The Wyze Cam has garnered some attention as being a pretty good home security camera at a remarkably low price of just $20. Now it has gotten even better with the addition of Alexa support, via TechCrunch. Starting today, the Wyze Cam v2 ($20) and the Wyze Cam Pan ($30) can be viewed through Amazon Echo Shows, Echo Spots, all Fire TV models, and Fire tablets by simply asking Alexa to show the camera. While the camera is technically listed at $19.99 on Wyze’s website, they charge $5.99 shipping per camera, so it really costs $25.98. That just so happens to be the exact same price you can buy it on Amazon. The camera comes with a surprisingly robust set of features for the price, including 1080p video, night vision, motion detection, sound detection, and free 14-day cloud storage.
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There are a LOT of very interesting comments about how this camera stores the video on the Amazon site. Definitely worth reading before purchase.
I concur.
Thanks for pointing this out.
The concern being brought up, for those who don’t want to dig around the reviews themselves, appears to be that some people say the camera is connecting to servers that are not Amazon AWS servers, even though the company says they use Amazon AWS as their cloud servers.
This has been resolved and all traffic is routed through US servers only.
Comment from Wyze:
https://www.reddit.com/r/wyzecam/comments/7cykgf/comment/dr9atni?st=JJUEJXXH&sh=f65f3117
I had a WyzeCam V2 hooked up, and watched its connections via PiHole. The main connections were to cm.iotcplatform.com and gm.iotcplatform.com.
A quick google of these, and it appears they are using them for NAT punching. Blocking these via PiHole and remote connection is inaccessible.
Then I proceeded to GitHub and found Dafang-Hacks. You can get RTSP support, and most of the other goodies. You have to flash a different bootloader to enable 1080p, but the progress with these has been fun to watch the last couple months.
REF: https://www.reddit.com/r/wyzecam/comments/8xgom7/contacting_chinese_servers/
https://github.com/EliasKotlyar/Xiaomi-Dafang-Hacks
Can the Amazon Fire Cube bring up the camera like it would on the Show, Spot….ect?
Yes, you just say “Alexa, show my [camera name] camera” and the live feed will appear on the Fire TV Cube. Same goes for using the voice remote on any other Fire TV model.
So how do I set the default fire tv for it to display the camera on. This works a lot like the nest integration. Before I got the fire tv cube I had the pendant. The cameras always showed up on this device no matter which echo device I invoked. It continues to do this. The pendant in question is now in my boys room. Can the default be changed the the fire cube?
Each Echo device can be set to control a specific Fire TV. This pairing is done in the Alexa app. That said, an external Echo device cannot be paired with a Fire TV Cube. For the cube, you have to ask to see the camera through the Cube’s hands-free mic, not through an Echo.
I have 4 of these 2 v1 and 2 v2. Great little cheap cameras, v2 cameras should be sorted for international traffic. If you are worried about privacy you probably shouldn’t have any IoT device, just saying. domestic servers hosted on aws aren’t more secure, you just think they are.
There’s a difference between uploading data direct to AWS and passing your information off to a foreign third party that uploads to AWS.
The latter requires blind faith that they aren’t acting as a hostile man in the middle.
@Jeremy, could not agree more. People should be putting their IoT stuff on a guess network with different credentials than a home network and access restricted by mac address. Even then, devices should be used such that any information thought to be private cannot be ‘overheard’ by a mic or camera.
This also works for the $30 Wyzecam Pan.
Doesn’t work for me unfortunately. Did the skill and Fire TV says loading and then nothing happens. I mean I’ve reset everything but just no go. Ring cam comes up just fine. Shame as I was looking forward to it.
Btw for $40 these are great tiny cams. For $20 it’s ridiculous how good the picture is and how well it work. I’ve never had any reliability issues and the size/packaging/app firmware updates have been great. Heck look at what you get with the free cloud storage vs how badly Nest bends you over on pricing. Anyway besides it not working on my Fire TV which hopefully will eventually work these are great. Any yes put your Ring cam, house cameras, and Nest thermostat on your Guest Wifi network.
Is your camera a Version 1? If so, the Alexa support is only for Version 2.
No V2, No big deal as the phone app comes up quickly. I’ll factory reset it and try again once I get a chance. Thanks
I read somewhere that it won’t work on the Fire TV 1 or 2 until they upgrade to the version of Fire OS that is on the Cube and Fire TV 3. See note at the top of this link. https://www.wyzecam.com/how-to-use-alexa-wyzecam/
if you are concerned about the video going to servers not under your control, check out this hack:
https://openip.cam/
good instructions here:
https://iotrant.com/2018/02/13/openipc-making-the-wyzecam-more-useful/
does the camera work with alexa after flashing the firmware?
haven’t tried that yet, will report back…
looks like it may be possible with this if nothing else, will try it soon…
https://www.amazon.com/IP-RTSP-RTP-Security-Cameras/dp/B079CHVHZG
thank you.
Anyone know if these are better/worse compared to zmodo cams? I have a few zmodo cams, and happy with them, but they only have 36 hour cloud support for free, and no Microsd slots.