Wyze Cam is a leading smart home camera, that allows you to monitor your house remotely through your phone.
But if you don’t want to use your smartphone, is there a way to watch a Wyze Cam feed from your computer or Mac?
Wyze Cam’s main advantage is that you can view feeds remotely via your smartphone. The company, therefore, manufactures devices that you can link to your smartphone and not necessarily a PC or Mac.
However, there are a few ways to watch the camera feed on your computer.
The first way is using the direct stream option via your browser or desktop media players such as VLC. The other is to create a smartphone environment on your computer and install a Wyze Cam mobile app.
Below, we will take a deeper look at each of these options of watching Wyze cam on your PC. Here is everything you will need, from the necessary setups to applications and software you should download.
Does Wyze have a desktop app?
Can you download a Wyze app for Mac or Windows instead of going through all these hassles of viewing the camera on a PC? No!
The Wyze Cam app is only available for Android and iOS mobile devices only. However, with a few tricks, you can easily connect your computer to your camera.
How to access Wyze Cam on a computer
Here are two solutions that can help you monitor your Wyze camera through your laptop:
1. Using direct stream
Direct stream is one of the best ways to access Wyze Cam on your computer. It simply lets you connect to the camera through a URL address.
To use direct stream, you need to enable the streaming feature (Real Time Streaming Protocol or RTSP) on your camera first. Follow these steps:
- Download the Wyze Cam RTSP Firmware
- Open it using a ZIP or RAR program and save it on a micro SD card in the main folder
- Insert the SD card into the camera while it is unplugged
- Plug the USB cable in the camera while pressing the setup button to activate the firmware. Release the button when a blue light comes on.
- Allow the camera to reboot, then launch the Wyze Cam app on your phone
- Go to Settings then Advanced Settings and turn on RTSP, then enter your Wyze Cam login details.
- Tap on Generate URL to create a remote URL address
Now, you can monitor your camera remotely on any supported device. Technically, you can use the address to view the camera via your browser. However, the VLC media player offers the best functionality for streaming.
To view Wyze Cam via VLC media player:
- Download the VLC app for your PC (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.)
- Install and launch the app on your computer
- On the VLC menu (top bar), select Media and scroll down to Open Network Stream.
- Enter the camera’s URL address to start monitoring your premises.
2. Using smartphone emulators
The other way to watch Wyze Cam on your PC is using smartphone emulators. These are software applications that create a smartphone OS environment, allowing you to operate smartphone apps.
BlueStacks is one of the top smartphone OS emulators that are currently on the market. It is Android-based, meaning that it will enable you to run Android apps. You can install it on your Windows or Mac PC.
Below is a look at how to set up BlueStacks and your Wyze camera:
- Download the BlueStacks software and install it on your PC (Note: the download file is pretty large and might take some time).
- Install the app and launch it
- In the BlueStacks dashboard, go to Google Play Store and log using your Google Account credentials
- Search for and download the Wyze Cam app and install it. Alternatively, you can download the app APK for PC and install it directly on the BlueStacks environment.
- Launch the Wyze Cam app and log in with your account details to start accessing the camera feed
One thing to note about smartphone emulators is that they are very resource-intensive. They will use a considerable percentage of your CPU, RAM, and Disk Space to run.
You will be running two operating systems, therefore, you need a fast and reliable PC. If not, the emulator will significantly slow down your computer or even cause it to hang.
Summary
While Wyze Cam is designed to be used with smartphones, the above solutions will help you to monitor your home or premises on your laptop or desktop PC.
Whether you are using an emulator or direct stream, you’ll enjoy a better viewing experience.
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