Wyze Cam V2 review and setup (read before buying) – 2020

This is a Wyze Cam review and setup article. 

If you are looking for a small, affordable, and easy to use wireless security camera just keep reading to learn more about the Wyze Cam V2 priced at $19.99.

The camera was designed by the Wyze Labs, headquartered in Seattle, WA, US.

The Wyze Cam V2 is a small wireless home security cube camera with full HD video, motion and sound detection, night vision, two-way audio, and time lapse. The camera is designed to work indoors using 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks, can record into an SD card and send live video streaming to a mobile device.

The Wyze cam is an inexpensive wireless security camera with a cube form factor.

You just need to insert an SD card for local video recording, download the Wyze cam App, press a button on the camera and follow the instruction for the setup.

The camera syncs with the mobile phone and starts transmitting HD video. 

The App is very simple to use and allows to interact with the camera by turning the night vision on and off and getting events such as motion and audio detection.

The Wyze Cam has good quality video, take a look at the pictures below with lights on at the left and lights off (camera night vision) at the right.

The camera has a white cube shape that is pretty discrete and can be installed on a flat surface. The dimensions are 2.2 x 1.9 x 1.9 inches, HWD. 

The camera base allows you the adjustment to get the better angle.

It's possible to adjust the Wyze Cam up and down and also rotates its base.

The base can also use a magnetic plate that allows the installation on any metal surface, or you can use a 3M adhesive tape that comes with the camera to install on wood, glasses, or another type of non-metal surface.

In the back part, the Wyze Cam has a power input, USB connection, and Speaker.

The speaker allows a 2-way communication, which means, you can talk over the phone and somebody close to the camera can hear your voice.

The camera comes with a 6-foot Micro-USB power cord that is connected to an AC adapter that must be plugged into an outlet. The power supply can power up a second camera connected via the USB port (daisy chain).

With a 110-degree viewing angle, the camera is ideal for indoor environment and allows you to monitor a room with piratically no blind spots.

Take a look at the picture below to have an idea about the camera viewing angle.

It's possible to use the digital zoom to obtain up to 8X magnification.

Infrared LED located in the front part of the camera allow to see the image in the dark.

Anything that is located up to 30-feet from the camera will be in the infrared range, this is enough for most of the indoor installations.

The night vision mode has three options:

1. Off: Which means the camera won't turn on the LED lights;
2. ON: The camera will keep the LED always on (not recommended);
3. Auto: A light sensor will trigger the LED on/off when needed.

Don't try to use the infrared light to monitor through a glass because it doesn't work.

Also be careful when pointing the camera to a reflective surface such as glass or metal because the light can bounce back to the camera lens.

Do you know why it's important to have information about the camera sensor ?

OK, let me answer that for you... the sensor captures the light to convert it to digital signals and the better the sensor, the better the image quality, especially with harsh environmental conditions such as lower light or brighter areas.

The Wyze Cam V2 has a CMOS (Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor) sensor that captures images at crisp 1080p (also know is Full HD) resolution. 

This sensor was improved from the previous version and it's much better now.

Combined with the camera internal processor, the Wyze Cam V2 can work with up to 15 FPS (10 FPS in the previous version) which allows you to have images without that weird jumping effect when somebody or something is moving in front of the camera.

The camera initial setup is very simple, you just need the camera, a smartphone or tablet, and a wireless router. 

After installing the Wyze Cam V2 app on your mobile, create an account, press a button on the bottom of the camera and point it to the mobile to read a QR code. 

See the step-by-step below:

On the mobile just click the Play Store (Android devices) or the Apple Store (IOS devices) and search for the Wyze App.

Click the Install button, wait for the installation and open the Wyze Cam app

Click Sign UP to create a new account, enter your email and pick a password

Enter the code that you received by email and in the next screen click Allow

Click the button Add Camera and choose the Wyze Cam V2 model

Confirm that you heard the camera say "Ready to connect"

The Wyze Cam V2 allows different types of video recording. See the options.

With a slot for a micro SD card, the camera allows local recording and when the card is full, it just deletes the old videos to have space for the new ones.

Officially, the Wize Cam V2 supports a 32GB Class 10 micro SD card to record up to 400MB/hour using HD resolution or 130MB/hour using SD resolution.

That translate to 10GB/day and 4GB/day for HD and SD resolution respectively.

Take a look at the following table for recording time reference:

Besides the official Wyze Cam specs that show the camera can use up to 32GB micro SD card, users have reported the use of higher capacity cards.

