Is Wyze Cam Plus Worth Getting? Pros and Cons [2023]

A couple of years ago, Wyze launched its very own premium subscription for its cameras- Wyze Cam Plus.

Like most of their products, the Wyze Cam Plus does offer premium features at a very affordable price, making them stand out in the world of Nest cams and Ring gadgets.

But is it really worth it to get the Cam Plus subscription since these cameras do support SD cards for local storage of captured footage?

Pros	Cons
Support for AI Object Detection	No one-time payment option is available
Unlimited automatic event recordings
Zero cooldown timings implemented
Discounts for Wyze products

The Wyze Cam Plus subscription does offer significant value for your money with its AI capabilities and competitive pricing. With this subscription, you get a handful of features like AI detection based on the object, limitless cloud storage, timely notifications, and subscriber discounts, to name a few.

It's also worth looking into other subscription plans that Wyze offers for more features or for the budget-conscious consumer in you.

Before getting into the features on offer, a quick word on what Wyze Cam Plus actually is.

Wyze Cam Plus: A Brief History

The year was 2020. Wyze users were having the time of their life with AI detection on their Wyze cams. And the best part about all this was it was absolutely FREE.

Wyze had collaborated with free-to-use, in-device AI detection protocols powered by Xnor.ai.

Enter a certain trillion-dollar tech giant(you know who I'm talking about, right?) as they acquire Xnor.ai. And that's when things started going down a spiral for Wyze.

Apart from the untimely departure of one of their most loved features(AI detection), the company came to the brink of bankruptcy- consequences of a growing pandemic that was on track to becoming The boon of our times.

But Wyze didn't falter as they immediately started the works for their very own AI detection mechanism.

Within a few months, the company came out with its very own in-house-built AI detection mechanism. But this time, the feature came with a price, you know, to recuperate their losses and so on.

The users could once again avail of the detection features that came bundled with a subscription plan, namely the Wyze Cam Plus.

Wyze Cam Plus also comes stocked with many other useful features, which we will discuss in due time.

And so, once more, Wyze was on the rise to its former glory, thanks to the Wyze Cam Plus plan.

You can get the Wyze Cam Plus subscription for either $1.99/month/device or for $15/year/device.

Wyze does come out with frequent offers on Wyze Cam Plus subscriptions, so do keep a keen eye out for them.

Features On Offer

One thing to keep in mind is that, sans the Cam Plus plan, Wyze does offer premium features like Event recording and Motion/Sound triggered alerts as standard with their devices.

What makes the Cam Plus such an alluring deal is the advanced stuff. Object-based detection and unlimited event recordings are some of them.

Let's start the list with AI Detection, the best of the bunch.

AI Object Detection

Even though Wyze cameras are not all-out security mavericks(and they don't claim to be), they do offer significant monitoring characteristics and security measures, all thanks to their proprietary AI-based Detection feature.

With this feature, the camera can detect any unusual activities within its vicinity and trigger an event, if necessary. The user then receives a notification alerting them of the event.

But you needn't pay the extra buck to avail of this feature since it does come standard with every Wyze Cam.

What you get with the Cam Plus plan is object-based detection, a premium feature unheard of in this price range.

With object-based detection, the camera can distinguish between the proponents of the activity happening in front of it.

Person detection, package detection, vehicle detection, and pet detection are the various AI-based detection options you get with a Cam Plus subscription.

Person detection, as the name suggests, alerts the user of any incident/scenario involving a human. Wyze has optimized this feature to its absolute best, further escalating the success ratio of the recognized incidents.

Package detection, again quite obvious, alerts the user if and when the camera detects the presence of a package in its field of view. This feature can get a bit erroneous since not all packages are selfsame.

The Wyze vehicle detection feature sends a notification to the user if the camera detects a vehicle. With this feature, you also get incident alerts of passing vehicles (vehicles that enter your property mostly) if the camera is facing the driveway.

Pet detection follows the same modus operandi but in the case of a wayward pet instead of a car or an oblong package.

With all these dynamic and inanimate object detections, you are sure to get a good run for your money.

Event Recording

Wyze does offer event recording capabilities even without a Cam Plus subscription. But these event recordings are limited to mere snapshots of the actual event, and that too in limited numbers.

Although you can save your recordings on an SD card installed in your camera, you may run out of storage pretty quickly.

A 32 GB SD card can get you up to two days' worth of HD(High Definition) footage or four days' worth of SD(Standard Definition) footage.

If you further want to expand the storage, you can install up to 128 GB worth of SD storage on your Wyze cams(may vary from camera to camera).

But if you want automatic event-only recordings stored in the cloud storage, you may have to opt for the Cam Plus subscription.

With the subscription, you can record an unlimited amount of events, limited only by the battery capacity of the camera.

These recordings can vary from 5 minutes to up to 12-minute recordings.

And hence you don't have to worry about depleted storage spaces and obscure event recordings.

Cooldown Period Between Incident Recordings

The Wyze Cam Plus subscription also offers yet another catchy feature, which also happens to be one of the major selling points of a surveillance device- intervals between recordings.

