View On PC/Browser (Windows / Mac / Chromebook)

For those using iOS I will be testing several options for website monitoring.

 

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It’s possible programing for it with an update to the WyzeCam/Pan firmware and WyzeCam App.

The programing should provide chain programming to an SD card (which it does now, but SD card capacity needs to be up to today’s standards of at least 256GB) and then chain programing/updating to a PC program like an NVR does.

WyzeCams/Pans hardware is used/available to many companies. What differentiates Wyze is its firmware and software. The value of local recording to me (and I am sure many others) is worth something. I would pay more for a WyzeCam/Pan that recorded locally. I do not want “cloud” storage. There is too much that can go wrong getting to the cloud and/or retrieving from the cloud.

What the cams record is vital and should be stored locally (SD card and PC) for true value. Cloud storage is secondary backup.

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FAR more “goes wrong” with local storage. Online storage is more reliable by an order of magnitude. That said, I want both options.

 

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Not in the case being discussed here.

If you are talking about system backup and certain business applications, maybe, but not by orders of magnitude and not in all cases.

I’ll leave it to you to use the Google to do some authoritative research. I don’t have time to inform folks who over-generalize or rely on others to provide the security that they should provide first.

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Totally agree, I love that Wyze has local SD support but the cloud is much more reliable…

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I run two tech companies and have been a network engineer for over 30 years. I’m a bit familiar with online and local server storage systems and their failure rates. It’s pretty cost prohibitive to provide the level of reliability we get from Amazon storage, which is what’s used for these cameras.

 

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"FAR more “goes wrong” with local storage. Online storage is more reliable by an order of magnitude. "
You need to be much more specific about what supposedly "goes wrong" for that statement to be true.

Online storage is only more reliable because it’s redundant, something you can also do with local storage very easily.

Online storage is also MUCH slower, and less secure.

If online storage was such a good option then recording studios and professional photographers would use it, they don’t, because it takes far too long to retrieve large files when needed, plus it’s less secure.

When all is said and done I have to agree with DadCooks, the ability to record locally via SD card and a PC/Mac is what’s really needed for true value.

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Thanks @WyzeGuy. You obviously live in the real world and understand what personal responsibility is.

I use multiple redundancy methods for all my systems, from smartphones to servers, and the base is local followed by redundant backup drives stored securely offsite. Cloud may be a convenience at times, but when you need something now you had better have it in hand or close by.

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Thank you DadCoooks for the kind words.

I would recommend for those who are stuck on the perceived convenience of the cloud would be much better off setting up their own cloud with a simple NAS. Synology makes a very nice one and their software called Surveillance Station is feature packed.

Local storage is still much faster and more secure. Cloud based systems like Amazon are not responsible (it’s in their terms) for things like access control, monitoring, and audit logging issues.

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I have several Synology RS2416RPs with hybrid SSD storage, and they are certainly phenomenal. I’ve used a bunch of Synology DS216j devices for backup, random local storage, and helping friends set up their own NAS and media servers. They are great, but you can’t just compare the relative merits of online storage versus these devices so easily as saying “much better off.” Most people are not. As technology enthusiasts and professionals we have a responsibility to gauge each person’s actual needs and abilities before just firing off a recommendation based on what’s ideal for US.

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LOL, yes, we should compare what Spielberg does on a $500k editing system to our $20 cameras storing a 12-second medium-resolution clip.

 

Online storage is only slower if your connection is slow, or their side is slow for some reason. A month ago one of my guys did a test of various flash devices and cards versus moving some huge files online, because we’re in the middle of migrating a few terabytes of virtual machines between two datacenters. He found that with a fast connection, online is faster than even USB 3 flash drives and SD cards. We thought we were going to drive these files around, but that was based on old assumptions. Reality is that our online connections are faster than low-end storage such as portable drives and cards.

 

Online storage can be more or less secure than local. You have to gauge the threats, potential loss, and how you handle the data in both cases. There’s nothing intrinsically less secure about online storage.

 

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"Online storage is only slower if your connection is slow"
Not true. For the vast majority of people their network download speeds simply won't be able to compare with the speed of USB-C or Thunderbolt 3. Especially once you consider firewalls and other things. The average Internet connection in the United States is 18.7 megabits per second. USB-C has a transfer rate of 10Gbps, and Thunderbolt 3 has speeds up to 40Gbps.

 

"He found that with a fast connection, online is faster than even USB 3 flash drives and SD cards. "
That's a bit disingenuous. As with anything there are slow and there are fast SD cards. The newest SD cards have speeds capable of running 4K video. That's up to 30MB/s, with bus speeds of a UHS-II card at around 312MB/s. More than twice as fast as the average Internet connection currently is. Also, remember that Internet speed is not always constant, where as a local drives speed would be. Sure the super rich may be able to get fiber-optic Internet, which is faster, but by far most people buying $20 cameras won't be able to afford the super high cost of fiber-optic.

