Turn a Wyze Cam into a Webcam (Wiki)

Hi All -

We’ve been hearing about different tips and tricks that community members have found with the webcam firmware. We wanted to create an unofficial community wiki where people can help each other out with what they’ve found works.

If you have anything to add, please do!

**This is a wiki post. This is a type of post that can be edited by any community member by clicking on the edit button at the bottom of the post. **

Screen Shot 2020-04-08 at 1.22.31 PM

Original article: https://support.wyzecam.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041605111

What you’ll need:

*If you have a USB C to A cable, it may work. Follow the instructions below; if you have issues, switch to a USB A to A cable.

Before you start:

  1. Wyze Cam v2 (and Pan) were not designed to be used as a webcam. This firmware is for folks who need a webcam but can’t buy one.
  2. This solution should be used “as is.” We are not planning on continuous improvements or bug fixes.
  3. Once the Wyze Cam is flashed to webcam firmware, it will not be able to connect to the Wyze app, unless you manually flash it back to stock firmware.
  4. This may or may not be compatible with your computer operating system. We have tested and confirmed that it works on Mac OS 10.13, Windows 7 and 10.
  5. This solution has been tested and works with Zoom, GoToMeeting, Blue Jeans, Google Hangouts, Skype, and Cisco.

What we know:

  • The webcam video, speaker, and mic all function properly.
  • Mic audio may be low. We suggest you set your audio level to medium, or use your own microphone and speaker.

How to flash your Wyze Cam to a webcam:

  1. Insert the microSD card into your computer.
  2. Download the webcam’s special firmware here.
  • Windows 10: Right-click on the file "V2Webcam .zip " or " PanWebcam .zip" and select Extract all to your desktop. Drag and drop the " demo.bin " file on the root directory of your microSD card.
  • Mac OS: Click on the file "V2Webcam .zip " or " PanWebcam .zip" . Drag and drop the " demo.bin " file on the root directory of your microSD card.
  1. Eject and remove the microSD card from your computer.
  2. Unplug the Wyze Cam from the power source (ex. the end attached to the wall socket).
  3. Insert your microSD card into the bottom of the camera.
  4. Press and hold the Setup button, then plug your Wyze Cam back into the power source.
  5. Continue holding the setup button for 3-6 seconds until the light is solid blue, then release the button.
  • Note: The “Solid Blue” in this case is not the same as the one normally seen on the camera. Instead, both the blue and yellow LEDs will be on at once, appearing as a lighter blue.
  1. Wait 3-4 minutes.
  • The camera will reboot, and the light status will change during this time.
  1. Once complete, the status light will flash yellow and blue at the same time (not alternating).

Wyze Cam will continue to flash yellow and blue at the same time if the webcam firmware is installed properly and the camera is turned on.

To use your new webcam:

  1. Connect the USB A to A cable to the Wyze Cam USB port and the computer USB port.
  2. In your video conference tool (ex. Zoom), change the camera source to “HD USB Camera.”
  • We recommend you use a different source for the speaker and microphone functions.

The cable suggested by Wyze works flawlessly, at least in my Windows 10 PC. Used it with Zoom, even audio thru the cam worked well. Install on a new V2 went well but follow the instructions in detail!

14 Likes

Thanks Works Great. Great company

Question before I flash a Wyze Pan to webcam for use with ZOOM…
Does PT Firmware support Pan Tilt Function or just video and sound.

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You can manually pan the camera but it doesn’t have the automatic panning and tracking features after a successful firmware flash. :slight_smile:

Glad you like it!

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Before flashing (or moving demo.bin), do I have to format the card? or leave all existing files that were on the microSD card?

This doesn’t say anything about formatting card, so I would say “no”:

2 Likes

I used this for two computers in my house and they work great. I’m very thankful for Wyze offering this!

Has anyone found a way to reduce the fisheye though?
It’s an optical issue, so I don’t think there’s anything that can be done in software, but I’d like to reduce the wide-angle fisheye. An add-on fish-eye-reduction lens hack?
While the wide angle is great for surveillance, it distorts faces, and shows a bit more around than I would like.

