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TheAdamist

Wyze cheap security cameras released a firmware that turns them into a webcam. Still in stock.

You will also need a USB a-a cable that I didn't know existed or was legal.

And a 32gb microsd.

I did this last week, came in one day on Amazon prime. Under $50 for everything.

Setup went okay, although the 3-4 minutes for firmware write was under a minute for me with their branded microsd.

Quality is passable, lens is more fisheye than I'd prefer so you see my messy office, but it works. 1080/30 the software claims. Note it has a speaker, so check your sound mixer settings to have it not steal audio out.

https://support.wyzecam.com/hc/en-us/articles/360041605111-W...

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I would not touch a Wyze camera with a 10 foot pole. Given the recent enormous security breaches, the likely connections to the Chinese government, and the incredibly low price point, there are red flags waving everywhere.

Read this blog series about Wyze, and then make up you mind if you are comfortable having that piece of hardware in your home. I think it is pretty clear the risks are not trivial.

https://blog.12security.com/tag/wyze/

Great write up. I agree I do not trust them very much and would not use them on a network that has internet access.

They are a great cheap option when using their custom RTSP firmware with synology surveillance stations. I throw them on their own SSID that is isolated from other local networks and does not have internet access. The SS can reach into their network but they can't initiate connections out.

Still they briefly need internet when setting up to enable RTSP but I'm more concerned about them being remotely accessible at anytime and having access to anything else on my network. Even my setup would allow my email and the isolated network's topo to leak bc of brief internet access.

That’s interesting usage. I wasn’t aware of the Synology products, I’ll admit I’m not very knowledgeable about security systems. Sounds like you take proper precautions!

I don't think that was a great write up. I'm no panda-hugger but I was hoping for evidence/walk-through for the following claims made in the article, and I didn't find any direct evidence in the article. Did I not read it closely enough? (Pretty sure the claims are made without support)

> Yi Camera is a front for the Chinese Ministry of State Security. Full stop.

> Yi Cameras send all customer data to Xiaomi as I have previously claimed with Wyze.

To be fair, I updated the link to the the ‘tags’ page, since it includes the whole series, after @quit32 commented. They might have been referring to one of the first couple in the series , the link originally pointed to #1.

Honestly I’m not familiar with the Yi cameras, I haven’t read that newest post, I’ll have to look into it. But, 12 Security is credited with disclosing the 2nd Wyze security breach in December 2019 (the 1st one not even a full calendar year before).

Wyze reluctantly admitted the breach days later, but went into damage control mode, claiming the DB was only exposed for part of the month of December. 12 Security says otherwise, that it was exposed for the majority of the calendar year, and many parties across the globe accessed it according to logs.

https://web.archive.org/web/20200306023236/https://www.nytim...

> it is (or at least was) theoretically possible for any individual anywhere in the world to access the live video feeds of every single Wyze camera that was online

Holy cow. And easy to do if you found their unsecured database.

Fair point, however with the webcam firmware it operates as a standard USB webcam, no drivers or software from wyze used, just the replacement firmware loaded via microsd.

So the risks are mitigated for the most part since it has no network connection.

> You will also need a USB a-a cable that I didn't know existed or was legal.

They exist, but are not allowed by the USB standard. The basic premise of the classic USB standard is that the A side provides the 5V power, while the B side consumes that 5V power. With an A to A cable, you are shorting both power supplies together.

(USB-C changes that to resistors; IIRC, the side with the pull-up resistors will initially provide the 5V power, while the side with the pull-down resistors will initially consume the 5V power. The passive adapters to classic USB just have the correct pair of resistors for the corresponding classic USB plug or socket.)

I’m slightly confused by this. At first you seem to be using A and B to describe whether the connector is male/female but in the next paragraph you use the letter C to refer to the shape of the connector.

I assume in the first paragraph you mean a usb A cable with plugs on both ends

USB A and B are both connector types, just like USB C is a connector type. The letters have nothing to do with male vs. female.

USB A is a rectangle, and USB B is closer to a square. I've also never seen anything aside from female USB ports and male/male USB cables (aside from extension cables).

They are different shapes, each shape has both a plug and a corresponding socket. USB A is the traditional rectangular plug/socket, while USB B is the bulky somewhat square shape usually found in printers. There are also mini and micro versions of both A and B, each having both a plug and a socket.

The traditional USB connection has a host with a USB A socket, which provides power; a cable with a USB A plug in one end and a USB B plug in the other end; and a device with a USB B socket. All traditional USB cables are A to B cables, with a USB A plug and a USB B plug; an A to A cable would allow connecting two hosts together, and both would try to provide power at the same time, which might damage the hardware.

USB-C is completely different; all cables have two USB-C plugs, while both hosts and devices have USB-C sockets. Which side provides power is negotiated through a dedicated configuration channel.

For USB cables there is a host side (type A plug) and a device side (type B plug). These come in standard, mini and micro. You probably havent seen anything but a standard type A (this bit you recognise as the side that plugs into a computer), but are probably familiar with each of the type-b connectors.

Type C is bi-directional, so can replace either or both plugs.

The USB standard has a lot of connectors

https://itsolutionindia.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/usb-tuto...

Yeah, the a-a cable needed is a male-male, but the wyze camera is accepting power via it in this case. The normal power for it via micro usb is disconnected.

I don't use wyze normally, not sure what the type a female port is for.

It's a hack on top of a hack that functions reasonably, and helps with supply chain issues.

It's for attaching the hub to control other Wzye devices, like motion sensors. The hub is pretty small and fills in the indentation to be flush with the rest of the back of the camera.

That's really cool that Wyze did that. These are also great for making HD time-lapse videos of plant growth, etc, when a large internal SD is used for the price.

The normal function of a security camera is also good, however, a warning that these contain active microphones. So if you transition to using these as indoor, facing-outdoor security cams to strongly consider pulling the microphone from the circuit board. There are youtube videos, it can be done easily in under 10 minutes.

There is a software disable, but I do not believe this can be trusted.

You can still buy plenty of USB cameras at normal prices -- just search for ones that aren't called "web" cams. Here are a few examples but there are literally hundreds of others.

Search for "USB camera" or "machine vision camera".

https://www.amazon.com/Spinel-Support-1920x1080-Compliant-Ad...

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-Realsense-D435-Webcam-FPS/dp/B0... (bonus! it's a depth camera but it does have RGB output as well)

https://www.amazon.com/ELP-degree-megapixel-fisheye-aluminum...

Also, toilet paper is in stock at several industrial suppliers, and especially the jumbo rolls (I'm sure if you're on HN you can improvise a way to hold those). I'm not going to list specific ones here but you probably know the usual suspects if you have ordered for a company before. It's mostly sold out only at consumer outlets.

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