Today, I’m going to review a 1080p Wifi camera that is only 20 bucks. I think this is the cheapest 1080p camera that I’ve seen. I first heard of the name Wyze camera during a Black Friday Sales at Amazon and supposedly they were selling these cameras for only 15 dollars. I was late for that one and they brought it back up to $30 dollars as of making this video. But, if you go directly to their website, you can get it for $20.00.
Now, the company is based here in the US…Seattle, Washington which is a good thing and I’m assuming at least the customer support should be good. I’ll show you later on that the camera design is not unique and there are a couple of other companies that uses the same design. But for 20 bucks, I’m not going to complain.
The founding members of the company were actually former employees of Amazon, so they should know about customer service and improving their product not like other cheap cameras that are just white labeled and have no customer support.
With the product background out of the way..I decided to buy and will give this camera a thorough review.
It comes is a pretty small package. This is basically a small cube. It has night vision…14 days rolling Free cloud recording which is excellent and has 8 times digital zoom.
It is Wifi camera and only able to connect to a 2.4 Ghz frequency.
It is a 1080p full HD..with 110 degrees wide angle lens.
It has 2 way audio
and has motion detection
Let’s open it up.
We have the camera itself which is a cube.
We have the lens, mic and light sensor on the front face of the camera
On the back is the speaker, a USB slot, micro USB for power and the status light.
On the bottom it says that this camera runs on USB power, 5 volts and 1 ampere.
The grey bottom is actually a stand and when you pull it out, you can position the camera anyway you want it…can go up and down and turn side to side.
The metal part for the camera is to stick to the magnetic base.
On the bottom of the camera is a micro SD slot and the reset or setup button.
What else is in the box…
We have the quick start guide..which basically tells what is inside the box and named the parts of the camera on one side…
and the setup instructions..which is to download the app..plug in the camera, press the reset/setup button for 3 seconds then follow the instructions on the app to finish the set up…that’s basically it..
We have another box…and inside is..the USB cable and a double sided tape..the cable is around 5 1/2 feet in length…and also is a flat cable.
Then we have the power adapter and a metal disc which is where you use the double sided tape to mount it on a wall or ceiling then the camera with it’s magnetic base will stick to it. Or you can use it to secure the base when you position the camera that will cause it to tip over.
Let’s download the app…click allow for notifications..and sign up or log in. IT will be sign up for me…
Once you have setup your account, then you can plug in the camera and wait for the yellow light to flash ..then press the reset button for 3 seconds.
Click plus to add the camera on the app..
click “I heard ready to connect”.
Type in the password for your WiFi network..
Click next..
A QR code will be generated…just face the code in front of the camera then wait for the prompt.
Setup is complete..then we can name the camera…which I’ll name mine Wyze.
Click start and to view your camera, click the camera picture which will be replaced by a thumbnail of your camera’s view next time.
An upgrade is needed..so we will upgrade first before checking out the settings.
So, we are on live view…..and you can toggle the night vision on or off …
and the camera is initially setup in standard definition so we need to change it to HD.
Let’s check out the latency…not bad…
Click on the gear icon on the upper right corner to check out and modify the settings.
We have motion detection..on or off and have an option for the sensitivity…low-medium and high…
Then we have sound detection..which will give you can alert if there are sounds in the area where you are monitoring. The same thing for sensitivity…low-medium and high.
Then this camera has a smoke and CO detection which the camera will detect alarm sound from the detectors. I’ll talk more about it in a little bit.
We have night vision…off-automatic or on. I’ll keep it in auto.
Then the camera status light which is actually at the back of the camera.
You can toggle it on or off.
Then we can rotate image 180 degrees if you are installing this in a ceiling and you need to flip the image.
We have local recording to a micro SD card…which i haven’t installed one yet. Also note that this camera also records the motion and sound alerts to the cloud for free up to 14 days.
And we have device info and firmare update information.
On the live stream page you can turn the speakers on or off.
then the record button to record current footage and will be saved on the album and also on the photo/video folder on your phone.
We have the mic for 2 way audio..you have to press and hold to talk.
You can also take a snapshot of the current footage and will also be saved to your photo album.
Then on the album is where all your video footage will be saved and stored.
Now on playback tab, this is where there is a timeline and the shaded areas are the times when there are recorded footage. I setup mine when I installed the micro SD card to record continously. You just need to move left or right until you find the time you want to view the recorded footage. You can also click on the date where it will show the calendar and pick which day you want to check.
In here, you can toggle the speaker icon for sound and you can take a photo and you can choose a full screen mode. One thing that is missing is an option to record the footage to be shared or to be saved to your phone.
Then we have the time lapse tab where you can set a time lapse by choosing a start and end time and also you can choose the interval in which to take the snap shot. Click set to save it.
When the time lapse has ended. You can go to the album to process and view the footage. Remember that the longer the time lapse time, the longer it will be to process it. This is my time lapse video.
Now, let’s test out the 2 way audio.
The camera’s speakers are pretty low in volume and I don’t think you can adjust it.
There are a couple of features about this Wyze camera that intrigued me and this is the smoke and carbon monoxide detection. I was planning to start a little fire in my kitchen just to test it out but I was thinking that it can’t be that the camera is also a smoke and CO detector..just because of the price. So, I was thinking it might have something to do with the sound of the alarm of a regular smoke or CO detector that are already in our houses. I browsed their website and found this…so basically it will detect the number of beeps of the alarm…3 beeps followed by a pause is for smoke detectors and 4 beeps and a pause is for carbon monoxide detectors…well, I learned something new today.
We have to test it out. What I’ll do is to turn off all alert notifications except for the smoke and the CO detection. The camera is about 25 feet out and I have my carbon monoxide detector here that I’ll push the test button.
Let’s do it again…
There you go…there is the notification..and it says CO alarm..
If you go to the notifications…you will see the video clip.
So, this is a nice feature.
Now, let’s check out daytime footage with lights on.
Now let’s test the night vision…
They say the camera can see up to 30 feet..but to have a better detail..a person needs to be pretty close to the camera. The camera only has 2 infrared LEDs
Also, guys, I found their FAQs page on their website is very informative and will answer most of your questions. I’ll link it on the description down below.
If you have questions like if it works with Amazon Alexa….then the answer is not at this time but they are evaluating it..
On the bottom of the page there is also a question about the other 2 companies that share the same design as their camera…so basically the design is licensed but the software part of it and some components and features are exclusive to Wyze cam.
Overall, this camera is an excellent buy just for the price. It has extra features like the sound detection alerts and can differentiate between a smoke alarm, carbon monoxide alarm or just your kids being loud.
So, for the price compared to what you are going to get..a 1080p WiFi camera for 20 dollars and a no fee 15 days cloud recording and also has local recording through a micro SD card…this is a definite more bang for your buck purchase.