Smart home brand Wyze Labs recently suffered a massive service outage, with users flooding the internet with reports that their security cameras are no longer working.
The problems people experience vary from case to case. There are posts on the Wyze subreddit where customers claim that their Battery Cam Pro has disconnected multiple times, that their Cam V3 can't connect to the internet, that the Android app doesn't work either, etc. There is even a case where a user claims that she received a signal from a camera that not only is not hers but comes from a house in a completely different time zone. Similar stories can be seen on the official forums. People there complain that the mobile app crashes or that all their devices have completely disappeared from their accounts. Suffice it to say, it's a giant disaster.
Wyze Cams are having issues across the country. #wyzedown #wyze #wyzecams pic.twitter.com/jWEnHyTZ1lFebruary 16, 2024
TheVerge in its coverage claims that the first cases started appearing around 4 a.m. EST, according to users on the Wyze Discord channel, before increasing at 6 a.m. Downdetector shows that outage reports peaked a little after 9am EST before tapering off.
Service in recovery
Wyze Labs is well aware of the disruption. Going back to the forum post, you will find a company representative making constant updates every hour or so. At the time of writing, it appears the service is returning.
Please note that the situation is not 100 percent over. People on the Discord channel say that the smartphone app and cameras are working, but certain models are still not working. The Wyze bulbs, in particular, seem to be stuck in an endless loading screen. Others worry that they have lost recordings of important events, although there is a possibility that this is not the case. One person reports seeing their events return before disappearing shortly after. They blame the current jitters on the Wyze app.
Unknown cause
It is unknown exactly what caused the outage. The company points the finger at Amazon Web Services (AWS). They claim there was an issue with Wyze's AWS partner that negatively affected the “device connection and caused login difficulties.” However, looking at the AWS Health Dashboard website, not a single issue has been reported in the last week. Everything is fine as far as the North American servers are concerned.
This is not the first time Wyze users have experienced random service issues. Last year, reports emerged of people receiving “webcam broadcasts that were not their own,” which allegedly allowed them to see inside other people's homes. This was apparently due to a web caching issue. And if you gramEven beyond 2022, a bug was discovered in the Wyze Cam IoT camera that could have given bad actors a way to spy on owners.
We reached out to Wyze for information about the possibility of people losing event recordings and the security issue where users reported seeing feeds from external cameras. This story will be updated later.
If you're looking for other options, check out TechRadar's roundup of the best home security cameras for 2024.
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