Lessons Learned on Using Wyze Cams for Home Surveillance

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Cute and cuddly, Wyze Cams are deceptively powerful for the price.

When I wrote this post I bought six Wyze Cams for home surveillance purposes. It seemed excessive, even to the co-worker who had recommended them to me. But at the time I had plans for the first five and the sixth was the designated pinch hitter.

Here were some of the ideas I envisioned before it found an important temporary location (explained further down):

• Use it to take a time lapse video on a job site.
• Point it down the hall so it sends me a motion notification causing my phone to buzz, waking me up when my daughter appears out of her room in the morning.
• Set it on the washing machine with sound notifications enabled. When the signal goes off, indicating the load is done, the Wyze Cam sends my phone a notification wherever I am.*

The possibilities are endless for an extra Wyze Cam!

As with all things, you know a lot more after you use them even if it’s only for a week.

Notifications can be intense.

Let it be known that if you set up notifications on your phone it will notify you to an unusable state if the cameras are pointed outside. Day number two of my first experimental camera pointed outside and we had an insanely windy day. I’m not exaggerating when I say I received 200 notifications of the palm tree and grill cover blowing in the wind.

The real intent for my Wyze Cams are to look at the status of the citrus trees in the backyard, not track cats going through the yard, arrows coming over the fence, or creepers peeping through the windows. With that in mind, you can turn the notifications off on exterior facing cameras and instead rely on notifications from interior cameras for sound and motion notifications. You can still see everything during daylight, and if you get a notification inside and see or hear something you can go back in time if you want to see the action outside.

Definitely invest in a Micro SD card.

Playback is a must have feature that enables you to go back in time for the scenario explained above, but only if you have installed a Micro SD card.

Some people put in larger Micro SD cards formatted to XFat, but in all honesty, figuring that out was not in my wheelhouse and I’ve been happy with this economical 32 GB Kingston drive. While it only retains 2-3 days of playback in HD, if there is action, you are probably going to check it out immediately, not wait.

You can also make videos of the playback–I experimented a bit with the massive ducting rework my husband spearheaded a month or so ago. Here is one video of the massive return ducting removal with yours truly on top of the ladder with my husband feeding it down to me–to be replaced with an even larger return duct. Keep in mind this is before I switched the camera from the factory setting of SD, to HD. Also, the video looks a lot better on a display the size of your phone–where you are normally looking at the playback.

You may have noticed the Wyze Cam on the right in the photo at the beginning of this blog post is not black in the correct spots. Guess which camera shot the video above.  😉

Your Wyze Cam can make any thermostat semi Wi-Fi enabled.

As I indicated in the last post, we ran into a hiccup during our install of a new legit Wi-Fi thermostat when it started short cycling the air conditioner. We had to remove it and put the old thermostat back in place while we looked for a different one. That’s when the sixth Wyze Cam had a new home: a ladder facing the thermostat.

Hello old thermostat. We didn’t bother putting you back in the wall because we’re going to replace you.

While we don’t have the ability to adjust the temperature, in the big scheme of things the only reason we wanted the Wi-Fi was to make sure we didn’t have an air conditioning problem. I want to know right away to keep the refrigerator from overheating. A refrigerator with a freezer chock-full frozen food will soon turn into stinky food if the air conditioner dies and the refrigerator has to work overtime and die too.

Everyone is busy. When on vacation we don’t have to ask one of our neighbors to stop in once in a while. We love them and know they would, but we know they have their own lives. So for thirty bucks a Wyze Cam will turn any thermostat turn into a Wi-Fi thermostat.

It is not the sexiest setup. A ladder set up anywhere in your home is not ideal and screams of “hack”. Which may lead to the real point…

In a pinch, a Wyze Cam can help you hack any home surveillance problem into submission when necessary.

The video quality is amazing for what it is, but there are limitations.

Don’t expect to see writing from any distance.

Point it out side and it’s not going to read a license plate, but you’ll definitely see the post office truck, your neighbor’s silver Civic driving by, and the dark soil around a tree indicating it was watered overnight. It is a great camera for easily identifiable general descriptions.

Yes, the Blood Orange tree is watered, but it also looks like the berm is broken and water escaped. You know it’s time to do some patching or adjust the water schedule when you get home.

I was hopeful I could read the thermostat from further away to allow the camera to be more useful than just staring at the digital display.

Ideally, I wanted it hidden away here:

Alas, it is not so.

A ladder up close and personal is what did it for us. This is where a Wyze Pan Cam would have been ideal if I wanted to see other parts of my home instead of just the thermostat. The Wyze Pan Cam gives you 360 degree range for just over $40 (also assuming a Micro SD card), which even two Wyze Cam’s, placed back to back for $60, can’t match.

Don’t expect to see outside at night if your camera is looking through a window.

The infrared does not go through glass. Instead, you’ll just see the reflection of the camera.

Daytime is fantastic. Night time–not so much.

Wyze Cams are only intended for interior use.

This isn’t really a lesson learned–it’s definitely right there in the title on Amazon. It is something to consider when it comes to using Wyze Cams for home surveillance outside.

Is daytime observation good enough from leaving the Wyze Cam on a window sill, or do you need a surveillance camera rated for outdoor use so it can be used around the clock?

Wyze Cams rely on hard wired power.

No batteries to replace here. Each Wyze Cam comes with a six foot power cord.

One of the reasons I liked it was because it relies on power.

It’s true. There are definitely some downsides.

Someone could come and shut your power to the main and break in. When the power goes out and you are away on a work trip, you’ll be hitting refresh hoping the power comes back on in a few hours before you come back home to a stinky refrigerator.

At the same time, there are several reviews on battery powered cameras that state they eat through batteries.

Let’s see…the batteries die and the camera does not come back on until the batteries are replaced. Or–in the case of Wyze Cams–the power comes back on and the camera comes back on.

In both cases, when the wireless router goes offline due to a power outage, you still don’t have access to either battery or hard-wired powered cameras…

So my vote is for continuous power.

There’s some serious thought behind the design of these cute little boxes.

The bottom has an integrated magnet.

You can stick it to the side of anything metal without any assistance. Like our freezer. If someone breaks in you might not notice a Wyze Cam blending in with the rest of the Bubble Wash here.

Peek-a-boo I see you! A photo too cute not to see twice. This would be the perfect spot for unassuming kiddos wandering down the hall bleary eyed first thing in the morning.

It also comes with a circular metal piece with tape that can get attached to anything non-metallic.

The base is articulated.

Easily pointed in any direction, Wyze Cams can zone in at any angle necessary.

Investing in Wyze Cams for home surveillance depends on your goals. Even then, your goals may change. Our six Wyze Cams and the Micro SD cards only came out to about $180. In the realm of home security and surveillance, this is a tiny amount. Even if we move on to a different system for home surveillance purposes, these little cameras are still useful. When we go on vacation or stay home they are easily movable and adaptable for different purposes in different locations. You might even want to throw one in your bag when you go on vacation or a work trip, and set it up on the Wi-Fi network in your hotel room to watch for any shenanigans!

For more more reviews or to buy, check it out on Amazon here.

Check our our other home surveillance devices in this post: Make Your Home Smart for Under $1000

*I can’t tell you how many times I’ve started a load, moved on and completely forgotten about it. It’s that last minute “dang it” before going to bed. Problem solved!