WyzeCam "eating" micro SD cards?

Got it, thanks again.

I’ve had four wyze cams (2 wyze cam, 2 wyze cam pan) running for over 6 months now. I’ve bricked 3 SD cards. One of the Pan’s bricked 2 cards and one of the non-Pans got the other one.

All four cameras have been set to “continuous recording” mode since they were installed.

To be fair the non-Pan that bricked a card is working outside of the recommended environment. It’s mounted under a covered porch outside of the house. It doesn’t get wet but it is exposed to cold (below freezing) temperatures.

I plan to fill out the support form posted by WyzeGwendolyn a few weeks back.

I continue to use the two cameras that eat SD cards but I do not have SD cards installed in them. It’s not an ideal situation, I’d like to have continuous recording.

Have you tried the format utility

“Sd Card Formatter” 5.0.1 by Tuxera?
link
Also what size/speed/brand cards are you using?
/edit - what capacity? where did you format them? (pc, ios, android, wyze)

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The outdoor wyzecam had a 16gb SanDisk Ultra UHS speed class 1 , HC I. The Pan cam has a 16gb SanDisk Ultra Plus UHS speed class 1, A1, HC I. I don’t have the first card handy that the Pan ate but I’m pretty sure it was a Samsung 32gb EVO UHS speed class 1.

I’ve tried the 5.0.1 program on the two SanDisk cards, no luck. I’ve also tried the gparted program under linux with no luck.

I don’t remember how they were initially formatted, probably as fat32 with a windows 10 machine. They all worked for a while and then stopped working.

Thanks for the detailed specs.

hey @Ken

some cards just aren’t made for continuous read/writes. many of sandisks actually list security cameras as a cause for voiding their warranty.

when you get a minute check this topic out, we are trying to gather a list of good and “bad” cards for our cameras.

make sure when you buy cards, buy “endurance” cards that are made for things like our cameras or dash cams that do continuous reads and writes, they will withstand what our cameras will put them through

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As @Bam just said, most micro SD cards are not designed to be used in Security Cameras. You need one that is specifically designed for extended video monitoring such as the Transcend High Endurance microSDXC card (TS32GUSDHC10V). I use these in dash cams that hammer other micro SD cards and destroy them in a matter of hours.

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I guess it’s time for us to reconsider different SD cards. Thanks for your input☺

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I purchased four of these Samsung cards you are recommending - I am afraid to actually use them, though . . . !

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Get the Wyze brand SD cards, if they die they are warrantied by Wyze - They just shipped a replacement for my dead SD card the other day…

just put it in the camera, format it when you get it in there and you should be set. I’ve had all of mine except one using the Samsung card for months and haven’t had any issues.

I have been using Sandisk 16GB chips in 4 cams. Sure enough a couple of the chips went bad. One went into permanent write-protect mode. The other became unreadable.

But I utilized the Sandisk warranty RMA process, and sure enough they swiftly sent me replacements.

Reformatting these chips is tricky. I experimented, and noticed that while using the Windows 10 format dialog, it was important to use the “default” block size (whatever that value may be), otherwise the cam could not wake up.

The block size affects the number of allocation units on the chip. Small block entail more allocations. There seems to be a threshold which tanks the cam’s OS.

i bought a couple of Cam V2 a few months ago and was about to set them up (yeah, i’m a procrastinator!). and then i came across this thread so i’m a little nervous about getting my new SD cards trashed.

  1. is there any indication about how pervasive this issue is?
  2. is the SD Memory Card Formatter 5.0 that has been referenced been able to resurrect the SD card or is it gone for good?
  3. what would be the recommendation - leave the cards out until the issue is resolved, only record events, reformat the card every so often, etc.?
  4. has there been any indication if this is a hardware issue, firmware issue, etc.?

thanks!

To echo what some other users have said, high endurance sd cards are a must if you are using continuous recording. Samsung Pro Endurance are specifically designed for this and the 128 GB version will last through 5 years of continuous recording.

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Excerpted from Samsung is Samsung’s alleged warranty. It appears that the 128 GB is 5 years, but that card is #pricey #lotsadough

samsung%20warranty

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Why do you think the 128GB is “pricey”? It is about the same $/GB as the 32GB. Now if it would work RELIABLY with the Wyze it might be worth it. But I’ve tried 2 cards > 32GB and they didn’t work well.

i have 7 of the Samsung pro endurance, i do a lot of time lapse and continuous on 2 …i haven’t had any issues with those cards…they are 32 GB

Just a follow up… I had said the first memory card that the Pan cam ate was a Samsung 32gb EVO UHS speed class 1… and I was correct, it was. Just to be accurate, the camera did not totally destroy the card, it just made it seem toasted. While at the camera location this weekend and using a windows 10 laptop I was able to reformat the card in the laptop. It took a long time to format…after 15 minutes of formatting I went on to do other things and when I returned 4 hours later the card was formatted and I was able to copy a file on to it and read the file back.

So in the end only two SD cards were destroyed. One a SanDisk Ultra and the other a Sandisk Ultra Plus.

Thanks for the followup.

Hi my name is CJ and I live in Monteal. I am an ismartalarm user, strangely, the company owners inCalifornia, have Chinese names. Now, for months my cameras didnt work, then in Feb 12, 2019 their servers crashed, or something. Now many users cant use our CUBE ONE, so that is like the engine of all the cameras, sensors, remote tag etc

A month or so ago i told them i was taking them to the Attorney General, and they sent me not a refund but a new camera, called the iCamera Keep Pro, it looks strangely close to yours, at Wyze. Now, the camera is pretty, fancy, pans about but doesnt pan correctly, It forces itself into a corner, where it cant record from, obviously.

Then i noticed that it kept telling me that there was no SD micro card in it, even though I had one in there. So, I just remove and reinstall. Today it happened again, but when I went to insert it, it just Fell inside the camera!!

Now you might be wondering why I am telling you this, well I realized that the Spot camera and the icamera keep and iCamera KEEP Pro that ismartalarm sells looks JUST LIKE THE CAMERAS WYZE sells, at a much higher prices.

We are being duped. THe color black and white thingy, it has nothing to do with the night settings or IR settings, IT JUST DOESNT WORK CORRECTLY.

Ismartalarm products are made in China, so I assume that the software is also, but both ismart alarm and Wyze say that though their cameras Look Similar,the software is different, but I dontbelieve that, and why? Because Wyze users (i created an account and read the forums) and ismartalarm users have the SAME IDENTICAL ISSUES with their cameras.

Now, today, i lost my sd card inside the camera and i dont think I can get into that camera so I am out 30$ cause I live in Canada and I had a quality micro SD card, and not a cheap one, and I am out the free camera and wouldhave to spend 199$ OR 100$ for a new iCamera KEEP Pro camera because that it how much it costs, regular price and the on sale price.

So, let your friends at Wyze know. It is clear that Wyze is in China because all the team leaders are Chinese, but ismartalarm claims they are based in California, but I dontknow if i can trust anything they say now. Also, there are some very real vulnerabilities that were found in the ismart alarm sofware, and Im sure that those issues are also in the products at Wyze.

To find out or read about the two reports in 2017 and 2018, just do a search for, Vulnerabilities found in ismartalarm CUBE ONE.