On Sept. 8, disturbing reports began to appear on Reddit. Wyze users checked camera feeds through the company's web viewer only to find video from other people's homes.
One Redditor opened up Wyze's web view only to find they couldn't see the cameras expected, and instead had someone else's home. Others reported similar issues.
A Wyze employee confirmed the problem on Reddit, stating:
This was a web caching issue and is now resolved. For about 30 minutes this afternoon, a small number of users who used a web browser to log in to their camera on view.wyze.com may have seen cameras of other users who also may have logged in through view.wyze.com during that time frame. The issue DID NOT affect the Wyze app or users that did not log in to view.wyze.com during that time period.
Once we identified the issue we shut down view.wyze.com for about an hour to investigate and fix the issue.
This experience does not reflect our commitment to users or the investments we've made over the last few years to enhance security. We are continuing to investigate this issue and will make efforts to ensure it doesn't happen again. We're also working to identify affected users.
We will let you know if there are any further updates.
Wyze cameras are popular due to their decent hardware quality at rock-bottom prices. For less than $30, you can get a security camera that performs about as well as a $100 camera, and once upon a time, Wyze cams came in at the $20 mark. But sometimes affordable comes with a different kind of high price. Over the years, Wyze has suffered from a data breach and chose not to reveal a significant flaw in its original camera for three years.
Wyze is hardly the first camera company to have issues like this. Ring cameras were hacked in 2019, and Eufy had similar issues that let users see the wrong camera feeds. Ultimately, you may want to think twice before installing a security camera inside your home, or at least avoid intimate areas like the bedroom.
