Description
Cam v3 is the 3rd generation of Wyze’s flagship camera, Wyze Cam. Like its predecessor Wyze Cam v3 lets you see and record 1080p video right from the Wyze mobile app. New to Wyze Cam v3 is its waterproof design allowing for outdoor installation with an IP65 rating. Wyze Cam v3 also takes advantage of an all-new Starlight Sensor which allows for extreme low-light performance and shows great detail in the dark. With Wyze Cam v3’s color night viewing, night time video recording appears as if it’s day time.
From the brand
From the manufacturer
Color Night Vision
Experience the all-new Starlight Sensor.
IP65 Weather Resistance
Use it indoors & outdoors.
Kelly Daniels –
The only one that didn’t have significant lag time in the live feed!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!
Camila Tagle –
Amazing as a baby cameraI just love this product, is an amazing quality for the price.- The quality image is amazing, day or night. And at dusk it can still show it in color when your own eyes don’t see that well. The image is so much bright than in real life, that when you see through the camera it looks like the bedroom is all bright, when actually I have it quite dark for baby to sleep.- The motion detection is very good and there is a green frame that follows the moving person or thing. So you can see how their AI works.- You can either pay for the subscription to get full length videos, or you can choose the buy a local SD storage and then go see the playback and record whenever you want. Or you can do both at the same time, like I do.- It has a very good AI filter for sounds too. My babies sleep with white noise, so that noise wouldn’t allow you to hear other lower sounds going on, but this system actually filters the white noise, you can still hear it but very low, and you can hear other sounds, like baby mowning.- You can give access to other people to the camera so they can access too. And then you can delete the access whenever you want.What things could be improved:- I share the camera with my husband and he can’t see the playback from his phone because only the main account can see. It would be good if the app allowed me to either give access to the playback or not.- The image has a second or two of delay with real life. I used to have an Amazon Cam (which is now deprecated) and the delay was way less. It’s nothing bad but I hear first my baby crying and a second or two later I hear her on the app.- It would be amazing if it had a temperature measure just like other baby monitors. I know that the don’t market this as a baby monitor, but it is so much better than other baby monitor and the only thing it is lacking is the temperature.
WLP –
Love this thing! Good for apartment security.After one of the apartment complex maintenance guys walked into my place with no advanced call or heads up from the office while my kids were home alone, I immediately searched for and ordered this unit.Super easy setup with the simple connection to my existing wifi and app download. Extra features like the 2-way speaker mic and loud manual alarm trigger via the app are great. I very much appreciate that Wyze offers affordable remote camera monitoring options and tech for those of us on a budget so that we can have security and peace of mind.I love that I can activate or shut the camera off from my phone when I am at work. Quite often I just rush out the door and forget to do it right then. I can also talk to, watch, and scare my kids when they are home alone, which is an extra bonus.I only have one camera pointed towards my front door area right now. I might add an extra one in time pointed towards my balcony sliders. While I am on a 2nd floor, my balcony is less than 6 ft. from the ground and that is a concern. I am not interested in having myself and all of my home areas monitored at this time. Mostly because I don’t fully trust the technology in terms of human and corporate misuse.Overall though, I am still quite pleased with my Wyze camera purchase. I have not looked into the paid alarm system type monitoring service that they offer, but it’s good to know it’s an available option that I can take advantage of if I eventually want it.
SteveFromDE –
Very impressive for low cost and small sizeThe 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.
Zin –
Pretty awesome little camera for the price!This was my first Wyze camera and I can tell I will be buying more of them in the future!The night vision works great and it even switches to it automatically. It writes to the SD card which I wasn’t sure was even a feature anymore. People on here were complaining about them requiring a subscription, but I have again overestimated the intelligence of the overall populous. Because this camera wrote to the card even when my WiFi decided to quite working for a few hours. Obviously you can’t view the footage from the app without the wifi, but you could always remove the card and look at it that way.But I digress, this camera is well worth the price.I have yet to test it in outdoor conditions, but I will have to get an adapter for that since they only give you the indoor one in the box.But if you’re on the fence about Wyze, as I were, thanks to people that apparently have no clue what they’re doing, I would ignore them and get this camera. It’s a good investment.
PinoyGwapo –
Great Picture, Great Detection, Broken ALEXAUpdate: 1-30-23Really like this camera, so sharp night and day, even night vision is turned OFF. Really wishing they fix Alexa LiveStream…Previous:This camera is great and clear, very nice design for its small, light and easy to mount. Fast respond and picks-up a lot of motion. Very good for what I needed most which is to Livestream when I’m at work. The biggest issue for me and for most is the Alexa Livestream. I can Livestream on my phone but I don’t want to keep draining my battery or at the charger 10hrs at work. I have a Alexa Show at work for this purpose. I update from a cheap but functional camera to WYZE. Should I return this and go back to my old cheap cam? They need to fix this specially more and more consumer are buying there product. Already an issue on there part “Fales Advertising”. FIX IT!!!
