
If you've got a few dollars burning a hole in your pocket and have always wanted an HD, night vision, motion detecting, time-lapse, continuous recording video camera with two-way audio, well, here you go. Wyze's affordable cameras have pretty much the same features as their more expensive counterparts. They even come with 14-days of free cloud storage and a slot for local recording on a microSD card, which is handy if you don't want to save things to the cloud where they might be less secure. Baby cam, pet cam, security cam, surveillance cam, game cam, cam cam--these cheap cams can be whatever cam you want. Going all Big Brother has never been cheaper.
What could happen if something goes wrong?
There’s nothing in Wyze’s privacy policy that worries us overly much. We like that Wyze does not sell your personal information. They say they can share de-identified or aggregated information with third parties, which is pretty common and not too worrisome. Although it’s a good time to remind you that it’s been found to be pretty easy to de-anonymize some types of data and track down an individual’s patterns, especially with location data. And they do some targeted advertising with data they collect. Again, this is pretty normal in our digital ad economy and nothing stands out with Wyze that concerns us too much.
The biggest worry we have about Wyze’s affordable security cams is the huge data leak they suffered back in December, 2019 that exposed the personal information of 2.4 million customers when they left a database unprotected for 22 days. That is not good, not good at all. Fortunately, Wyze jumped on fixing their epic goof, which is what you want to see when something like this happens. And as far as we can tell, Wyze hasn’t had any major security vulnerabilities or data leaks since then.
All in all, these cameras seem ok for your indoor and outdoor spying needs. What’s the worst that could happen? Well, we suppose you could share your videos to the Cloud, rather than keeping them stored locally where they tend to be safer. Some major state sponsored cyber attack could happen and that state, say, Russia for example, could learn who you and your neighbors vote for and then target you with ads to try and change your vote. That would not be cool. Also, probably not likely. Still, not cool. Store those videos locally people!
Tips to protect yourself
- Review Wyze's recommendations to keep your account secure
- Check Wyze security & trust tips
- Be very careful who you chose to share your Wyze wellness data with.
- Don't connect your Wyze app to any social networks like Facebook.
- Enable two-factor identification
Can it snoop on me?
Camera
Device: Yes
App: Yes
Microphone
Device: Yes
App: Yes
Tracks location
Device: Yes
App: Yes
What can be used to sign up?
Yes
Phone
No
Third-party account
No
What data does the company collect?
Personal
Name, email, password, birth year, gender
Body related
Voice recordings
Social
How does the company use this data?
How can you control your data?
What is the company’s known track record of protecting users’ data?
In 2019, a massive leak happened at Wyze, exposing information from 2.4M customers. To Wyze’s credit, it has been very detailed in describing what happened, when, why, how, and what the company is doing about it.
Can this product be used offline?
User-friendly privacy information?
The privacy statement mentions audio data, but there's no explanation of what is being collected and what happens to it.
Links to privacy information
Does this product meet our Minimum Security Standards?
Encryption
The live video feed and other communications are encrypted between the camera and the server.
Strong password
Security updates
Manages vulnerabilities
You can submit security vulnerabilities to Wyze: https://wyze.com/security-report
Privacy policy
Dive Deeper
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Wyze camera data leak: How to secure your account right nowCNET
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Wyze data leak: Key takeaways from server mistake that exposed information from 2.4M customersGeek Wire
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Wyze Cam subscriptions: What you need to know about October 9 service changeGear Brain
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Wyze and Guardzilla Security Cameras Have Security Risks, Consumer Reports FindsConsumer Reports
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