Micro SD card with 64GB and 128GB capacity are being used in the camera and most of them seem to work pretty fine if they are formatted by the camera itself. 

Sometimes users get some formatting error when trying to use such high capacity micro SD cards, that's why Wyze Cam sticks to the camera specs and don't officially recommend to use more than 32GB micro SD card.

Either way, it's recommended to use a class 10 micro SD card, which means the card is fast enough to write down the data coming from the camera.

You can access the recorded videos using the Wyze can app or remove the micro SD card and use an adapter to read it directly on a computer.

The files are stored in different folders organized by day and hour and each individual file hold 1 minute of video. The format is standard MPEG-4.

A mobile phone receives the video stream from the camera and can record it.

The process is pretty simple, just open the Wize Cam app to start getting the camera live feed and press the record button to save the videos on your mobile phone.

Just be careful to not fill all the space in your phone with videos !

Wyze cam offers 14-days FREE cloud recording. This is awesome, right ?

You don't need to subscribe to any service and there's no trial period, everything works automatically and you can just enjoy the cloud service.

The cloud recording is based on events and the camera automatically sends 10-15 second alert videos to be recorded on AWS  cloud servers as soon as the motion or sound detection is turned on.

All the data sent to the AWS server is encrypted and can be accessed through the Wize Cam app for 14 days, old videos are deleted and can't be recovered.

You can turn the camera alert to send you notifications when there's a movement in front of the camera or when a sound that reaches a certain threshold.

There's also an option to trigger alerts when smoke or CO is detected.

To turn on the Wize Cam motion detection just go to settings and toggle the button. 

There are motion sensitivity adjustments (low, medium, and high) to allow a better experience with feature according to the area the camera is installed.

When the camera detects a movement a green square shows you what is triggering the movement, it's a tracking feature very common on modern cameras.

If you prefer not to be bothered all the time with alerts, just use a schedule with the time you prefer to be notified, it's a pretty interesting feature.

The sound detection works in a similar way, with sensitivity adjustments that make possible to have less false alarms. And believe me, you gonna need this !

Does the Wyze Camera V2 have smoke and CO detectors? 

The answer is NO, it doesn't. 

And now you should be scratching your head and thinking, "how it's possible to detect smoke and CO (carbon monoxide) without sensors ?". 

The camera uses the sound detection to identify a sound from the alarm system, so if the regular smoke and CO detectors trigger the alarm, the camera "hears" them.

It's a pretty cool idea, isn't it ? But please don't risk your life trusting too much on such feature, it's there to help you but the regular alarm system is still better.

Equipped with an internal microphone and speaker, the camera allows you to communicate with somebody that is relatively close enough to speak and listen.

This feature is the 2-way communication, which means, you can speak on your mobile phone and the audio is sent to the camera's speaker which has an amplifier.

To view the recorded footage, just click the Playback button at the bottom of the app and a timeline is displayed to allow you to choose what you want to watch.

Just pick a date and time and hit the "Play" button

The Wize Cam V2 has an internal 2.4GHZ Wi-Fi circuit used to connect with your home/office wireless router. The camera must be in the Wi-fi range.

Usually, a wi-fi router is designed to handle devices that are 328 feet (100m) away.

This range, however, is common on open areas with little or no interference.

In a closed area, this range can vary a lot depending on the obstructions in the place such as walls, appliances, and furniture. Interference is also something to be considered when installing the camera in a congested signal area.

To have a better signal is recommended to install your wireless router is a place that avoids too many obstructions. You also need to use the channel 1, 6 or 11.

To learn more about wireless for security cameras read the article Wireless Network Design for CCTV.

Do you want to give a voice command and have your camera showing a live video stream to any Alexa device ? Yeah, that's possible with the Wyze Cam V2.

The camera can stream video to Echo Show, Echo Spot, Fire Tablets, Fire TV Stick, and all generations of Fire TV. How cool is that, huh?

Your camera must be using the firmware 4.9.2.18 or higher to be able to work properly with Alexa devices. (If you have the old Wyze Cam V1 it won't work).

You can setup the Wyze Cam V2 to work with Alexa in 4 simple steps:

1. Setup your camera in the Wyze app;
2. Update the Wyze Cam V2 camera firmware;
3. Enable Wyze skill on the Alexa App;
4. Use the Alexa App to discover the camera.

The following pictures show the step-by-step process to connect the camera to Alexa.

