Wyze cameras will use AI to describe what they see

/

The new video-to-text description alerts are available via Wyze’s $20 per month Cam Unlimited Pro subscription.

Share this story

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.

Wyze Descriptive Alerts, describing three babies trying to escape their cribs.

For those moments when you don’t have time to check your camera footage.
Image: Wyze

Wyze’s latest AI feature aims to reduce how often you need to manually check security footage by instead just describing what the camera has seen. The new Descriptive Alerts will send notifications that “accurately summarize motion events” with more contextual detail than simply telling users that the camera has detected movement or an object, according to Wyze.

An example alert provided by the company is “a delivery driver wearing a blue hat leaves a package on the doorstep, then leaves. A green SUV is parked in the street.” Rival smart home security companies like Ring, Google’s Nest, and (to some extent) Arlo provide similar AI summarization features for their own cameras, but Wyze’s video-to-text alerts seem to be the only service that specifies detail like color in its descriptions.

A screenshot of a Wyze Camera recording, with a Descriptive Alert notification about a delivery driver dropping packages onto the doorstep.

A screenshot of a Wyze Camera recording, with a Descriptive Alert notification about a delivery driver dropping packages onto the doorstep.
Here’s an example showing the new alert alongside the footage that’s being described.
Image: Wyze

Wyze’s Descriptive Alerts are available to Cam Unlimited Pro members — a new $19.99 per month (or $199.99 per year) subscription that bundles other features like facial recognition, searching videos using descriptive keywords, and simultaneously viewing live feeds from multiple Wyze cameras. The Cam Unlimited Pro subscription will also include 60 days of cloud storage, though Wyze says this won’t be available until “Spring 2025.” 

Just remember, Wyze cameras have suffered from serious security and privacy issues in the past. Choose wisely.

Go to Source