WyzeCam in Car Shuts off recording after 1.5 hours

Yes, thank you, I saw your Fjord video, very captivating, I thoroughly enjoyed every moment. All good info on the test procedures. The power being used in the auto is a battery jump start box with a large Gel-Cell battery inside, a digital voltage indicator and pleasant blue LEDs. That is used to power both the Link-Sys router and the Wyze Cam. I just located a cigar lighter plug to provide 12v to the Link-Sys router. I have an ill family member and had to take FMLA (Family Medical Leave of Absence) so testing will resume once surgery and recovery is completed. I thank you for taking the time to do all of this detailed research and an equally detailed description. It has been very helpful and now I will record for hours in “das auto” just as you have in the Fjord. I have also viewed the train across Norway, Finland and Sweden? Videos on TV. Very similar experiences and equally interesting. Thank you so much for sharing all of it with the Wyze community. I think I speak for everyone when I say we all look forward to more of these wonderful Wyze Cam videos in exotic far away places.

Thanx,

73’

Tuna

I missed the detail that you are using an external 12V gel-cell battery box (ie., not the car’s 12V power system). The jump box will work just fine, with no concerns about voltage variations or bad automotive power messing up the Linksys router. A lot of people here have been posting about how to permanently wire the cams into a vehicle’s power system, and that use case was on my mind.

I’m going to run another experiment and see if time-lapse captures also get terminated prematurely after 1.5 hours without WiFi. The bug that is present in the Wyze cam firmware might not impact TL recording.

Could I ask why you’re using continuous record to SD card instead of motion-triggered. Clearly you’re wanting to capture what’s going on around your car when it’s parked all day. Would motion capture not suffice? You’d have less video to scan through looking for miscreants. The SD card will last longer too.

I’m glad you enjoyed my Geirangerfjord video. I only wish I had chosen a shorter TL interval so the sailout would have been a bit slower. And that the Wyzecam lens didn’t have that bit of fibre stuck in the middle of the frame. On the same trip, we took the famous Bergensbahn railway from Oslo across the mountains to Bergen. There are some insanely long tunnels, high up in the mountains. It is a spectacular train ride.
This video was NOT shot with a Wyze cam:

Hi @Tuna, it should be a bug in our code. The camera is supposed to keep recording even off WiFi connection. We should have one test case for this before we do every official firmware release. I don’t know when the issue was introduced.

I will have our engineering team investigate on this and provide a fix as necessary. Thanks and there is no need to contact our support team (it will come to us anyhow :slight_smile:). Thanks for reporting this issue!

update: a bug was filed on 2/1. We will work on a fix for it.

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@WyzeTao
Thanks for updating us on this bug. Those of us who use your great cameras for ‘off-line’ recording will look forward to a fix in a future release. (but not too future:-).

Could you add to your suite of test cases one to verify that time-lapse recordings also continue without WiFi connection. Thanks!

@kyphos Noted and will do.

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Hi,
Having the exact same problem with 2 of my Wyze Can v2s’ : not being able to continuously record on the SD Card, without having a WiFi access… would it be possible to have an idea when this acknowledged bug will be addressed through a new FW, as this is quite annoying in my case?
Many thanks for an answer.
Brhds,
Lipari
PS : I filed a ticket on Feb, 4th, but unfortunately didn’t get an answer.

It is really not possible to say when the fix might be released. As far as I know, the devs are still making sure that they know the exact and complete cause of the issue.

All I can suggest is that if you want to see it first, you can join the beta program. Click here: #beta and see the pinned post for how to join. The fix will be released there before it is released publicly.

Also, by the way, please don’t post the same thing in multiple places in the forum. Once is sufficient. We will see it.

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Hi Loki,
Understood and many thanks for your quick answer.
Brgds,
L.

2 Likes

Motion event triggers do not work either after 1,5 hours I do not believe, because there is no internet to send them to the cloud.

Yes the train ride is a real video camera. Wyze Cam or no, we still enjoy seeing things we “other-Wyze” would not know about. We enjoyed all of the different seasons along the rail lines. Thanx for sharing it on youtube.

@WyzeTao yes, Loki informed us he sent the support ticket to you (Wyze Support). I know there are a lot of bugs and a small team to tackle all of the tasks everyone is currently requesting. We are patiently awaiting all of the various bug fixes and app changes.

Thank you

73’

Tuna

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Does anyone know the last firmware this bug was not present? I would like to downgrade for my dashcam so it’s always recording.

@WyzeTao any update as to when this bug will be fixed? Thanks.

Unknown, ours all came with 4.9.3.28 or something and immediately upgraded firmware upon opening the box and connecting the cameras to 4.9.3.64. It has been that way since we installed a dash cam. Those numbers in the firmware could be transposed in my writing. Dyslexia… yanno.

