Wyze Cam v3 with Color Night Vision, Wired 1080p HD Indoor/Outdoor Video Camera, 2-Way Audio, Works with Alexa, Google Assistant, and IFTTT

I like these little cameras! Setup was a breeze, picture quality is amazing, and the live feed is pretty much actually live (less than a 1 second delay for me, which was the best of all the newer cameras i tested – more about that below). Real time live video is important to me for various reasons. For example, one of my dogs keeps peeing in the house (marking), and if i can’t catch him just before he pees then he’s never going to learn to stop doing that. With a delay of even 3-4 seconds, i would be too late.

These cameras are small and light. The base is magnetic and very adjustable, and there are also adhesive and screw-in options for mounting. Low light performance is exceptional – the ir night vision isn’t needed until it’s pretty much completely dark.

The app is so-so.. It is responsive and more or less intuitive, and it does have all the basic capabilities needed. It just lacks some features that i would have liked. For example, you can’t fast forward through event videos or continuous recordings. To jump to other points you have to move a bar on the timeline.. It is very difficult to skip just a tiny bit ahead. I keep going too far, then going back too far or not far enough, and it’s a pain. You have to guess where to look for things.

For this reason, continuous recording was not a great solution for me, because it was too hard to find events. Recording events only is better, but i’d still like the ability to fast forward, or to see the actual video as you move your finger along the timeline.

Speaking of recording events only to your sd card: sd card recordings are not subject to the 12 second video/5 minute cooldown that you get with the free cloud recordings. If you choose ‘events only’ in the settings, it will break time into 1 minute increments, and it will continue recording until motion stops. This wasn’t made clear in any of the documentation i could find, and the live chat agent gave me incorrect information. I almost gave up and returned these before even opening them, but first i decided to message them on facebook. The facebook messenger representative gave me the correct information and links to where i could find more detailed information on their website. So, crisis averted.

The audio is pretty terrible in recorded events. It sounds like you’re talking from across a long tunnel while holding your hand over the microphone. When right up next to the camera outside, i can understand speech, but it still does not sound good. It is slightly better indoors. I don’t know what the sound is like for the live feed though, and i don’t know how it sounds when i talk through the camera. (i haven’t had anyone here to help me test things like that. The dogs won’t cooperate, they all want to be in the same room as me all the time).

For me, the fact that there is almost no lag in the live video more than makes up for the shortcomings in audio. Plus the price is great — a lot more than they were before may, unfortunately, but still very competitively priced. As soon as they’re in stock anywhere, i’ll be adding two pan cameras for inside, and maybe their doorbell, depending on whether or not there is enough space on my door frame.

Here are all the cameras i’ve had/tried, to give you all some comparisons. This will be long, but the summary is that between dericam, blink, eufy, eufy solo, littleelf, and wyze, i liked the wyze ones best.
I did not test ring because they are really expensive and have no options for local storage at all. You have to pay for a subscription for each camera if you want to view recordings. I didn’t test arlo because they’re expensive and i hadn’t gotten to them yet. No need to do more testing now though, i’m keeping the wyze cameras.

1. Original indoor cameras that i want to replace – dericam 1080p p2, indoor pan/tilt, purchased in 2017. They’re old now and are showing their age, but there is virtually no lag time at all in the live feed, and you get all features and local storage without ever paying any fees. The app is kind of buggy and annoying (and slow by today’s standards), but these cameras served me well for 3-4 years. They are deteriorating now though, and it’s time for an upgrade.

2. Blink mini outdoor, 5 camera kit (ordered on prime day, so i got a really good deal). The blink cameras were really nice (image quality, sound, features, ease of installation), but i had a consistent 3 second delay in the live feed. (my network is not the issue.) it’s really too bad, those seemed perfect otherwise. I tried every single troubleshooting step and anything that other people mentioned having done in message boards. No difference though, i always had a 3 second delay, so i returned them.

