Wyze Labs launched a new pay-what-you-want subscription tier Tuesday for its Cam Plus Lite lineup of home security cameras. And the company touts the fact that you can pay nothing if you like.
Wyze said it also plans to remove its cameras’ 32GB microSD card size limit and add new rewind and skip buttons to make it easier to scrub through footage saved locally.
Wyze Cam Plus Lite subscription tier
In a Wyze forum post, the company said the pay-nothing-if-you-want Cam Plus Lite subscription tier includes Person Detection (as opposed to simple motion detection) and cloud recordings of no more than 12 seconds’ duration with a 5-minute cool-down period between them.
Pay-what-you-want subscriptions aren’t new to Wyze. It first tried the model with person detection in 2020 and found that some people would pay to allow the tier to cost nothing for others.
Wyze’s recent experimentation with person detection pricing followed it being included for free generally starting in 2019. But then Wyze had to remove it entirely after Apple purchased the AI tech company involved and it terminated its licensing deal.
What are other companies doing?
Other smart home companies have differing views on what to charge for person detection. Ring and Arlo charge for similar features. Google and Eufy offer them for free. For Wyze, the pay-nothing option fits in with the company’s reputation for affordability.
Wyze cams: other subscription tiers
Wyze’s other subscription tiers for its cams cost a bit more than Cam Plus Lite. Cam Plus costs $1.99 per camera per month with no 12-second length or 5-minute cooldown limits on cloud recordings. It also has broader detection (motion, person, packages, pets and vehicles). Cam Plus Pro is $3.99 per camera per month. It features full-time professional monitoring and face recognition.
The new Cam Plus Lite subscription tier will apply to Wyze Cam v2 and v3, Wyze Cam Pan v1 and v2, and Wyze Cam Outdoor. Previously, pay-what-you-want only covered Wyze Cam v2 and Wyze Cam Pan v1.
In addition, Cam Plus Lite support for Wyze video doorbells is coming soon, the company noted.