Todd –
It’s hard to argue for the price, but not having multi-person geofencing is a huge annoyance.Lets face it for the price it’s hard to complain much about a 1080, indoor/outdoor camera that works pretty well. Setup was pretty easy, it has the ability to record 24/7 to a microSD, it has competitively priced options for cloud storage as well and the video quality is pretty good.In 2022 though I’m still amazed how poor the feature set is across companies making these products. First of all every brand should have both local and cloud storage options, period and wyze checks this box. I see a lot of break ins and even the smash and grab thieves have learned to take the camera, rip the camera doorbell off etc. If you have local external storage the cameras record to, get it away from your router/modem and hide it (it better be wifi) or they will find that and take it too. So we can debate the privacy of cloud storage but you really want a system with both local and cloud, and preferably 24/7 cloud recording for any wired cameras. I can’t count the number of break ins I’ve seen where the owner had cameras but either ended up with no video, or at best a couple notifications on their phone with no recordings.24/7 recording to the cloud is ideal, you want to be able to go back in a camera feed in case something odd happens. For example most people if they have a camera in their front yard set it so it won’t notify them of cars and people on the sidewalk, understandable you’d be getting alerts every 5 minutes. However, if your neighbors mention a strange car has been parked across the street, or a strange person has been walking around recently, you want to be able to go back and look at footage for the last few days. Wyze cannot do this last part, all you can get is motion notification recordings to the cloud, you can do this through the camera if you use 24/7 recording to the SD card.Multi-person geofencing, this is the one that really amazes me that more companies don’t have. If they are 24/7 outdoor cameras, or you live alone it might not be a big deal, but the fact that more companies can’t geofence all the members of a family is hugely annoying and unless everyone in the family is diligent about manually engaging/disengaging cameras you either get bombarded with notifications (that you’ll soon start ignoring) or the cameras don’t get turned on when no one is home, either of these is good. Wyze cannot do this, and after using systems with that feature it was a deal breaker.Integration is the last part that’s difficult but important. For example it would be nice if say the camera in the backyard saw someone at 9pm, or your doorbell camera sees someone at the door, it would automatically put that video up on say an Echo show, smart tv, etc. if you had one to let you see what is going on.What’s worse is the features change even in the same brand based on the equipment, some cameras for brand X record to the cloud, some don’t, some work with alexa, some won’t, even if you commit to a single brand functionality changes. Now I understand with battery cameras you can’t get 24/7 recording, but you’ll see wired cameras for a brand some record to the cloud, some don’t, some only record clips to the cloud, some record 24/7, etc. Companies also do not make it easy to figure out this in advance as a consumer, likely on purpose. Many will say “works with alexa” but it’s hard to find out exactly what functionality is there. Can you just ask alexa to show the video on an echo show, can alexa alert you if there’s a notification, can alexa automatically play camera video if motion is detected, etc.This isn’t just beating up on Wyze because the majority of camera companies these days still don’t offer these features, but it’s something to keep in mind to know the limitations. That said for the price you can do a lot worse than these.
Laura H –
Abysmal mic and sound. See video.The media could not be loaded.