3. Littlelf 1080p, pan/tilt etc. Priced around what wyze cameras cost. As far as i can tell this company only makes indoor cameras, so i would have had to get a different brand for outside, and use two apps to keep track of my house. Not really want i want, but lifflelf promised the ability to see multiple live streams at the same time, so i wanted to try them. That feature does work and is actually really nice. Good image quality (but not as good as the other newer ones), good audio, an app that was a little clunky but definitely usable… But i had a 4 second delay with these cameras, so they went back.

4. Eufy – eufycam e, 2-cam kit. These were by far the most expensive cameras i tried, but they promise a year of battery life, and i wasn’t sure if i’d be able to get power outside at that point. The cameras seem really solid and well made. I had no trouble adding the homebase and camera, although i did have a lot of trouble creating my account in the first place. The app seemed less intuitive than blink or wyze – (not a dealbreaker), but worked. Image quality was great, sound was great, but i found that these had a 3-4 second delay. For the price, they would have had to be perfect.

5. Eufy solo indoorcam p22 (pan/tilt), and solo outdoorcam c22 (which looks like a big eyeball, i really liked the design). The price of the indoor cameras was similar to wyze, but their outdoor cameras were a lot more. I thought that since these cameras connect directly to wifi and not to a base, they’d be faster. I was wrong though, i had the same 3-4 second delay as with the other eufy cameras. Video quality is great, but not as good as the wyze v3 in my opinion. Audio quality was really good with these. But the delay was a dealbreaker.

The end. I applaud you if you got this far!

The wyze team are killing it with this one. Their low cost products have always been a good draw. My prior wyze camera was the pan camera – good price for one that i could make spin around and look up and down. I bought two v3 to get my side yards.

My primary cameras are nest…traditionally seemed to be the top of the line for this new generation of cloud based ip cameras – highest quality but highest cost. But at least with the nest app i felt i was getting what i paid for. Now those guys at google made their new cameras not work with their own nest app, only the google home, which is crazy to me. The google home currently doesn’t let you see the *entire* 24 hour history within your subscription time frame, which was always a key distinguisher from ring and other ip cameras – only highlights! I had ordered a 2 pack of their new cameras on prime day but then did some more reading and found out about the lack of nest app support, and found my existing nest cams could not access more than highlights/alerts in google home app, and decided that was just not going to be good enough. I want to be able to look through the entire feed in case an alert didn’t catch everything.

Then i decided to look at wyze – i’d read their emails and was interested in their skylight night color and decided i would ‘try’ their $35 camera instead of the nest $120 camera. After all, the new v3 is outdoor rated, has great night vision and has a lower cost, can install sd cards for onboard extended feed coverage (not just alerts) and i’m already using the wyze app for my two pan cameras so i’m already in the ecosystem in my google home. So i ordered 2 wyze v3 cameras.

Installation – first, even the box is small…reminded me of the blink camera size. I ordered sd cards for the v3 cams to give me that very long look-back ability (very cheap for the sizes needed). When i went to install i realized the usb cable/power line was thin – and i was able to run it inside my window track so as to not drill into my siding (because lets face it, eventually i may change to something different and who wants to put holes in their siding). Unfortunately i did have to poke the cable through the screen b/c my screen didn’t slide up/down. Like i said, the camera is very small and light, so when i mounted i only needed one small screw (provided with kit) to hold it in place. There was a magnet ring around screw area, and that could have helped with the mount, but i didn’t use it. The camera has left right and up down hinges so i was able to point it in the place i wanted to.

Performance – i am happy with the camera’s performance. Its 1080p. One camera is on side with street light, and that area stays color lit with the starlight feature and yes can see pretty well. The other camera is in more shaded part and uses the gray ir feed, and yes i can see what’s going on there pretty well. Unfortunately i don’t think any of these cameras can ‘zoom’ in and really see someone’s face or a license plate, but that’s just a limit they all have if you don’t have a mechanical zoom presumably like the traditional fully wired camera security systems. But i’d say the picture quality is on par with my $350 nest outdoor v2 iq camera. I haven’t tried the higher level wyze plans with their version of person recognition, so can’t comment on the facial recognition aspect, but i’m totally fine with losing that one feature when everything else has the $35 camera totally pacing the $350 camera. What a value difference and its crazy the quality you get for this price point. Wyze is really a super top level choice in the budget to mid-level home camera market. Extremely happy.