Without the plan, the recordings are susceptible to a cooldown period, essentially stripping minutes worth of footage.

The cooldown interval between event recordings without a Cam Plus plan is five minutes.

With the Wyze Cam Plus, you get virtually seamless recordings without any cooldown periods between them.

This feature may be the most crucial among all of them since it's of vital importance to obtain as much footage of the events as possible, in the case of an actual incident, so as to say.

Subscriber Only Discounts

Another perk of being a Cam Plus subscriber is that you get exclusive discounts on Wyze products from time to time.

Without the subscription, you pretty much have to pay the price of the product upfront, for its entirety. And you do have a lot of products to choose from in the Wyze inventory.

Wyze's inventory, in addition to home monitoring cameras, also includes home automation devices like vacuum cleaners, thermostats, smart bulbs, etc.

They even make smart gadgets like headphones, smartwatches, TWS(truly wireless) earbuds, floor lamps, and even a little space vehicle-esque remote control car called the Wyze car.

The discounts can vary anywhere between 5% to 15%, and Wyze does come out with some pretty lucrative deals every now and then.

Cam Plus Lite Vs. Cam Plus Vs. Cam Plus Pro: Which is Better?

Wyze does offer two other plans, other than the Cam Plus subscription: the basic Cam Plus Lite plan and the beefier version of the Cam Plus, Cam Plus Pro.

Wyze Cam Plus Lite is a watered-down version of the Cam Plus. But that also translates to a very comparative pricing strategy. You can get the Cam Plus Lite for effectively $0.

With this plan, you can record and store twelve-second event clips on cloud services for about fourteen days.

You also get Person detection with this plan, along with the option to edit and filter the motion detections to your liking.

Wyze adopted a pay-what-you-want strategy for this plan, meaning you need only pay a price that you feel comfortable with for the service.

But there is a catch here. To obtain a Cam Plus Lite subscription, you must have at least one device in your inventory that has a Cam Plus subscription.

Also, Cam Plus Lite is limited to a certain number of devices for the nonce, barring devices like the Cam V1 and the Doorbell for the time being.

Wyze Cam Plus Pro, on the other hand, is a premium membership service that offers all the features of the Cam Plus with some extra ones.

With a Cam Plus Pro subscription, you can turn your average Wyze cam into a fully-fledged surveillance beast that includes 24x7 video monitoring and even automatic friendly face detection.

You also get the option to trigger ON and OFF alerts and alarms on your Cams.

Such features elsewhere may cost you a hefty price on top of a sizable monthly/annual subscription fee. In the case of the Cam Plus Pro plan, you can get all of this for about $3.99/cam/month or $39.99/cam/year.

To know how well these devices fare between each other, check the table below.

Features	Cam Plus Lite	Cam Plus	Cam Plus Pro
Price	$0 onwards	$1.99/month/cam or $15/cam/year	3.99/month/cam or $39.99/cam/year
24x7 Monitoring			✔️
Friendly Faces recognition			✔️
Visual Alert notification			✔️
Person detection	✔️	✔️	✔️
Package detection		✔️	✔️
Pet detection		✔️	✔️
Vehicle detection		✔️	✔️
Fast Forwarding(2x/4x)		✔️	✔️
Real-time video with live view	✔️	✔️	✔️
Event video duration	12 seconds	Unlimited(12 seconds to 5 minutes)	Unlimited(12 seconds to 5 minutes)
Cooldown period between event recordings	5 minutes	No Cooldown period	No Cooldown period
Motion triggered alerts	✔️	✔️	✔️
Sound triggered alerts	✔️	✔️	✔️
Smoke+CO listener	✔️	✔️	✔️
Subscriber Discounts		✔️	✔️

Final Thoughts

With features like AI detection and unlimited event recordings, the Wyze Cam Plus is a must-have for everyone who values the security and privacy of their humble abode.

Common issues like detection zone issues on Wyze Cam are easily rectifiable with a simple restart or a refresh.

Wyze has introduced such efficient and alluring deals for a very attractive price, a no-brainer by all means.

You can also find a brief comparison between the various plans Wyze offers for the present. The Wyze Cam Plus lite is a good stepping stone into the Wyze ecosystem.

Wyze Cam Plus Pro offers features quite unprecedentedly for this price range.

Compare them well to find the best option for you.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Which WYZE camera is the best?

With every new model released by a company, for the time being, that very model remains the best product the company has to offer. In the case of Wyze, the current-gen Wyze Cam V3 is the best one yet.

Does Wyze Cam plus record continuously?

Not necessarily, since most of them are battery-powered. Think of it as a home monitoring device that alerts you once the camera detects an abnormality. But with subscription plans like the Cam Plus Pro, you can avail 24x7 monitoring feature. Mounting an SD card on the camera can also be helpful.

Can Wyze Cam take a 64 GB SD card?

Yes, Wyze cameras do support SD cards up to 128 GB. With a 64 GB SD card, you can get about 4 days' worth of HD footage.

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