1.Intro
Contrary to other trendy startups in the tech industry, Wyze didn’t start out in a garage. It actually started at Amazon HQ, right here in Seattle, where three of our Wyze founders used to work.
While working with the tech retail team, we noticed something was very wrong with the smart home industry. Despite all the praise and hype, smart home devices weren’t even close to mass adoption. That’s because smart products aren’t actually that smart and they’re completely unaffordable for the average consumer.
So we quit our jobs and set out on a mission to change that. Making great technology available to all.
After months of research and development, we created our first product, the Wyze Cam. The only question was how much to charge for it. At the time, our competitors were charging around $200 for a similar smart home camera.
We came up with a radical idea. What if we treated our customers like friends? If our best friend was in the room and we sold the camera to them in person, how much would we charge? The Wyze Cam retails for $19.99.
What happened next was incredible. Even though we no longer had room for marketing campaigns or fancy office space, our users supported us. They started sharing Wyze with friends and family, they made video reviews, comments and social posts. They started a smart home movement that really changed the whole IoT industry.
Since then, things have changed a lot. We’ve added more staff and been named one of the best places to work in Seattle. We’ve introduced more “incredibly good products” that have won editor’s picks and media accolades. We built the best artificial intelligence in the industry, made our smart products truly smart and were named one of Time magazine’s Most Influential Companies of 2022.
It wasn’t easy. We’ve survived tariffs, pandemics, inflation and more. Starting a business is always a difficult journey, especially when you’re in direct competition with the biggest companies in the history of the world. Only by doing things in a non-traditional way and staying true to our founding principles have we been able to get this far.
“Friends with users” is written on the walls of our offices, in our manuals and in the minds of every Wyze employee. We promise to always listen to your feedback, to build what you want us to build and to keep the price as low as possible. Every time you open a Wyze box, we’ll do everything we can to make you say, as they said the day we launched our first product, “This is too good to be true.”
2.Reviews
The top picture shows the Wyze V3 and the bottom picture shows the Wyze OG. As you can see, the image quality on this camera is a little better than the V3, even though it costs less. But the colours are so much more saturated on the OG that I’m not sure I like it. I think I might like the colours on the V3 better. But otherwise it’s a good value for money compact camera and has the spotlight feature that the V3 Pro has. The only problem is that it doesn’t work if the camera is looking out of a window like I do, so a spotlight wouldn’t be very useful to me. But I still like the fact that they added it when the more expensive V3 didn’t include it.
The bluetooth settings are definitely an improvement on the previous version. The camera is not bad, I would say a little better than the v3. The non-standard screw size for mounting is a big negative. The speed of accessing the camera has been much better than the v3. Overall, I prefer this to the v3 and other models. I also prefer the v2 as it is more reliable and durable than the v3. If you don’t need the Wyze subscription service they apparently want to impose on you, then this is a good value.
Great cam, good picture quality, great LED lights.
The only bad thing is that if your existing custom camera mount is a 3/8 thread, the OG will not fit on the mount as it appears to be a smaller 1/4 size thread. The WYZE V3 is a 3/8 size thread, which is the more common IMO size.
Would rate 5 stars if there was common ground.
The threaded hole is a small #8-32. Most tripods and other camera gear is 1/4-20. Adapters are few and far between. If you only plan to use the included base, no problem. If not, tough luck!