Version 3 of this wyze indoor/outdoor cam is a bargain. The high resolution and low-light color sensitivity of the new sony starlight imaging chip, which it uses, is amazing. It is significantly more sensitive than my own vision at dusk and dawn. The camera nevertheless also has infrared imaging capability, which i do not need for my applications. These features coupled with a multitude of other features, too many to list, and overall care to design details make this a superb choice at its current price. There are, however, things to consider that might depend on intended application. 1. The short focal-length lens provides a 130-degree field of view. This is great for surveillance applications, but it introduces significant barrel distortion. Although the camera has digital zoom capability, this is at the expense of otherwise great resolution. A version with a longer focal length lens (narrower field of view) would suit my needs better. 2. The camera is suitable for some outdoor applications but can also shoot through windows (ir imaging off). The camera has a white body that makes the black window mount, sold separately as an accessory, a must. It would be nice if wyze introduces a black version to limit window reflections, as it did for the earlier version 2 of the camera. 3. You must buy a subscription to the wyze cam plus cloud service, currently as low as $15 per year per camera, to make full use of the many surveillance detection and recording features. The annual cost is likely to go up and be significant with multiple camera installations. 4. Wyze is developing a web-based browser application, which is currently in beta. For now it has limited functionality compared to the android and apple smartphone applications. Sadly, you must subscribe to cam plus to access even the beta version. Wyze should definitely make browser access free. Time will tell how much of a long-term bargain this camera will be.

Much improved over 1st version. Night picture is much clearer. I use them outside under eaves, porches & patios. Last one has been there 4 plus years & was still working. Temps ranging from 110 degrees to zero. After seeing the new vision i’ve replaced all 15 cameras at both homes. 2nd home is a cabin in the mountains so i get many videos of lions, deer, raccoons, skunks & birds. Some have even captured mice. My biggest complaint is the constant upscale pressure of their longer cloud videos. Whenever i replace an old camera i 15 days of their free longer videos & i hate them. Do not need to see the trees blowing for 5 minutes. Then when free trial expires you have to figure out how to get free cam lite videos which are 12 second snapshots. Longer videos are recorded on a 32 gig micro sd card which you access in the phone app. So if you need the longer video it’s there you just need to look at sd card from your phone & it’s there. Works great for what i need. Many false events outside but i realize they are an inside camera. I’ve tried their wireless outside version & they’re horrible. They eat batteries miss the wildlife & other events. They do not have any range of wifi so they are junk. They lack the ability of seeing the sd card from phone app. So you need to retrieve card to download events. Never have even done that cause it’s a hassle to pretrieve card. Just been viewing the 12 second videos. If i had to pay to use them for videos i would change them all out for different brand. The price point for cameras & 12 second videos can’t be beat.

There’s a lot to like about these little cameras, so i’ll start with the pros first before moving on to a few (mostly negligible) cons.

Pros:
image quality is very good. 1080p is crystal clear and the ability to zoom, even on event recordings, is a great feature to have. The starlight feature is also great. I have one camera mounted on an upstairs window facing out and the image quality even in the middle of the night is great. Unless it’s very dark, i’d leave the starlight feature on instead of the standard ir night vision.

Connectivity has been stable and reliable. I check my cameras often when i’m away from home and i’ve yet to experience any connection issues. I’ve only had it for a couple of months, so i can’t speak on the longevity, but i have dealt with wyze customer support on some issues i had with their home security hub and the customer service has been very good. Good enough that i plan to keep them as my primary home security system.

You can mount them practically anywhere. They come with several different mounting options, ranging from a standard flat base built into the camera, to 3m mounting strips, an even drywall anchors. The supplied power cord is a reasonable length for most applications, but you’ll want to look into a longer usb-to-micro usb cord if you plan on mounting more than 6-7 feet from a power outlet. They say they’re rated for outdoor use, which is a nice touch. I only use mine inside, though i did buy their window mount that allows one of my cameras to face outside and not be subjected to the elements.

