Gabe: Hey, folks, this is Gabe at Security Baron.
Today, we're going to check out the most miniature of home security systems, the Wyze Sense Starter
Kit.
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Gabe: In today's review of the Wyze Sense Starter Kit, we're going to look at some pros
and cons, its feature set, the installation experience, customer support, before finally
diving into their mobile application, the Wyze app, to make sure that we have all your
knowledge gaps covered.
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Gabe: If want to see a list of our favorite home security systems, Google "Security Baron
best home security systems."
If you have a question about today's review, leave us a comment and I'll get back to you.
Let's kick off today's review of the Wyze Sense Starter Kit, looking into some pros
and cons, beginning with those pros.
The Wyze Sense Starter Kit is extremely affordable at $19.99.
On top of that affordability, this one Wyze Bridge can connect to up to 100 different
Wyze devices so you don't have to worry about there being a vulnerability anywhere in your
home.
That same element is really clear when you look at the fact that it tells you exactly
what is happening with each one of these devices.
It'll let you know how long a door has been open, or how long a window has been closed.
It can even tell you how long it's detected motion.
That's a really impressive element that comes with the Wyze Sense Starter Kit.
On the con side, there's no professional monitoring.
You're basically going it alone.
You might know a door is open.
You might know a window has been opened for 20 minutes, and that's not typical, but there's
basically nothing else you can do, other than confront it yourself.
That's one element to keep in mind.
You should also note that the customer support doesn't seem to be that excellent for Wyze
Sense.
While they have a ton of options for you to get in touch with them, we saw over 100 reviews
for customer support, and the majority of those were negative.
Those are the pros and cons for the Wyze Sense Starter Kit.
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Gabe: Now that we've gone over the pros and cons for the Wyze Sense Starter Kit, let's
check out that feature set.
With the Wyze Sense, you're basically three components.
You're getting your Wyze Bridge, your motion sensor, and your contact sensor.
One thing to note is that you cannot use any of these without having a Wyze Cam or a Wyze
Cam Pan.
This bridge works in conjunction with those.
You basically plug it into the back, and then you're ready to go.
You can use all of this system.
"All of this system" could mean a lot because you can put up to 100 devices with your Wyze
Bridge, which is awfully impressive in terms of not really leaving you any vulnerabilities.
The actual devices themselves are also pretty impressive.
The Wyze sensor will actually tell you how long it's detected something.
It'll detect something up to 26 feet away with a 120 degree field of view.
We like that it tells you how long that it detected the motion.
If it's still detecting the motion, it'll say it's in progress, which can allow for
you to go and check your Wyze Cam Pan or your Wyze Cam to make sure that things are all
fine in your home.
When it comes to the contact sensors, they also let you know if a door or window has
been opened or closed, and can let you know for how long that particular door or window
was left open or left closed, which can be useful when trying to determine exactly what
was going on at any moment in time in your home.
You can look at the little time signature, see how long it was open and closed, maybe
look in conjunction with your Wyze Cam or Wyze Cam Pan.
You're really getting a lot of functionality.
Both the contact sensor and the motion sensor have batteries that should last up to a year.
You should be able to set them up and not worry about it for about 12 months, which
is honestly pretty impressive for all of that feature capacity to be packed into such a
small device.
That's our look at the feature set for Wyze Sense Starter Kit.
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Gabe: Whoa, hold on.
I hope you're enjoying today's review of the Wyze Sense Starter Kit.
If you want to be kept up to date on all the newest in smart home security, VPNs, password
managers, smart phones, and other devices, subscribe to our channel, Security Baron.
We're dropping new hot content weekly.
All right, let's get back to the video.
Let's check out the installation experience for your Wyze Sense Starter Kit.
You're going to want to begin with the actual Wyze Cam or Wyze Pan.
It doesn't come with the starter kit, but it is a necessary component for setting the
system up.
Make sure that you've upgraded the firmware and the software, and then you'll be ready
to go.
You're going to take your Wyze Bridge, plug it into the USB port in the back.
It fits in like a glove, as you can see.
Once you've set this up and you have a blue light here, you can set up the rest of your
system.
Remember, this is all going to be done in the Wyze app.
You're in the Wyze app.
It's going to say, "OK, add a new device."
Once you've added the Wyze Bridge, you're going add your motion sensor.
That process is pretty straightforward.
You'll walk through it.
You're going to need your reset tool that comes with your Wyze Sense Starter Kit.
You're going to stick into the side of the motion sensor.
You'll get a blinking blue light, and then [snaps fingers] it should connect to your
Wyze Bridge.
You're going to repeat that process with your sensors, or any other sensors you may decide
to buy in the future.
When it comes to placement, you're going to want to put your motion sensor about six feet
high.
Make sure it's not in a place where your pets like to be.
You don't want them to be constantly setting it off -- I'm really talking about cats here
-- or somewhere where they might actually knock it off the wall, or wherever you decide
to put it.
The same goes for your contact sensors, which need to be about two centimeters apart.
From that moment, you'll know exactly where they all are.
Just to be clear, that process is really easy in terms of placement because of the adhesive
that just makes it peel and stick.
You got a year, and you don't have to think about it because the battery life will be
about a year on each of these devices.
