I have been a customer since the very beginning. The promises have changed, and yes it was promised.
Wyze is going the wrong direction. The fan boys who are against improvement will hold this platform back. The R&D it took to make the sprinkler timer was more effort than a browser plugin.
Xiaomi software was banned in the USA for national security reasons. I am not sure how they pulled off getting the rebranded versions here. Only matter of time before this comes up. All of wyze products are Xiaomi clones. No reason for them to Nickle and dime us when they are giving up our personal data.
Its possible the real reason they have not came up with a pc app is because of the spyware in Xiaomi wil raise a flag at the NSA. I can not think of any other reasonable explanation besides the partial Xiaomi software ban.
Because they aren’t rebranded, they are sourced from the same manufacturer. I am also unaware of a promise on viewing from a PC but am willing to eat my words on that because I do know of a promise they went back on before.
At this point, I gave up on WYZE getting this much needed (1763 threads) asking for the ability to view the cameras on a browser. I’m searching for another system and will invest in that system even if it costs me more. WYZE – WISE UP!
I think you have the wrong Chinese company name.
Xiaomi isn’t banned. You are thinking of Huawei.
Of course, as you are most assuredly aware, nearly all tech stuff is farmed out to be made in China. Backdoors could be in nearly everything.
Wyze OEMs all sorts of Chinese crap, mostly Xiaomi, but some others as well.
If you didn’t want to be spied on, you probably shouldn’t be buying Wye anything.
That all being said, I share your frustration with the lack of a Web App.
As I have stated far (far!!!) above, clearly the fact that they haven’ t come out with something suggests that they probably have a licensing issue somewhere.
My guess is it is the P2P software library they use for the Mobile apps, which connects the cams data streams directly to the user’s phone, instead of going through Wyze’s AWS servers.
They probably have it licensed for Android and iOS, and the costs to add a Web license is probably too much for them to pay (ie, they probably have to license it per device or per connection).
PS: And they HAVE to use a P2P library because there is no way they would be willing to take all the live traffic from everyone’s camera, and store it on their AWS server, just to reroute it back to the user. The storage costs and bandwidth costs would be far too large. So they have to be able to connect the Cam directly to the user’s connection/web browser, so as to avoid any mass data traffic to their AWS server.
If costs truly are the issue, then be transparent and update the customer base. Ignoring customers only leads to frustrations and many misdirected opinions.
I can install Bluestacks on a Windows computer and easily run the Wyze cam app. the problem is that is via an emulator. I have not found a viable option for Linux Mint. I would like the ability to view my security cameras via a native Wyze application on a Windows or Linux (based on Debian) system (laptop, desktop, etc…) Having to view cameras only on the smartphone app is very limiting and not realistic. This should be an easy, no-brainer for your developers at Wyze since it is possible via an emulator. This would be extremely helpful and useful for us who want a large screen camera monitoring system in our homes/businesses.
“There’s no ETA for this feature to be rolled out. Be sure to follow us on social media for this announcement in the future.”
To which I responded to them with…
It’s not on your roadmap at all and this is a deflective response as Wyze has no true intentions of making this a reality.
It is on your roadmap, however it hasn’t even been worked on, therefore the likelihood of it happening in the near future (1-4 quarters is unlikely).
It is on your roadmap, it is being worked, however Wyze doesn’t want to commit to a public release date for unknown reasons even though your community is begging for it.
Very disappointing from a company that has been around since 2017, has around 100 employees, has 5 venture capital investors, been through 3 rounds of funding, and the most recent funding deal showing on Pitchbook that is around $15M that shows completed on 24-Jul-2020. I think with that kind of funding, you can make this a reality. Yun Zhang, Dongsheng Song, David Crosby and Elana Fishman, if you’re reading this… get with your development team and make this simple request a reality for your community before you lose your community to a competitor. Wyze is not the only low cost IP security camera on the market. Quit making new products and remedy the ones you already have in the market today that have high demand feature gaps.
BRAVO, Scottyd. Ditto for me. Yun Zhang, Dongsheng Song, David Crosby and Elana Fishman, you have been jerks for several years and thousands of your customers are sick and tired of your delays and feckless excuses. Get on the ball and ‘get er done’!
My brother just stumbled upon Wyze cameras, was about to purchase when I said to him “You know that you cannot view the camera on your browser, right?” Needless to say he didn’t, and like me, he just “expected that”.
He decided not to purchase Wyze because of this clear product deficiency.
So Wyze, you are also losing new customers to this lack of functionality.
Just sayin.’
If you know of a good emulator for Linux Mint 20 that will actually run the WyzeCam App, I am very interested. I have tried Anbox and Genymotion with no success.
Reportedly the author reverse engineered the requirements through trial and error. He also published them for others to use. Among other cool features they long ago added the grid based detection zones that zwyze itself is now debugging.
This is the one thing that stops me form buying more cams as I want to see it on my desktop especially since I am spending more time at home these days! Even when you run the Wyze app in the emulator, doesn’t really work well, seems to stack videos vertically and always get logged out. TinyCam is ok but its not a great solution. Likely going to move away from Wyze devices in the future.
I’m loving TinyCam. I have it running on an underpowered Fire HD tablet and it does a pretty good job. The Pro version includes a web server so you can open your feeds on a PC web browser.
