better but not there yet.
My sensors to my doors and windows have been offline for 2 weeks and came online once in 2 weeks but all my cameras work. Not a connectivity problem. Rather I noticed this was issue after adding person detection perhaps an update caused a bug. Please fix this. I am protecting 4 children from what is INSIDE (and outside) of my home and cannot do that with non-functional goods.
My .02¢
I have been running with the updated AI firmware since it was released with no issues other than my own. I’m not sure what all the AI is supposed to do but with my “Alley camera” enabled it sure does trip an event when a rat wanders by.
One of my locations has shitty internet and the app will crash when trying to talk to a pancam there. This has somehow caused my bridged sensors to go offline at the other location 3 times requiring a power reset of the camera with the bridge…??
Coincidence, maybe, but 3 times?
I do know that if resetting wireless modem several times for configuration reasons will result in all sorts of instability issues with the Wyze stuff.
So it’s been like 3(?) months, now. All three of my sensors are useless. The open/close sensor that I put on my garage door doesn’t have enough signal to reach 30 feet inside my home to the base, or 20 feet to the orignal cam that I had it attached to. The other open/close signal that I want to put on my metal mailbox doesn’t have enough signal strength to reach the base 15 feet inside my home. Moving the cams is not an option because then what is the point if they aren’t aimed towards what I need to see? The movement sensor won’t even register on the wyze app. I’ve tried every “solution” that I can find on line and nothing works. So basically I have some really snazzy pieces of plastic with electronics inside sitting in a box doing nothing.
Well, metal is a problem. Your garage door is probably metal too. Mine is. To work well, a sensor needs a clear path to your bridge. That means no metal.
For me, my garage door sensor was surrounded by metal when the garage door was closed. So it never reported closed. I moved the position of the sensor to the top of the door so things like metal rails and doors wouldn’t interfere, and it works perfectly now.
Distance from sensor to the bridge counts too. Whether things like a big metallic object like a furnace and water heater are in between also matter.
No way to work around it or redesign it. Metal is a problem for RF signals.
Ok. I’m gonna have to try this. I have the same problem. Detached garage…about 30 feet away from house. Nothing has helped. metal door. sensor only shows Open when it’s closed. But I do have a bridge attached to the camera in there(garage) And it’s like 8 feet away from sensor. Even though the Device Info only shows one bar on signal strength.? I also have a TP link out there hoping that would help. Tomorrow I’ll remove it and move it in another spot on the door. better work or I’ll have to remove it.
Same issue here. Mine went offline within minutes. Wasn’t critical to me so waited for this recent update. Unplugged and replugged the bridge and re connected the sensors. They worked for a few cycles. Rechecked 10 minutes later and they are offline again!
Wow, that’s a real bummer. I have never experienced anything like that with mine. Is the bridge in a pan cam or v2? I know others have had issues using the bridge in a pan cam.
If you haven’t tried this already, unplug the cam with the bridge and remove the bridge. Then power back up give it time to connect. Then reinstall the bridge in the cam and see what color the light is on the back of the bridge to see if it has connected. Others have successfully reconnected their sensors after trying this procedure.
I usually see something like that when my internet has a couple of glitches (ISP or my router). The device that had the bridge gets wonky and stops communicating. Rebooting it fixes it for me.
so I’m out of luck with signal strength