They do a decent job detecting people, vehicles, and even animals! Even the cam i have facing the street picks up on moving vehicles, people walking their dogs, etc., from several hundred feet away.

Rules and detection zones, detection sensitivity, and many more options are available, though some require a subscription.

Cons:
some people might be turned off by the subscription required to view certain events. You *can* install a micro sd card and get limited event viewing options, though the cam plus subscription is also a good deal and gives you a lot of extras like person detection, cloud storage, and the ability to view longer event clips along with other features. The subscription is worth it if you’re looking for a home security solution. If you’re just looking for a camera to keep an eye on your pets while you’re away, then you can probably get by without a subscription. They give you a 2-week trial of the cam plus so you can see what it’s capable of. If you don’t need it, then just install your sd card and go about your day.

The camera does a decent job recording audio but the speaker on it is puny, so talking to someone through it sounds like you’re yelling into a tin can from the camera’s end. The communication feed may be better on their products like the doorbell cam, but i don’t have one of those to test out.

Those minor cons aside, these cameras have worked flawlessly for me since i’ve had them. I honestly didn’t expect so much from such inexpensive cameras. Like i mentioned earlier, i have had to deal with their customer service on another wyze product (not any of their cameras i own) and they have been great at helping troubleshoot issues and didn’t hesitate to send a replacement product when the troubleshooting didn’t work. It’s great that they stand behind their products.

I bought this as a test against the blink can. And this one is 100 times better. The unfortunate thing is that the detection is very sensitive so things such as lightning bolts, moths/bugs, and the suns rays can set off the motion detection. Sounds like thunder, and doors opening and closing also get detected and send you with notifications frequently. The good thing is you can change the sensitivity of the detections and it helps a lot. The bad thing is you do need a subscription for this device if you want it to record videos or small clips. If the notification goes off and you miss the person in the cam it doesn’t save so you will have to be super quick about it if you’re not going to buy a subscription it is worth it though. The night vision is also very bright and better than the other cameras i’ve tested. All in all worth it.

I use this camera for my ~9-month old german-shepherd mix.

It’s super easy and quick to set-up and use, and connects to the wifi right away even after unplugged.

The motion detection and ai work super well (detect movement and dog vs. Human identification), the night vision is very, very clear, and being able to go back and view recordings of motion is very useful.

While on the free 2-week trial, i could see a 5-6 min recording of my puppy’s movements in just 1 video.

I ended up buying the year subscription because the live features, video quality (including night vision), recordings, and other features were phenomenal

I have 4 of these video cameras in my house and office, they are perfect cameras everything is awesome sound is perfect and i love when i’m at work and i see my dogs doing something they know they shouldn’t be & i can talk through the camera at them and they are looking around the house for me and can’t understand where i’m at but they hear my voice lol it’s such great cameras, if you don’t have any you need to go get some

I’ve been using wyze cams for the past 4 years, starting with v1, v2 and then finally transitioned all my current 7 camera over to v3. Each and every version has had its issues and each and every upgrade seemed to be an improvement but only temporarily and each new version has its share of downfalls which leave little to be desired to continue buying their products ever again. Their camera quality is hasn’t improved much and in matter of words are just cheap and unreliable. The most recent problems i’ve had make them utterly useless boxes attached to the house. The picture quality stutters and the and isn’t smooth and the playback options are impossible to navigate when scrubbing through recorded events.
I would highly recoommend anyone looking for security cameras to not buy wyze cams

I have 12 of these cameras around my home and business. Mate these with a long endurance micro sd card and they will last for years. The night vision is very good when there’s some kind of outdoor lighting. They make a small light that attaches to the top of these cameras that are great. The software is easy to use also. I highly recommend these cameras.

The camera is awesome, i mean awesome. Night view looks like day time with color.

But,

the goal of this camera ‘and others like it’ is to trap you with a monthly subscription per camera.

When you buy the camera you are given a free 3 month trail. After the trail a lot of the good feature disappear.

The most important feature ‘person detection’ disappears.