Overall, it's a simple, easy, and convenient setup for your Wyze Sense Starter Kit.
All right, I want to talk to you about the customer support at Wyze.
Customer support at Wyze is pretty typical.
You've got your online help center.
You've got forums.
You've got the ability to live chat and send an email.
One thing we note is it actually has a pretty long part of the week available.
From Monday through Saturday, 8:00 AM through 4:00 PM Pacific Time, you can get in touch
with the team at Wyze.
However, there are over 200 reviews that specifically mention customer support, [laughs] and they
aren't necessarily the most positive.
In fact, they say that Wyze customer support is kind of poor, and that they could not get
the answers that they needed from anyone.
That's something to keep in mind when you're looking at Wyze is that, yes, they're available.
They have a lot of options, but you may not be able to get the answers that you need.
Maybe, Wyze could commit more of its resources to providing that stellar customer support.
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Gabe: Let's go ahead, and check out the Wyze Sense Starter Kit in its mobile application,
the Wyze app.
It is here you're going to be interfacing with all the elements you see before you and
the Wyze Cam and Wyze Pan.
It's a pretty solid mobile application.
Android users and iPhone users feel about the same about it with a 3.7 in the Google
Play Store and a 3.5 in the Apple App Store.
Let's go ahead and check it out on my iPhone 7 Plus.
Here I am checking out the Wyze Sense in the Wyze mobile application.
The Wyze home page is pretty straightforward.
You have the top Wyze Edit shortcuts, the ability to mute the notifications, your Settings
in that right-hand corner, and then all of your Wyze devices right below.
I've named these the Wyze contact and the Wyze motion all lowercase.
That's cool these days.
I've got a Baron Pan that I've actually turned off and a Baron Hideaway, which is actually
just the Wyze Cam Version 2.
That is where your Wyze Bridge is plugged in, because remember with the Wyze Sense,
you have to have it connected to one of the Wyze cameras.
My Wyze Version 2 is ready to go.
My Wyze Sense is up.
Let's just go through the actual functionality of these particular devices, the contact sensor
and Wyze Motion.
If I open the Wyze contact, you'll see immediately that I get this notification.
This would happen even if I weren't in the app.
Let's just check that out.
You see it close.
See?
Now you see that the contact was closed at 2:51.
Let's look in the history there for the Wyze contact.
You see that it was opened, closed, opened.
What's interesting about this particular device is that it tells you when it was opened and
closed, and will do so for the past 14 days.
[laughs] You can just know what was going on in your home for two weeks.
What's a great thing about the Wyze contact is that you can actually decide on how much
information you want to know, or rather, when you want to be notified right there in the
app.
I go to Settings.
I go to Notifications.
You'll see here that I have Opens and Close, Send notification.
I also can turn that off and have it only let me know it's been open for a specific
amount of time.
I only really want to know if someone comes in and leaves the door open for, let's say,
seven minutes, I can do so.
Now anytime someone comes in, and it's open for seven minutes, then it'll notify me saying
me, "Hey, someone has come in."
You can change that even down to seconds.
I want to know when someone's been in the house for nine seconds, I can do that.
You can even do that for how long it's been left closed.
I feel like someone should be coming in and out of my house every eight hours.
It's a busy place, and no one does that, no one's leaving or going, I can also be notified
just for eight hours.
"Hey, no one has left the home out of that door in eight hours."
Maybe that's the way I can know that my niece or nephew hasn't taken out the trash or something
of that nature.
It's kind of a useful and fun feature to find on an entry sensor.
Let's go back and check out that motion detection.
Here I am in the Wyze Motion Detection.
Here, I can click in and look at all the times it's detected motion.
It'll actually say that it's in progress right now because I've been moving in front of this
motion detector for the past 14 minutes.
If you look down, it tells you, "Motion detected 3 minutes, 18 minutes, 1 minute.
Motion detected for less than a minute.
Motion detected for less than a minute."
These are all really useful elements so I can know exactly what is happening.
If I see someone moving around for a long time, in a room they're not supposed to be,
then maybe I can say, "Hey, you know what?
Like let's go check and see that everything is still in its place."
That's a really interesting and useful element of the Wyze Sense's devices.
The Wyze contact and the Wyze motion really give you a lot of flexibility in determining
what's going on.
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Gabe: Are you trying to get a sense of how you feel about the Wyze Sense Starter Kit,
or are you simply waiting for me to tell you how I feel?
Because I feel like it's pretty affordable at $19.99.
You get motion sensor, contact sensors, and those sensors are pretty great, in terms of
they tell you not only when they detected something, but also for how long they detected
something, which is something we do not frequently see in the home security market.
I do think they would benefit from having some professional monitoring services.
You're basically going it alone when you decide to go with the Wyze Sense Starter Kit.
They also need to commit more to their customer support team.
If you look at the Wyze Sense Starter Kit and the ability to couple it with both Wyze
Cam and the Wyze Pan to really give you a full, complete look at what's going on in
your home, we think it's a solid option for those of you looking to join the affordable
home security market.
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Gabe: That concludes our review of the Wyze Sense Starter Kit.
If you appreciated today's video, give us a like and hit that Subscribe button.
As always, this is Gabe the Security Baron.
[snaps fingers] Be secure.