Camect and 5 Wyze Cameras Killing 2.4Ghz Wifi Network

[Paul]

I understand some of these could be my router settings but after messing around with those setting I finally did a test with the Camect powered on and off.

Since March 14th I have received notifications from Camect that may cameras have gone online and offline. I have another device that tracks devices on my network and I have received some alerts of cameras connecting from the network, but not as much as the camect alerts. I did a test today where I was on the 2.4Ghz (currently have the 5Ghz and 2.4 split) with the camect on. The speedtest results would either not complete or complete with very slow upload and download rates (1.65/168; 0.00/0.74). I then turned off the camect and waited and got more normal-looking rates (18.2/4/03; 18.4/3.73; 21.4/3.97). I also looked at my Wyze app and my cameras almost immediately connected and refreshed. I turned the camect on again and the rates tanked and cameras I just saw were back "offline" to the camect.

I have 5 Wyze cameras (4 v2, 1 pan) and a sensor. Before March 14th I had minor connectivity issues, but since then it appears some setting has the camect chewing up bandwidth.

[CamectArup]

Given that you posted results from a speedtest that I assume talks to the internet, I'm going to ignore the subject line, and assume that your complaint is about _internet_ bandwidth being used up, rather than that your WiFi network is max'ed out. 

Like Camect, Wyze cams can operate in two modes -- if your viewing app can connect directly to the Wyze cams, the video won't leave your network. However, if a direct connection can't be made, the Wyze video all goes to their cloud and back. Unfortunately, they don't provide any indication of when that is happening, but it sounds like it might be happening for you. 

The above applies to the connection to the connection between Camect and your Wyze cams as well -- if Wyze decides to send the video via their cloud, your 5 cameras are going to be constantly sending video up and back down, i.e. both upload and download bandwidth to the internet will be used. 

Prior to the software update 2 days ago (which didn't really touch anything that could have affected your Wyze cams) we haven't pushed any new software. If you have been making router changes, it's possible that you've made a change that's interrupting the ability to establish a direct connection between Camect and your Wyze cams. We can't tell from the Wyze interface whether the video is being obtained locally or from the cloud so I can't confirm that for you. Your internet router might provide a way for you to see who is using your bandwidth though. 

You might also try power-cycling your Wyze cams. It's possible they've gotten into a mode where they're always using the internet even if they don't need to be. 

[CamectArup]

A few more thoughts about this: 

- It could really be your wifi that's getting max'ed by 5 cameras if it was already marginal, and that would also show up as a drop in the speed test. To see if it's a wifi issue, run the speed test on the 5 GHz network while the 2.4 GHz is in a bad state. If the 5 GHz is slow too, then it's your internet connection getting used (as I thought earlier). If the 5 GHz is fine, then it's your 2.4 GHz WiFi  network rather than the internet. 

- On the Wyze forums many people have reported WiFi issues when trying to stream continuously from Wyze cams using 3 or more cameras. Others have no problems with large numbers of cameras. The pattern seems to be that people using mesh WiFi routers are more likely to have problems. Are you using a mesh router?  Note that the load from 5 cameras itself shouldn't max out a decent WiFi router -- this appears to be some bad interaction between the Wyze firmware and the router in use. 

- If it appears to be the WiFi that's having problems, try temporarily disabling all but one camera in Camect, leaving only the one that's closest to your router. If it's stable, add the others back one by one to see if there's a point at which the load gets high enough to cause problems. I'd also suggest just power-cycling all the cameras before you do this in case the cameras themselves are in a bad state. 

[Paul]

Good tips. Glad (though also sad) to know it wasn't a software update. I do not have a mesh network. The router is a fairly new Linksys so I wouldn't think that would be the issue. Like you stated, 5 Wyze cameras constantly streaming shouldn't max out the router.

I will do some more testing to try to figure out the issue. It is just the 2.4Ghz band as a speed test on the 5Ghz band performs as expected. I think Wyze has new firmware available so I will apply that to the cameras, power cycling them after the update and try to add them one by one.

[Wayne Wilson]

I am just back from an extended period away from home, lockdown and all.  I noticed while I was away that all 3 my Wyze cams were offline.  You have to disable/delete them to get them back.  I noticed that all my cams needed a software update as I was checking if they were actually offline in the Wyze app.  Did the update.  disable/delete them all yesterday.  In less than 12 hours, 2 of them off line again in Camect. disable/delete brings them back.  I am beginning to suspect that Wyze has done something in their firmware that is causing Camect a lot of problems.

1) They have two new services that require streaming up to the cloud.  One is person detect, which after they got screwed by Apple/XNOR can no longer run locally and needs the cloud.  The other is recording clips longer than 12 seconds, called called Motion Capture, which also requires streaming up to the cloud.   I have all these turned off, I do not di motion detection and alerts at all from the Wyze app, so I am not consuming bandwidth.  I have a dedicated 2 AP WIFI network with all cams less than 15 ft from a camera.  If it's flaky WiFi, it's at the camera not the infrastructure.

2) The firmware updates that they made to accommodate their new services and other functionality may have changed how they operate when streaming.  I do not mean the protocols they are using, but how they are implemented and what they might be doing within that internal protocol.

[CamectArup]

Wayne -- One experiment you could try is to put the RTSP firmware (but still use it the non-RTSP way) on one of your cameras and see if that's more stable.  The "advantage" (or disadvantage depending on how you use the camera) is that once you put a custom firmware on the camera, Wyze won't update it automatically.