Person detection filter out all the noise from shadows, and car head lights and only alerts for a person. Without the person detection filter you get spammed with notification at night unless you turn them off.

Motion detection works great during the day, but at night without a subscription the camera generate too many notifications. Simple solution is to turn off notification at night, but set the camera to record continuously.

Beside that, the camera is perfect.

I might pay for the subscription ‘$1.25 per camera per month’. I have 2 camera so $3.00 a month isn’t bad, but i hate subscription when i know the camera could do it without one.

If i would have factored in the cost of the per camera subscription, i probably would have went with a more expensive camera with more self hosted features.

Ordered one from amazon, $35. Like that camera can sit inside on window sill, flush to the glass of the window, and perfect video picture, night vision is spectacular (have read some ambient light outside is required). No need to worry about batteries or wiring, it plugs into the wall. You also do not need a subscription for just basic usage, but it will only film an event and notify you once every 5 minutes if you opt for no subscription. For $15/year, it is unlimited with no 5 minute pause between even detections. Has a micro sd slot (micro sd card not included), we just used one we had, but not necessary for camera operation. It can also be paired with other appliances through an iftt app like a garage door.
The major issue is that even though you may set your detection area, the detection is via a change in pixels (where ring, blink, etc. Are infrared and detect a heat source) and we receive an excessive detection notifications when the sun sets and shines through the leaves or at night when car headlights flash across the detection area. We have also read where people receive excessive detection notifications when it rains or bugs attracted to light, but we have not had an opportunity to put it to the test with these. The only solution to minimize these notifications for these non-events is to move the camera or to set up rules to silence events during certain times of the day. For the cost, we decided we can live with this. Our walk around for now, is to just have one family member’s phone receive alerts. And the other family members must block the alerts for this specific app in the settings of their phone (not within the app, or it blocks everyone’s notifications).
Only the initial person who sets up the camera on the app, can make a lot of the changes to the camera within the app. And other family members are just shared access to the camera and can set up their own rules. The initial person who did the set up will receive notifications a split second before the people it is shared with.
Ordered a 2nd one that was supposed to be new, but was opened and still had the ups stickers on it with the customer’s name and address who had returned it. So returning the 2nd camera and ordering a replacement, hopefully this one will be new.
Realize with any electronics that receive updates (like with cell phones, fitness trackers, etc), they do not have an infinite life due to technology restrictions so another reason to go for this budget friendly option. I believe wyze retired support for their 1st model after 5 years.
Price on wyze website was $29.99 ($57.98 for 2) plus $5.99 shipping, but decided buying it from amazon would make sure we had free returns with prime. Wyze is a company started by former amazon employees and it is based in seattle.
Update: very sensitive to raindrops on the window, birds, neighbors’ lights turning on and creates an event and notification.

I love these wyze cams. I own three of them and use them to view outside and inside my house. The night vision lights up the night and the picture is clear. The last one i bought was working great until about a week ago. All i hear is a static scratching sound coming from the speaker on the camera and it can no longer connect. Tried reset, but no go. I guess i have to contact the manufacturer to see if it’s under warranty.
Update! Spoke with one of their support people. We went through some troubleshooting steps and determined there was a problem with the camera. It was still under warranty. I have a new camera the next day! Great support!

I been playing with these cams since the old days and this camera for the money is amazing.
The easiest set up and many great features if you opt in for the cam plus. The camera works fine with the memory chip and if you want to live stream.. However you need the cam plus if you want to look back at alerts or history and with cam plus you can choose alerts for people, pets and cars. Otherwise it will alert you on any motion if you don’t get the camplus.. It’s 18.00 per year.the notifications are better than my ring camera and the twilight vision works amazing.
Almost gave it 5 stars
i had to take off a star because i bought 4 cameras i loved them so much however the free trial would not load up. 2 of the cameras had 3 months cam plus free and that’s where it got complicated it took hours of resetting everything and trying many times..finally it now shows i have 3 months free before i will get billed. It’s normally 14 days free but if you check amazon they have them the same price 35.00 with 3 months of cam plus while it’s still available it’s a great deal. Update after going back and forth with customer support i requested a exchange because it has issues with sending alerts and the others are set up identical and they work fine. Still love the camera 35.00

got the exchange very easy the new unit works great.

