Wyze camera settings which might prevent detection and cause playback freeze.

[Wayne Wilson]

I have noticed now, on 2 of my Wyze cams, that there are positions in the playback stream where Camect just stops playing.  Just now I was looking at the video of my brother entering my garage I found a new (but maybe related) issue, person detect failed.  Camect did not have any person alerts while he entered but did when he left a few minutes later.   The playback stopped just as he was entering and that's where I would have expected a person detect.  One thing I noticed is that the Wyze motion Box overlay was turned on.  And that had drawn a rapidly changing box size as the garage door opened and then he stepped through.  At that point the box was outlining the entire garage door opening and the playback froze right there with him standing in the opening.

Could the motion box have caused Camect to not detect an object?  And the caused Camect to freeze the playback.  Note that the play icon was still on.  Several clicks on 5 sec advance eventually got it playing again, although skipped ahead several seconds.  Seemingly those seconds are lost.

At any rate, I have now turned off motion boxes, turned off the Wyze logo and turned off the time/date stamp overlay.  It will be awhile before I can test these changes out because I am out of town right now.

[CamectChao]

The freeze means for several seconds Camect didn't get data from Wyze camera. It's mostly likely caused by Wi-Fi. Do you use mesh and have 3+ Wyze cameras? It's a known issue that Wyze cannot work stably with mesh Wi-Fi when there are more than 2 Wyze cameras on the same network.

The other possibility is that the Wyze camera was CPU bound at that time so it didn't send data out.

Turning off the motion tag and other overlay is definitely a good move. It saves Wyze some computation resources. Sometimes the green box borders may cover some parts of the objects. When this happens, our AI could be affected.

[Wayne Wilson]

I thought I had replied to this, but anyway here is my reply:

I have no MESH, just a single Amplifi HD unit.  All my Wyze cams (after taking the one covering my backyard down, pulling the power and slapping it hard (no really, I was trying to jostle the antenna) are showing over 70 on the signal strength meter, whatever that means.  I'll try to do more video playback on them and see if the freezing points stop happening.  But really, why would the playback freeze, I would think it would just skip to the next recorded part of the video stream.

[CamectChao]

On Monday, February 10, 2020 at 1:19:30 PM UTC-8, Wayne Wilson wrote:

I thought I had replied to this, but anyway here is my reply:

I have no MESH, just a single Amplifi HD unit.  All my Wyze cams (after taking the one covering my backyard down, pulling the power and slapping it hard (no really, I was trying to jostle the antenna) are showing over 70 on the signal strength meter, whatever that means. 

It's not just your WiFi signal matters here. The cameras make differences too.

At my home, Nest cameras are much more stable than Wyze. One of my Wyze camera keeps disconnecting all the time, while the other one is mostly fine. It could be Wi-Fi, it could be the camera firmware is not doing sth. right, or the hardware is failing.

My other IP cameras are connected to Orbi satellites using Ethernet cable. They are very stable. 

I'll try to do more video playback on them and see if the freezing points stop happening.  But really, why would the playback freeze, I would think it would just skip to the next recorded part of the video stream.

The skip happens if the connection was broken.

For this case, the connection was not broken. It just didn't receive frames for several seconds. So Camect plays the same frame for several seconds.

[Wayne Wilson]

On Monday, February 10, 2020 at 4:46:59 PM UTC-5, CamectChao wrote:

It's not just your WiFi signal matters here. The cameras make differences too.

At my home, Nest cameras are much more stable than Wyze. One of my Wyze camera keeps disconnecting all the time, while the other one is mostly fine. It could be Wi-Fi, it could be the camera firmware is not doing sth. right, or the hardware is failing.

Of my 3 Wyze cameras, only one is reallly acting up.  I can plainly see in it's time line lots and lots of "black spaces" which I believe are drop outs.  These are rare in the other 2 cams.  Many times the Wyze app has told me the "network is unstable, switch to 360P".  The Device health info is not showing any problems but there clearly are some.  So, I have a couple of choices ranked in order of time/cost.

Continue to debug a $25 camera by moving it closer to the router, or 

Buy another one and see if it's better in the same location.

Buy an AP, probably Ubiquiti and create an SSID just for the cameras, and hope that just one AP will reach from garage where router is, through 2 walls and 40 feet to the backyard wall location.

Run a POE cable to the backside of house (a real pain in the neck)  and set up a wired cam (but the one I have is not as wide angle as the Wyse and won't cover all I want covered!), probably end up with two wired cams, which means two cable runs and another camera purchase.

Get over my scruples and low bank balance and buy a Nest camera, with the caveat that I still might need to invest in an AP or 2.

Any advice from anyone who had to overcome poor WiFi (sounds like mesh isn't the answer anyway)?

[CamectChao]

I would not recommend any WiFi based solution. WiFi cameras are usually fine for lower resolution indoor cameras. It's not a good option for outdoor cameras.

The ideal solution would be running a POE cable, which would also allow you to upgrade to higher resolution cameras in the future.

Alternatively, you could use a mesh Wi-Fi router. Most mesh Wi-Fi has Ethernet jack. Buy a IP camera, install a mesh Wi-Fi close to it and connect the two with Ethernet cable.

This is what I use at my home: Orbi + 3 IP cameras(Hikvision, SV3C, Amcrest). They are super stable.

If you have more than 2 outdoor cameras, this solution will save you money compared to buying two Nest outdoor cameras.

Another thing I tried before was using a Wi-Fi extender + IP cameras, similar with mesh Wi-Fi, just a bit more configuration since you will jave multiple WiFi SSIDs. 

