If you’re one of the many who’ve snapped up a $20 Wyze Cam, we’ve got good news and less-good news: Your little square buddy can now spot cars in your driveway and packages left at your doorstep. But you’ll need to pony up for Wyze’s subscription plan first.
Wyze, the smart home manufacturer behind such ultra-cheap security cameras as the Wyze Cam v3, the Wyze Cam Pan, and the Wyze Cam Outdoor, has announced that vehicle and package detection are now available for all Cam Plus subscribers.
The new AI-powered features, which had previously been in beta for several weeks, join Wyze’s revamped people detection functionality, which went live last summer.
Cam Plus costs $2 a month or $15 a year per camera. Besides people, vehicle and package detection, Cam Plus offers cloud storage for motion-triggered video events of any length, while the videos of free users are capped at 12 seconds.
You can enable vehicle and package detection by tapping the Account tab in the Wyze app. Once you’re on the Account screen, tap Services > Cam Plus, select a camera, then toggle on the Vehicle Detection and Package Detection options.
You can activate push notifications for “Wyze AI Events” on the Notifications screen, although you can’t pick and choose which types of detected events can trigger alerts.
Wyze says it’s planning to add more AI-powered detection features, with facial recognition and pet detection both slated to arrive in “early” 2021.
The budget technology maker has been on something of a tear over the past few months, announcing everything from Bluetooth headphones and a video doorbell to a robot vacuum and a sprinkler controller.
Wyze first unveiled its Cam Plus plan with cloud-based people detection last July after losing the functionality months prior. Wyze cameras initially offered free on-device people detection, but Wyze yanked the feature after the third-party company that developed it pulled out of its agreement with Wyze. That company, Xnor.ai, was subsequently acquired by Apple.
Wyze initially promised that its revamped person detection feature would still be free, but it ultimately changed course due to rising costs.