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It would be great if it could pan and follow the user, are there any plans to add the feature. Just got my Wyze Cam Pan today and I am very pleased with it’s performance.

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I’ve tried everything I possibly can. My WyzeCam v2 light never goes blue holding down the setup button. Just yellow. After 6+ seconds there will be the tiniest flash of blue. Regardless of whether I let go of the button in 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 and 10 seconds it will either turn off or blink yellow forever.

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@nickot, we don’t currently have plans for further developing the webcam firmware but I’ll share your interest with the team. :slight_smile:

@quard, I’d recommend reaching out to customer support about this issue. Sorry for the trouble!

Wyze Customer Support

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I have flashed the webcam firmware. I get the blinking blue light that indicates a proper install. When I plug the device into my computer using just the A2A cable, I get a blinking blue light, then the light goes out shortly after. Is this perhaps a power issue? I and not using the regular power supply, just the USB A to A cable.

I figured out my problem. I had a bad driver causing the issue. I used this tool from Nirsoft to inspect every USB device, and for some reason the camera was showing up a nook device. I might be the hardware ID used. I uninstalled the nook device driver, and now my camera is recognized properly. I am just leaving this here so others can troubleshoot. Here is the link to the USB device viewer. View any installed/connected USB device on your system

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I really couldn’t tell whether it was blue or yellow. It was all different depending on the angle that I was looking at. I just followed instruction step-by-step and it just worked. Until it told me to use the USB A to A cable, I left that out until the very last step. (One video on YouTube confused me, because the guy was using USB A to A cable from the beginning).

Even with an A to A cable it didn’t work no matter how many times I tried it.

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I assume you replaced the firmware? Is your computer making a noise like you have plugged in a USB device? What is your device manager showing?

From what I have seen the firmware is never being upgraded. At best I can do is get the yellow light flashing forever. It will not update. Nor is there anything blue light except for a quick flash.

2 Likes

I finally was able to flash the firmware successfully. I can’t for sure say that a 64BG card, or one formatted to other than FAT will not work, but after changing to a 32GB card formatted FAT, the flashing worked.

Thank you. I have tried a 32gb FAT32 formatted card and still cannot flash the firmware.

Is there no way to get the webcam firmware installed on a v1? I’ve had one for a long time and it works great. I was hoping since it appears very similar to the v2 it would work but I don’t see anyone else asking about it. I have tried the process and can’t get it to work.

Worked great for me - no issues. I can also confirm it works fine in MS Teams, and with Snap Camera. Seems like the cheapest 1080p web cam on the market!

If it helps - in the directions when it says to look for the solid blue light before releasing the setup button (and then says it’s more of a lighter blue because in reality it’s the yellow and blue lights together) - it actually looks more like a purple light to me. I used the USB 3.0 A2A cable recommended from Amazon in the directions and it works perfectly for me.

I have several of these cards and tried all of them with my Windows 10, the only formatting option for my cards was exFAT or NTFS and as mentioned above, none of those worked for flashing the camera.

I then tried to format the card on my Macbook and noticed that there was an MS-DOS (FAT32) option, so I formatted the card with that format and retried flashing the device and it worked.

Thank you for this low-cost webcam solution. We were in a pinch until we stumbled upon this solution.

According to the instructions this has been tested with Zoom, GoToMeeting, Blue Jeans, Google Hangouts, Skype, and Cisco.

You can add Microsoft Teams to that list as well, but the only funky thing about Teams is that I am unable to select a different speaker source (on my Velocity Micro built desktop) with this webcam, so I’m kind of stuck with the muffled sound from the Wyze box. Besides the audio glitch, everything with Teams was thumbs up, including the Teams background effect. Is it possible to connect a speaker to the Wyze box through the power port, lol.

I tested this with Slack (our primary collaboration tool) and the video worked, but not the mic or audio, so I’ll need to keep playing around with this.