[Steve Gunn]

Just had to report that this has not been my experience.  I currently have 7 Wyze cams (mix of V1 and V2) connected to a Google OnHub mesh network and they are very stable.  They are actually much more stable / reliable now than when I had them connected to an ISP supplied router.  I am no longer getting any connection drops / re-connections / frame drops, etc.  

On Saturday, February 8, 2020 at 8:33:12 PM UTC-5, CamectChao wrote:

[Will Stillwell]

I have a Unifi Mesh system with 8 Wyze Cams, and a couple Foscams.   It's funny Camect sometimes has an issue with 1 or 2 Wyze cameras, but not always the same ones.  My Wyze app never has a problem with them.   

How do I turn off the Green overlay when it detects motion?  I don't want to disable motion detection on the Wyze cameras, but I don't care for that green box overlay. I know how to turn off the logo and time stamp.   

~Will

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[Steve Gunn]

You go into each cam in the Wyze app, hit 'More' and turn off 'Motion tagging'.

On Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 9:58:21 AM UTC-5, Will wrote:

I have a Unifi Mesh system with 8 Wyze Cams, and a couple Foscams.   It's funny Camect sometimes has an issue with 1 or 2 Wyze cameras, but not always the same ones.  My Wyze app never has a problem with them.   

How do I turn off the Green overlay when it detects motion?  I don't want to disable motion detection on the Wyze cameras, but I don't care for that green box overlay. I know how to turn off the logo and time stamp.   

~Will

On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 9:06 AM Steve Gunn <stev...@gmail.com> wrote:

Just had to report that this has not been my experience.  I currently have 7 Wyze cams (mix of V1 and V2) connected to a Google OnHub mesh network and they are very stable.  They are actually much more stable / reliable now than when I had them connected to an ISP supplied router.  I am no longer getting any connection drops / re-connections / frame drops, etc.  

On Saturday, February 8, 2020 at 8:33:12 PM UTC-5, CamectChao wrote:

 Do you use mesh and have 3+ Wyze cameras? It's a known issue that Wyze cannot work stably with mesh Wi-Fi when there are more than 2 Wyze cameras on the same network.

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[Wayne Wilson]

I installed a TP-Link AP using just it's 2.4 Ghz band and created a separate SSID for the 3 indoor Wyze cams I have. It was cheap enough at $60 and worth the gamble.  I lost that Gamble.  Arup was right, WIFI cameras seem problematic, or at least the Wyze cams are.  Given where they are located, I can find no ethernet connected cameras which have a similar discrete mounting footprint, but I will continue to search through Amazon listings.

Here are more details.  I checked the channel the TP-Link selected and it's good with minimal interference. This AP has been well reviewed and tested.    I have better signal strength on all the cameras, according to the Wyze app.  However, on the weakest of the 3 (which is now a different camera than before since the AP is in a different location) which shows 80% signal according to the Wyze app, the dropouts are numerous.  Just in the last hour, I have 10 dropouts lasting from 2 to 3 seconds each.  In a camera which shows 90% signal stength, I have 5 dropouts in the most recent 2 hour time period.  These cameras are just not reliable for me on the Camect system. Just about every time I bring up home.camect.com, I will find one of the three with a spinning wheel and half the time that results in no connection unless I close the windows and start again. 

[CamectArup]

Does this camera meet the mounting footprint that you require?  If you want to gamble another $25 you could see if it is more reliable for you.

When we went to CES, one of the cameras we took with us was this slightly older Ezviz model. CES is a horrible environment for WiFi, and we were impressed at how the Ezviz camera managed to stay connected to the WiFi in spite of everything, whereas the Nest Hello and Wyze cam we took along could not.

We've tested the cheaper camera and know that it works with Camect, but so do Wyze cams most of the time. We don't know that the cheaper camera has the same great WiFi as the older one -- it's more of a hope given the lineage, but we will try the next time we go somewhere with bad WiFi. 

[CamectChao]

I have been using the $25 Ezviz camera for about one week, not even one offline so far.

Wyze cameras usually have one or two offline every day. Nest usually have several per week.

All of these cameras have pretty good Wi-Fi signals though. I don't know whether Ezviz will still be good when WiFi signal is not very strong.

There is one thing I don't like Ezviz camera: I cannot get rid of the logo and timestamp overlay. They seems have copied this notorious behavior from Nest..

[Brian Robertson]

Just something to check on because I had this issue. Are you using the factory power cable or did you buy a longer after market cable? A lot of the longer after market cables don't produce enough power on a constant basis and it causes the Wyze cam to go offline for a few seconds occasionally. In order to fix this you either need to find a cable that is long enough and produces the correct amount of power for the length or use some type of regular household cord to extend the outlet and continue to use the power cable that comes with Wyze. I don't know if this is your issue or not, but figured I would mention it just in case. It may not be your Wifi at all.

[Wayne Wilson]

That one and the one that you used at CES look ok, I will buy one and find out.  It will take a few weeks since I am out of town at the moment.

[Wayne Wilson]

Yes, both cameras are using different cables than what comes in the box. One of them is using a longer Wyze cable, https://wyze.com/wyze-cam-pan-mounting-kit.html and the other is using a TP-Link Kasa cam cable.  I was aware of the power issues with after market cables so I went with the Wyze cable.  I don't dismiss that as a potential source, but since the behavior has gotten worse in one and better in the other with the change in WiFi, I still suspect Wifi.  I just checked the Wyze cam in my garage,  6 ft from AP,100% signal and using the original Wyze power cable, it still get's 6 dropouts in the most recent 3 hours.  That's 3 Wyze cams, all bought at different times, months apart, all with signal strengths of 80, 90 and 100 and each of them get's multiple 2 to 3 second drop outs  with frequency related to signal strength.