WyzeCam becoming more & more unusable?

I’ve been using Wyze equipment for about 3 weeks now (3 v3s, doorbell cam, thermostat, home monitoring) and have experienced some of what you’re reporting. The v90 errors that I was regularly getting virtually went away after I changed the DNS settings in my router and phone. But SD playback continues to be very glitchy. Trying to play through the recorded segments (with noticeably lag) eventually causes the camera to go off-line. I figure if there’s ever any video that I really need, I can just transfer them to the computer.

From your description of how it used to be, I’m guessing you’re right in that they have not kept up with the increase in server demand.

No, their servers have nothing to do with delivering a consistent live or SD card stream.

I have also been seeing much poorer performance over the last few weeks. I’ve a group setup on an internet (w/ 30down/10up and 73Mbps internal) of about 6 active cams and often when I call it up it takes a while, 10 seconds or more, usually I’ll go into individual cams so it will lock in. Before they locked in in a couple seconds.

I’m used to poor performance like this at my Mississippi site, but there I only have 6 down/0.6 up (and 32 Mbps internal if I recall correctly) on a GOOD day.

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No, my traffic is a true 1 GB up and down… I test it all the time and I test the work speeds as well.

I have cameras in both locations.

So you are saying that Wyzecam has nothing to do with the delivery of the video playback? I know that the video playback comes from the cameras, but are you sure they don’t route through Wyzecam servers on the way to us?

I wonder if anyone has tested that.

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Yes. This has been discussed, described, and documented many times. There are exceptions such as some Alexa streams.

Here is one semi-official description of the P2P process. (This means that after it starts the stream goes directly from camera to viewer.)

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You know what i have noticed the same issue and i have 3 camera issues
1- won’t connect period
2- Shows up as offline turn off in the app but when i click on it. it shows the cam on and then in the app, it shows up as off again
3- Outdoor cam can record period to SD cards

Mostly i have noticed for the past month and so. so so many updates and cameras are totally useless and i spend so much time trying to troubleshoot them instead of just plugin and playing and moving on.

Plus i notice since 2021 Wyze is making us pay more and more for services but the actual products dont even work with so many updates they push and break the camera to point of now they are trash.
I am thinking to look for other brand cammera that actually work then wyze to be honest i have 8 cammera and scale from this company and i just order the car i hope i did not make big mistake buying the car with battery

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TUTK establishes a data channel (just channel, not data)…

So this tutk thing talks to the camera and talks to the app on your device and arranges a path for them to exchange data by? It informs both device ‘parties’ of the path determined and then effs-off?

Is that the jist?

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Yes that is the gist. Its only role is puncturing any firewalls and handing off the connectivity so the camera and phone each have a direct path to the other.

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Wow interesting we currently manage over 57 cameras at over 12 sites,and when we do a firmware upgrade and all of them in over 2 years we have not lost any cameras and our managed customers camera systems with no issues found,and yes a mix of V2,V3,wireless outdoor and PTZ V1,and PTZ V2

Is it pronounced different the way you spell it? :grinning:

Hey kae

How do your techs determine if wifi signal interference and channel congestion are to blame for poor/erratic performance and what do they do to fix it?

Yes it’s pronounced “correct”. :wink: Although you did make me just double-check m-w.com to see if yours were also acceptable; nope sorry. :frowning:

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:rofl: :+1: No worries, I looked it up first and STILL spelled it wrong…

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I only have the one Outdoor Cam at the moment. But I’ve only had one issue where I had to lose/reopen app. Probably not the best comparison tho…

I just spot-checked my 7 cams (and microSD cards), and, my HMS, and everything seems to be wyrkin’ normally.

If I was having issues, I would also be bouncing my router, checking to see if the cams are werking via WYZE, and, checking to be sure my phone’s operating system is up-to-date.

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My modest collection of v2s…

  • via a Wifi-only client
  • 400 down / 20 up broadband
  • well-connected signal-wise to an uncrowded (20) local mesh intranet that says it can handle (100) connected devices
  • with a good amount of variable signal interference and channel crowding from my many many nearby neighbors
  • VPN with Wyze app excluded
  • DNS alternate (non-ISP) set at router level
  • with firmware and app current or nearly current
  • accessed via the Wyze app (versus tinyCam or Wyze-app-android.7-emulated through Bluestacks)
  • on a high quality old tablet running android 6.01, with a GPU but incompatible with Wyze app decoder
  • no simultaneous access granted (no shared credentials or Wyze account Shares granted)
  • Live View resolution set to HD (1 cam with the weakest reception set to 360p)

…operates WELL when cams viewed individually and well/variably when viewed in a group of six.

Haven’t noticed performance degrade recently. If anything it ekes out an ‘improved.’

Via tinyCam though, it has degraded, which sucks, because it’s my preferred viewer.

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Isolate Wifi (local intranet) from Cellular (remote LTE) performance

  • Choose a client device with WiFi-only capacity (or disable LTE on phone.)
  • Connect to your local intranet with a good signal.
  • Assure any users with whom camera(s) are Shared won’t attempt to access them during testing

Test intranet overload/interference by client devices

  • Unplug all other intranet clients
  • Unplug all cams
  • Choose a convenient cam close to a WiFi Access Point
  • Remove the SD card, and plug it in.
  • Check Live streaming performance.
  • Unplug it, install SD card and plug it in.
  • Check Live streaming and Playback performance.

If performance is poor it suggests… X.
If performance is good it suggests… Y. Add another camera and repeat.

Someone who knows this stuff better than I could jump in and correct/improve this ? Or just dash the whole thing and make a better methodical?

I’m using a single CAM V3 with CAM Plus. For the first couple of months, all video played smoothly, both from recorded events and SD card, pretty much as you describe yours.

About 3 weeks ago, all video playback became nearly unusable as it would play for several seconds, and then pause for additional loading. This would happen multiple times during the playback of very short videos, some as short as only 30 seconds or so. I’ve also noticed that event notifications are now often delayed before showing up on my phone.

There is a fact known to marketers that if one person makes a complaint about a product, there are 10 others who just grin and bear it without saying anything at all. Hopefully WYZE can do the math on these forum posts.

I’m pretty sure that event recordings ARE stored on WYZE servers where they are deleted after 14 days unless first deleted by their owners. I believe that playback of those events DOES require their servers.