EDIT: I uploaded a video of the camera’s sound quality in action, so if you view the video turn on your sound BUT KEEP THE VOLUME DOWN (initially). No need for bleeding ears.During the Wyze portions of the video I was sitting roughly 20 feet away and six feet below the camera; There should be no feedback at that distance.During the iPhone portion (where I filmed the same space as the one the V3 is normally set up to film) I was roughly six feet away and six feet below the camera. The point was to capture the same sounds in the same room.All the videos were taken very early in the morning, with no traffic or human noise outside, and with what I’d call regular ambient interior noise (the humming of appliances, the running of a computer in the vicinity, etc). No other people were present to make noise inside.The first portion of the video is the sound that the V3 produces when I am viewing the live feed. It was screen-captured with my iPhone.The second portion is a comparison demonstrating the sound my iPhone picks up in the same general space, at the same general time, in the exact same conditions, and with the exact same ambient noise in the background as in the first portion; This is not to show how much better the iPhone’s mic is than the Wyze (obviously it’s better) but to give you an idea as to what noise and sounds were actually present in the room while I was viewing the V3’s live feed of the same room, and capturing it with my phone camera.The third portion is the same space with the same ambient noise, plus conversation from the television that is eight feet from the V3. I chose a scene that sounds a lot like regular conversation, set it to conversation volume, and it has some light score that comes in at the end.The final portion is what my iPhone picked up in the same space during the same time and conditions, and while playing the exact same scene/conversation on the TV at the same volume as while capturing it on the V3. If you listen VERY carefully you MIGHT be able to pick up a word or two in the V3’s video that you can compare to the iPhone’s. Maybe. It took me three tries. Hint: listen for the word “Garrett”. Hope the video helps you make a more informed purchasing decision!Original Review:Picture is ok. Night vision/low light is very good. Motion detection is spot-on. The camera looks good, design-wise.Why the one star?Because that’s where the good ends.The problem is the mic/sound quality is appalling bad. That’s such an old, tried-and-true tech I have no idea how they managed to bungle it so much, but managed they did.Maybe they are using the very cheapest, most absolute garbage quality components on the face of the earth, which sucks, because better components don’t cost that much, especially wholesale. They’re just squeezing every penny out of profit and selling garbage wrapped up and promoted as quality.Frustrating.So, what sound does it pick up?From what I’ve read online there are various audio manifestations/issues ranging from nearly no sound at all, all the way to my problem, which is the sound picked up becomes a garbled, distorted, feed-backed jumble of sometimes jarring noises that maybe sort-of could be interpreted as words (in the case of people taking) but nearly nothing’s decipherable by any stretch of the imagination.Pet noises, like barks, meows, growls, etc. are literally non-existent. If it picks it up at all it’s just converted to “noise”.All other sound is just as bad. Sometimes there’s these random-seeming staticky “bangs” every once in a while. Who knows what that is.I hate it.You hear that developers?I. Hate. This. Camera.And I wish I didn’t because otherwise I like so much about it.But, alas, I need sound so I am able to use the function where you talk to someone through the camera and hear them when they respond. I also need to be able to hear what’s going on with my pets.I need to be able to hear when the camera’s motion-detection is tripped and the cause of the trip has moved out of the line of the camera but is still out there rustling and bumping around, or otherwise making noise out on my porch and the surrounding area.If I had children I wouldn’t be able to hear them, or speak to them through the camera. or hear when one is crying.So, be forewarned, if any of the above is one of your needs/goals you probably won’t be able to do that with this camera. Buy elsewhere.It’s incredibly stupid they didn’t fix this problem before releasing the V3. A lot of people online report the V2 being awful as well, so the developers knew. That means you shouldn’t put off buying one for when the next gen comes out (whenever that is). They probably won’t fix it.The worst part, I think, is it doesn’t support the use of an external mic, which would be such an easy solve. There’s no input port and the simple hardware and software to support that, and that really is stupid AF. If it did allow the connecting of an external mic all I’d have to do is plug one in and I would have the sound I need. At least then I wouldn’t be writing this scathing review. It would be a win-win for everyone!But no.Finally, apparently contacting customer support is a total waste of time, and the people you talk to (bless their hearts, it isn’t really their fault) have no tech experience or understanding whatsoever of how these things work. I don’t know about you, but I find that exhausting. If one were to spend the time necessary to troubleshoot all the garbage products we wind up with one would never have time to do anything else, and even with that effort 95% of the time it results in no improvement, and no resolution. I’m tired of it. Just make a solid product, and when something goes wrong, replace it or refund the money, don’t make anyone jump through hoops.Finally, fix the issue, fast. And don’t repeat it in the next iteration.Long and the short of it is I need a camera with a functioning mic and/or that has an input for an external mic. The end. That shouldn’t be too much to ask, even at the price-point these cameras are at.I regret buying these, as now they’re going to be tossed after I buy another brand (according to message boards even cheapo Chinese no-name brands have a better mic than these things!). What a waste of time, money, and resources.
alexa –
HANDS DOWN..this is the CLEAREST camera i’ve ever owned for night vision.. this thing has clearer night vision than i do outside with me opening up a door and looking outside.i don’t understand any of the negative reviews because it is literally plug and play and download an app?super easy to install and use.easy controls. great settings for vacation, do not disturb type modes etc. app is very easy to use and has a share feature for other family members.pricing is GREAT too.no more ring.
Julia N. Mote –
Excellent videos and pictures, great range!We got this to catch wildlife in our yard etc. We love it. The colors, the range. I could go on and on how great this little camera is. I couldn’t believe how great the video came out. Even when it’s starting to get dark, it comes out so clear, it looks like daylight in the video. The night vision on it is great too. We love it so much we are going to get another one for my Mom to catch the deer in her yard. The motion on it catches everything!