Using camera without wifi

@gsw_research
What firmware do you have? That capability has not worked in a long time (by intent). If the cameras will record to the uSD card after powerup prior to internet connection, it would appear that you are using very old firmware.

The link I posted was from Wyzeā€™s support website. Didnā€™t google anything.

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Technically, that blurb you sent from Wyze is indeed correct in that the Wyze camera is designed to work with the Internet ā€œThe connection is what allows you to stream, get notifications and change settings via the Wyzeā€¦ā€. And yes even the instructions they sent in terms of how to use it off the Internet says it ā€œmustā€ first be connected through the app. So bottom line yes when they claim you must have internet access to operate the camera thatā€™s right you absolutely need access to the Internet to operate Wyze camera. The misleading part is that once you use it for two or three minutes connected to the Internet to set it up you can then totally disregard the Internet if you want to take it to a remote area. In my opinion with so many people confused about this they are totally missing the boat of another market opportunity and that is people who do not have Internet access in the areas where second homes are located which are indeed very commonly in remote areas and those who donā€™t care to pay an ongoing fee for celluar cameras. Of course Musk is trying to take care of the remote Internet problem with Starlink, which Iā€™m on a waiting list for and hopefully one day I wonā€™t have to worry about that.

Thereā€™s no doubt mass confusion at Wyze with the help desk relative to what that camera can and canā€™t do at least it was several years ago when I was seeking information about using it without the Internet the first person got back with me said no it canā€™t it had to be connected to the Internet and they added ā€œto view remotelyā€. Then I reexplained I had no interest in remotely viewing and another person followed up to say they didnā€™t know for sure & they would check and get back with me then finally a young lady got back with me with instructions and said yes it can I followed her instructions (included earlier) and found out that it could indeed.
I used it for a while and then stopped using it for a couple years and recently found the need to use it again I just couldnā€™t recall if I it had to continuously record or could it do motion/event recording now Iā€™ve learned I can do event recording remotely.

I took the little white camera and put camo tape all over it with a couple of artificial leaves jutting out for a three dimensional perspective and then set it in a decorative artificial flower arrangement and it stayed completely hidden and worked like a charm.

Again, what firmware version? You said you have not used the camera for a couple years. Sounds like you still have ancient firmware in the camera - back from when you COULD power up a camera and record to the uSD card without internet. That has not been possible for a very long time. Although there has not been much traffic on this topic in quite a while, it was very common on the forum for a while. MANY people (including me) have proven numerous times that the cameras with reasonably current firmware will not record to the uSD card until the camera is able to check in with the Wyze servers after EVERY power up.

I thought I sent this response earlier but perhaps notā€¦as Iā€™ve been juggling so many things. So I just copied and pasted from the email I had created earlier today. See below.

Through yesterday I was on really old filmware (Updated 2018 or possibly 2019 at the latest). This morning I updated to the latest filmware.
You bring up a good point and i hope I havenā€™t done something too screw up that camera from recording without Internet remotely.
My wife jumped on my case for disconnecting our Wi-Fi for a short while yesterday evening for testing so I dare not do it again this morning. We are heading to our remote Virginia cabin to enjoy a snowfall this weekend and I will try it out then. If for some reason the new filmware is not able to do this, I may have to beg Wyze camera for access to the old filmware which Iā€™m sure would not be doable. So apparently if their new filmware no longer allows for this tremendous convenience itā€™s a rare instance where I wouldā€™ve been much much better off ā€œnotā€ updating filmware from WYZE. Wish I had seen your post before updating this morning or I wouldā€™ve not dared touched my camera.

No begging required for older firmware:

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Much appreciated. I am going to work on this tomorrow to get the older (and for me personallyā€¦much more useful filmware) back on my camera.