Wyze Cam is one of the most popular home-security options out there thanks to the good value for money of its products. The company also offers a monthly subscription service called Cam Plus.

Through Cam Plus, the Wyze Cam receives a set of additional features and capabilities, including the Person Detection feature. But, it seems that, in recent times, this has worsened.

The above is drawn from multiple reports that have been emerging for weeks. These show that the AI-based human detection capability is not working as well as it used to (1, 2, 3, 4).

Wyze Cam person detection feature, worse than before

Disgruntled Wyze Cam users agree that the AI-based person detection is erratic. They receive many detection alerts even when there is no person on camera.

Does anyone actually pay for cam plus?

the person detection false triggers 2000 times in a row and I just had to turn it off

I have the free legacy person detection that I was grandfathered into, so is the paid version somehow better because this version just sucks

also the free trial of cam plus was also horrible I could not wait till it ended because it kept giving me false alerts all day and night long
Source

This is something that some users have recorded on video, as you can see below:

There are also reported cases where the Wyze Cam’s human detection only detects some people, for no apparent reason. As an example of this, we have the following report:

Everyone seems to have a different experience. I had a UPS guy come to my door today and drop off a package that sat outside for an hour. I didn’t get a person or package detection notification even though the package was in my detection zone. But of course I got a person detection alert as soon as I stepped out to grab it.
Source

In addition to the above, it seems that the devices have serious problems when the person on camera wears accessories such as hoods, hats, etc. In those cases, the person reportedly won’t be detected.

wyze-cam-worse-person-detection-cam-plus-1
Source

The latter can represent a great security risk. After all, if someone wants to break into a house guarded by Wyze Cameras, they can take advantage of that bug to not generate warnings.

Routines/rules reportedly also erratic

In addition to the above, some users report that previously programmed routines/rules that worked correctly suddenly began to behave erratically as well.

I have a few rules setup, two of which upload videos.

  • Sound the cam siren and upload a video if the camera (v3) detects a person between 11:00 and 4:00.
  • Sound the cam siren and upload a video if the garage door opens between 10:00 and 4:00.
  • These rules have run for months without error. They are the only ones that trigger videos.

    Then last night, every two hours precisely, the siren sounded, and an “automation” video was taken. This happened at 10:19, 12:19, 2:19, and 4:19. I then turned the cameras off.

    I find it noteworthy that there was a precise 2 hour repetition, and that it happened even outside of my rules time.
    Source

    The possible cause of the problem: the loss of Xnor.ai

    One noteworthy thing is that Wyze’s AI-based service provider was Xnor.ai. But, in 2020, Apple bought the aforementioned company. This caused several Wyze cameras to lose the person detection feature.

    After that, Wyze developed its own equivalent system, which is known as Wyze AI. However, users suspect that this system is worse than the Xnor.ai (a specialized AI company) option.

    wyze-cam-worse-person-detection-cam-plus-2
    Source

    At the moment, this is all that is known of the situation. If new related developments emerge in the next few days, we will update this article with the relevant information.

    PiunikaWeb started as purely an investigative tech journalism website with main focus on ‘breaking’ or ‘exclusive’ news. In no time, our stories got picked up by the likes of Forbes, Foxnews, Gizmodo, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, Macrumors, and many others. Want to know more about us? Head here.

    Jean Leon
    1613 Posts

    A tech enthusiast since ever. I like to always be up to date on the latest news in the industry and write about it. Twitter: @jean_ERdC

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