We had some of these around at work and i played with them and decided to pick up a couple for myself for home since i was frustrated with my old ones. I have a few thoughts, but overall i’m very happy with them.

1. I bought an alexa with the screen so i could monitor one of the cameras at my computer, since i found out after purchase that there is no web interface, you have to use your phone. This is my first time having an alexa as well, and i’m disappointed that the wyze app for alex frequently disconnects. I can tell alexa to show me the cam, and sometimes it will stay up for a few days, sometimes it will disconnect for no reason after 10 minutes and i’ll have to tell alexa to pull it up again. It’s not a huge deal, it’s just annoying if you’re looking for a way to monitor a camera for activity for a specific purpose.

2. The camera itself will disconnect from wifi occasionally. It’s not frequent enough to be a big deal, but like the alexa thing, just another minor annoyance that i wish didn’t happen. I’d say once a month or so i have to unplug and replug the camera to have it reconnect to wifi.

3. The software is annoying, and has the same issues as my previous camera of another brand. The actual activity monitor unless you have it stationed in a specific area where the lighting is static is basically useless. It doesn’t matter how you change the settings, what are you set as active or anything. This thing will freak out at anything, and sometimes it’s just it’s own rendering of pixels. I’ve pretty much come to terms with the fact that this just needs to be off.

4. The camera itself, for the price is by far the best i’ve found on the market. Honestly the picture quality is phenomenal, you have a lot of room to zoom in and around on things, and the quality of the picture with night vision on or off during the night is second to none.

The overall quality, price and honestly the fact that it’s reliable 98.5% of the time is the reason i choose to use these cameras over a lot of other options. Like i said, there’s a couple minor annoyances that i really wish could be shaped up, and if they were this would be an absolutely perfect product. That and, you know the motion detection software being actually useful, but honestly i don’t need it for that reason really.

Camera is small, wired, and useful as a camera to see what happened. Wide field of view, good picture quality, and ai to assist in alerting for events you select. To gain full potential out of this device you need to have a subscription to an additional service dealing with ai notifications. That service works well. Sometimes there are delays in alerts, and other times there are not. Maybe 80% of the time the alerts are timely, but sometimes, the alerts happen after the event has concluded… Overall i am happy because of the price. I have turned one set of videos into the police as someone started going through mail boxes.

I purchased 3 of these cameras. They are a good value for the money to keep an eye on things. As for night vision, 2 of the cameras have wonderful night vision. Clear. The 3rd one doesn’t work as well. The motion sense on all 3 works well. *warning* i apparently don’t have it set low enough to capture movement by a bunny in the backyard but the insects at night trigger it incessantly. 🙂 i likr that you can turn individual cameras on/off. If there’s one thing i’d want added, it would be a lens shutter when the camera is off. I knew it didn’t have it so that did not affect my rating. I’m really impressed with the camera at this cost. Great job wyze!

1. Order #1: setup and was able to use in just a few minutes then saw the device’s firmware was not current so figured i wild flash it and the gui would not work contacted support and vendor rma’d
2. Order #2: replacement device worked exactly as the first camera contacted support and was told vendor does not encourage owners to update the firmware thought that was odd. Finally flashed the firmware manually, steps on vendor’s site. Fyi: use 32gb or smaller sdcard i could not get larger cards to work

I was finally able to put these up and i was surprised at how easy it was for a newbie. I also like the idea of being able to see stuff at night. It’s pretty good night vision and motion detection. It picks up everything, even the mischievous doggies. I really like the app and usability. I don’t like that i got the wired ones and plan to go wireless the next time i order.
Good job, wyze!

I bought this to monitor my sick cat. I needed something that would stay on and i could pull up whenever i liked. I had this running for hours without a glitch, unlike many of the others that time out. Night mode was particularly good. I could see her easily even though all lights were off. Didn’t use the other features, but it was quite helpful. Cheap, but definitely useful when you need something.