How to Access your WYZE Camera V3 through your NVR

Here are the firmware files used in this video/blog. Use at your own risk! WYZE and HomeTechDIY will NOT provide support!

WYZE will NOT provide support. Read why: https://support.wyze.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051619871-Does-Wyze-Cam-v3-support-RTSP-

Add RTSP to your WYZE v3 Camera: demo_v3_RTSP_4.61.0.1.zip

Revert your WYZE v3 camera back to the latest firmware (without RTSP): https://support.wyze.com/hc/en-us/articles/360024852172

I’ll give a quick summary of why you would want this protocol on your camera. Next, we’ll check your current version of the WYZE firmware, followed by downloading the new RTSP enabled firmware. Once downloaded, we’ll step through the process of installing it onto the camera. We’ll then start streaming footage with VLC. Then, let’s add the camera to Blue Iris (security camera management software) for continuous recording. I’ll show you how I tried to make this work with my Hikvision NVR and then with my Reolink NVR. Oh yeah, I’ll also show you how to put back the original (non-RTSP) version back onto your camera if you need to.

The firmware that comes with the camera doesn’t have this feature enabled. So, why would you want to install RTSP enabled firmware on your camera?

The main reason for me is because the stream allows for integration into other devices to view the live feed and to record and playback footage. My preferred security camera management software, Blue Iris is my single stop to see and playback all my security cameras. I don’t want to log into a bunch of different apps to see live footage or fiddle with their multiple ways to playback previous recordings. Blue Iris does an excellent job with review play back and I want everything on one screen at the same time. Also, I have an 8TB storage drive which keeps all my footage for a couple weeks and no need to worry about uploading brand specific footage to an App’s cloud or worrying about app subscriptions.

As they did with the V2 release of the RTSP firmware, I assume WYZE will not be releasing multiple versions of this firmware. There could be another release of the RTSP firmware for the V3 cam but this current version might be it, unless there is a major issue discovered. Developing, testing and supporting 2 firmware versions at the same time is a lot of work. They’ve added this feature for those who will use it as their primary access to the video and audio streams and (like myself) any feature within the app is just secondary.

Before we proceed, let’s verify our current version. Go to the camera on your WYZE app and click the gear icon. Go to Device Info and note the firmware version. Mine is 4.36.8.15.

In order to use the streaming feature from the Wyze cam, we’ll need to update or flash the camera’s firmware. This may sound intimidating but I’m going to walk you through the steps. To do this firmware swap, we’ll need to download the latest version of the RTSP software.  I’m using my PC to download the file.

1. Download the V3 RTSP file
2. Open the zip file and copy the firmware to the root of a Micro SD card
3. The file doesn’t need to be renamed, like it did for V2
4. With the camera unplugged, insert the card
5. While holding the Setup button, plug in the camera
6. Release the button once the light turns purple
7. Wait a couple of minutes and once the new firmware is installed go back to the settings page, then advanced setting. You should now see an option for RTSP.
8. Turn on this setting and give the camera a new username and password. This is not your credentials to your Wyze account. These are new ones for accessing the camera via RTSP.
9. Click generate to get your connection string.
10. Make note of this. Mine is 4.61.0.3.

Let’s test this out in VLC media player. This is the free version. If you’re not familiar with RTSP on VLC but I always see a 1-2 second lag. My screen for this PC is in front of me, but I’ll project it right up here.

1. Open network stream
2. Enter the URL here
3. Lag test – there is about a 2 second lag
4. Sound test works great. A nice treat since it didn’t work on the V2 camera

Let’s jump over to my preferred camera management tool, Blue Iris. On this PC, I’m using the evaluation version just for demo purposes. Blue Iris does off a 15-day trial. A lifetime license is only $70US, which is an awesome deal. Links for more info are in the description. Let’s add the camera to a channel to record continuously to this PC:

1. Right click and select Add.
2. Give it a name.
3. Leave Network IP.
4. Enable Audio, disable motion since I’ll be continuously recording, and select Direct to disk so we are not encoding and taking up PC processing power.
5. The protocol here is RTSP and then enter the IP address plus the /live path. Notice that you cannot select the make and model below because rtsp don’t care about those details. But let’s say you selected http as the protocol. The make and model are now enabled and /live get populated in the main stream profile.
6. Enter the credentials.
7. Update the Brand to Wyze and V3 using RTSP is automatically selected. This is a failsafe in case you select http, but as you can see from the model, we will be using RTSP.
8. Click ok
9. Still here on the Video tab, it’s not required but I’ll select the frame rate for NTSC.
10. Uncheck Display overlays so I don’t have 2 date stamps on top of each other.
11. On the record tab, select continuous.

Quick lag test.  Just under 1 second. Much better than VLC. The sound is also captured nicely.

I have created a few videos on using BI including my other PC build for a dedicated machine and how to take advantage of the many performance and tuning options BI offers.

Long story short. I was not able to get the live feed from the WYZE camera to show on the Hikvision NVR. It works fine with the V2 camera, like I demoed in my last video but this one would not work.

I added the WYZE protocol with the /live folder. I then added it to a channel with the right IP address and credentials. This seems ok and the NVR can see the camera. When I attempt to play the live feed, the icon is green indicating the stream is flowing, like it is for the V2 camera, but all I see is a black channel.

It’s a similar story with the Reolink NVR. The issue here is that there is nowhere to add in the “/live” path. You can select RTSP as the protocol but the device is unable to find the camera’s stream. It gave me an “Invalid Address” error as soon as I entered any alpha characters in the IP Address field.

If you need to revert your camera back to the previous version, repeat this process but using the firmware you want to replace it with. That can be found here on the Release Notes & Firmware page under V3. Firmware updates can be found here.