Sorry could not be of more help.

Thanx,

73’

Tuna

I viewed the ticket and it says to try these things if I am still having connection/connectivity issues. THIS IS NOT a connection/connectivity issue. The camera is intentionally disconnected from the WiFi and STOPS recording to the internal µSD card after 1.5 hours has elapsed while disconnected from the WIFi.

Can anyone please correct this issue?

I am NOT putting a WiFi router into my auto or other places where I do not want WiFi turned on constantly for RF exposure reasons. I also have locations where it is not convenient to have any WiFi so the camera is a STAND ALONE device (No WiFI). Except during initial setup & to start recording.

I want the camera to record after I set it up, start recording manually, then drive away from the WiFi source. I could stay away from the WiFi for 3 days. I want the camera to continue recording for the entire length of time the camera is disconnected from the WiFi, however long that period of time might extend. So long as the camera has power it should continue recording the internal µSD card.

I want to be able to record to µSD, then simply go to each camera, swap µSD cards and review the recorded video material manually. I want to place the camera in a location which there is NO WiFi except during the setup process and once recording is manually started, I want to REMOVE the WiFi until I return to service each camera.

I do not think I can make it any clearer. No (or lose) WiFi connection = camera STOPS recording to µSD card after 1.5 hours unless I connect back to a WiFi router BEFORE 1.5 hours elapses.

I want the camera to continue recording to the internal µSD card until I turn the recording OFF manually when I reconnect to the WiFi after how ever long (the entire period of time) I remain disconnected from the WiFi.

I do not want to have to turn on & off my WiFi every 1.5 hours. I hope someone can see where this might be problematic for anyone trying to record to the internal µSD card without the Wifi turned on continuously.

@Loki ??

@WyzeTao ??

@UserCustomerGwen ??

Contacting support did not do any good whatsoever.

I think I have been extremely patient.

I asked about this over a year ago !!

Still has not been addressed/corrected.

I am still waiting.

Thank you,

Tuna :slight_smile:

I tested this back in either October or November on the current firmware for that time and it recorded 13 straight hours. I powered in my vehicle and connected to home wifi and then left. When I got home 13 hours later it had recorded everything. I will pull one of my cams and test this again in the next day or two and see if something has changed since the last time I did it.

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I had heard that this was fixed and the people I asked to test it didn’t report back. Sorry to hear this is still an issue for you! Could you please confirm your app and firmware versions for me?

I did report back. Cams with normal program dtopped. Cam with rtsp kept recording. There was a time when recording sidnt stop but it changed after an upgrade. Im starting to wonder, why dose wyze want our cameras online all the time? Cause wyze shouldnt care if cams are online or not. But wyze sure are being stuburn about this. I cant believe for a moment wyze cant figure this out in a second. So wyze, please tell us why you want our cams online all the time. Please tell, im conceened their might be some foul play. Maybe we should start some investigations on what is going on here. Im serious, this is starting to concern me. What arent you telling us?

Well, dang. Could you please recreate this and send in a log? I would like to send the log number to the team and let them know that I have reports that this bug isn’t fully resolved yet on the most recent firmware and app versions.

This isn’t an issue of us not telling you something. This is an issue of us thinking we found the correct bug and fixed it but apparently didn’t fully repair the issue.

So I performed that test with a V2 FW 4.9.5.111. Set up cam then unplugged and put in car, reconnected to wifi and verified settings this was about 1:15 pm MST. I drove to work and let it run until I killed power about 11:45 pm MST drove home where it reconnected to wifi.
I took it in and checked recordings and it recorded from the time I set it up until it lost power, approx 10 hours. Once power was lost it did not start recording until it connected to wifi again.
So my results are still the same, as long as it does not lose power it will continue to record, once power is lost however it will not record until reconnecting and ‘calling home’

There is no evidence in my testing that it stops at 1.5 hours, the only reason it would stop is a momentary loss of power because it will need to reconnect to wifi before it will start recording again.

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I am using a battery jump box connected to cigar lighter charge, there should not be any power loss in 1.5 hours it should provide both filtering and power for up to 10 or 12 hours on a single Wyze Cam. 4.9.5.98 is current firmware. I will record in the auto as a test bed starting with WiFi in the driveway, start manually recording to a 32GB micro SD card, then depart which will disconnect WiFi automatically when it goes out of range. I will let you know when the V2 cam running 4.9.5.98 firmware stops recording, I will save the log file and send it to Wyze.

Thanks so very much,

Tuna :slight_smile:

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I powered mine with just a phone charger in the lighter. When I left work to go home is when it lost power due to me starting the car again. When I start the car there is a split second power loss at the lighter as the starter engages.