Just make sure your camera is working in the Wyze App and has an easy name.

Tap the center of the camera live screen to open the firmware upgrade window 

Click the button to upgrade the firmware to the 4.9.2.18 or higher and follow the instructions on the screen, it's a relatively easy process

The camera will show a progress bar and finishes the upgrade in just seconds

Just use open the menu on the Alexa app and go to Skills & Games

Search for the Wyze and go to the next step

Click the enable button

Login into your account

Click the button to accept the conditions

Check if the Wyze was successfuly linked

Click discover devices

And you are done ! It's a pretty simple and easy configuration, isn't it ?

Now you just need to ask Alexa do show you the camera, see the commands

" Alexa, show <camera name> "

" Alexa, show my <camera name> "

" Alexa, show the <camera name> "

" Alexa, show me <camera name> "

You can use any of these commands as long as the camera name is easy to pronounce and Alexa can understand exactly what you are saying.

The camera live feed is displayed in the Alexa device and if you have more than one camera, just name it differently and follow the same process.

To stop the live video just ask Alexa with the commands:

" Alexa, stop "

" Alexa, go home"

Just because you have connected your camera to Alexa which is commercialized by Amazon, that doesn't mean your username and password is shared with Amazon.

The video stream is sent from the camera to the Amazon service, but the password authentication is handled by the Wyze page, so your data is safe.

Your video is protected by encryption, so if somebody on the Internet intercepts it, there's no way to see the content in the video stream, meaning you have privacy.

Not yet. (September 2018), but the company has plans to integrate the Google Assistant to allow the camera to be controlled by voice command.

Some features in the camera are considered as advanced, let's talk about them.

There's a status light in the back of the camera that indicates the camera is working and synced with a mobile device. This light can be turned on/off on the app.

Sometimes the camera needs to be installed upside down and the image rotation can solve the problem. The Wyze Cam V2 allow 180º image rotation. 

Micro SD card recording is optional in the Wyze Cam V2. There's a button to turn on/off this feature just in case you want only camera live feed and cloud recording.

IFTTT (If This Then That,) is the way to get apps and devices talking to each other and the Wyze Cam V2 supports it on firmware version 4.9.1.60 and higher.

This feature currently works with:

- Motion Detection
- Sound Detection
- Smoke Alarm Detection
- CO Alarm Detection

The idea behind the IFTTT is to trigger an action based on a specific event.

As an example, with the Wyze Cam V2, you can setup a condition when a motion is detected an email is sent to somebody (IF Motion is detected THEN send email)

You just need to download the IFTTT app on your mobile and start using it with the Wyze app by configuring the conditions to trigger the events.

This small cube camera is very interesting, but as always, we usually compare the devices to others that we have used in the past to check the available features.

Let's take a look at some Wyze Cam V2 missing features

Some security cameras allow to setup a motion detection zone, but that's not the case with the Wyze Cam V2. The entire area in the picture is always selected and that can trigger undesirable events and generate false some alarms.

A lot of devices are integrated with Google Assistant to allow voice command interaction, the Wyze Cam V2 is not integrated yet, but according to the Wyze Lab, this feature is coming soon, let's wait for it.

Most security cameras can send email to alert the users, but the Wyze Cam V2 can't.

But that's not a big problem because as a workaround it's possible to use the IFTTT feature and send emails based on the camera alarms.

Perhaps of future updates, this email notification will be available.

The Wyze Cam V2 has a new hardware with a better performance and features

The Wyze Cam V1 and V2 look the same and you can't tell the difference by just looking at them, but internally there's a significant difference in the hardware.

The V1 works with 10 FPS (Frames Per Second) which cause a little bit of a jumping effect on moving people and objects, the V2 works with 15 FPS and have a smooth image when monitoring movements.

The V2 also has a better image sensor that translates to crisp images with more vivid colors, the camera also shows a better image during the night.

The V2 can track the movement and show a green square around the moving objects, this feature is called Motion Tagging. (Not that useful improvement).

The new version is also better related to the lag for the live view, which means you can have a faster streaming from the camera to your mobile device.

The Wyse Cam V2 is a very good camera with affordable price.

In fact, it's hard to understand how the Wyze Lab guys can't profit from it.

According to the information on the company website, there are no hardware development costs since they are using an existing product that was improved by implementing a new software to it.

The company is located in the US which makes things more interesting because people use to trust more and expect to have a good technical support.

I hope you liked this Wyze cam review.

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