 

"Online storage can be more or less secure than local. "
Online storage is always less secure because it is always in someone else's hands. It can be misused without the data owner knowing.

 

 

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We have a gigabit connection for $120/mo, available throughout much of my city. A Mac boots faster on that for an OS recovery than any high-speed flash storage we’ve tested. But you made the point yourself–saying local is always faster isn’t true because you just don’t know all the variables involved.

 

Also your data is NOT always in someone else’s hands. You can encrypt it, for one, and many services do such as iCloud which never has data in the clear, and they can’t access it. Your over-reaching assumptions just aren’t valid, and every situation has to be examined individually.

 

While I would agree that offering multiple forms of local recording is valuable, the fact is there currently exists both local/cloud based storage options even if they aren’t your preferred methods.

That said, on the topic of Website Monitoring, which this topic is about (of which there is exactly zero current ways to access recordings), I am fully in favor of such an option, specifically I think this is a prime opportunity to develop a PWA making it universally accessible regardless of OS type or version. StreetWyze, is there any sense of the priority of this request against all the other software enhancements you have planned? Any chance for a voting system that could bubble up items the community wants to prioritize vs. those of an internal project management team (required security and/or firmware updates excluded obviously)?

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I’ve been thinking about this a lot while trying out these cameras. I have very old Foscam, Grandstream, and similar cameras, all managed and recorded by Security Spy on my desktop. I work at home, at my desk most of the day. Just yesterday I noticed I use the desktop camera view a lot. Doing it on an app is just slower and less desirable. Here’s what I did yesterday.

 

Doorbell rang, looked at the door camera simply by hitting the dashboard and seeing the widget for that camera.

 

Dogs made a suspicious noise upstairs, I clicked over to the SS application which has its all-cameras view always open, and saw them running around. Opened one in the hallway and put it on my other screen to keep an eye on them.

 

I had left one of the garage doors open because I was doing something in there that generated a lot of fumes. So again I left that view open on my second monitor, and turned on motion alerts, in case someone were to walk in or something.

 

Wife said she wanted to nap (she has sleep issues), then go to the store. I opened the camera that would see her, and left that open so when I saw her move, I’d know it was time to get ready to go out.

 

These are all less useful on a phone or tablet. While I keep my tablet in front of me by the computer, it does things like shut down the screen which interfere.

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Agreed, and I hope you don’t think I was arguing with you, but just adding data on how people use these in different ways. At this point I can’t imagine how they will work for me unless I change the firmware. And I no longer like to tinker with stuff like this, I want it to just work (I work on large video and VoIP systems all day, I don’t want to work on my home stuff too).

 

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@Carlos, this sounds very similar to my situation. So two-thumbs-up

Yes, the way people use WyzeCams is varied. But Wyze Labs you need to do some serious thinking about those of us who need real usable function versus the folks that are just enamored by flashy tech and their smart(?)phones/iPhones.

Sorry folks, apps on a smart(?)phone/iPhone or a tablet/iPad smaller than 10-inches don’t really cut it. The world of people doing real work is Windows predominately people on laptops/desktops (sorry Apple folks) so the Wyze Labs priority should be a program with multiCam view (WyzeView*) for Windows (not just a Windows 10 App) followed by MacOS, then bring the multiCam (WyzeView*) view to Android and finally iOS.

*Wyze Labs, you have my unrestricted permission to use WyzeView.

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I think comment about making a PWA solves a lot of the issues we’re talking about

  1. Everyone gets the same updates when they are pushed out at the same time (no whining that iOS didn't get an update with new functionality but Android did)
  2. Everyone has a browser. Not all browsers support ALL functions of a PWA, but most support some features and most are working to improve their ability to fully support PWA's
  3. No having to deal with Google or Apple store review process
  4. Allows people to use the computing device(s) they prefer, on the screen size that makes the most sense to them, regardless of OS. Can also use a remote machine when you don't have your phone with you or don't have service (IE many people in high rise buildings with lots of steel or in dense cities)
  5. Fewer developer resources when you are building a single web based app instead of two distinct apps
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The other side of it is that … you have to limit what you do with a $20 camera. That’s just reality. Axis sells a competitor for 10x the price which has every protocol imaginable, and a huge list of features.

 

Also, I have no insider info, but I’m pretty sure that Wyze’s play here is to get people addicted to $20 cameras and online storage, then spring the real price on them. They’re not making money now. When there’s enough market penetration, you will see a freemium model with upgraded cloud features and such, for a price. My prediction, not inside info.

 

It’s meant to display text and pictures
The Smartcast apps, including Vudu, Amazon Prime, and Netflix on my Vizio P65 beg to differ with you. Not a single native app on my TV. All are web players.