Say Goodbye to Notification Overload
Irrelevant and excessive notifications are the #1 complaint from nearly all security camera users. Solving this problem is the holy grail for any smart camera company.
At Wyze, we may have just figured it out…
Today we’re excited to launch the NBD (No Big Deal) Filter— a new feature for Wyze Cams on the Cam Unlimited Pro plan. The NBD Filter cuts out useless and repetitive alerts that are “no big deal” allowing you to keep a clean, serene, visually-pristine phone screen.
Starting today, you’ll stop getting lots of those Wyze Cam notifications you don’t care about.
How Does It Work?
The NBD Filter removes both boring AND repetitive event video notifications.
Ending notifications for boring videos
In January we launched an incredible new feature called Descriptive Alerts. Instead of “person detected” your Wyze notification says something like this:
The user feedback on this feature has been incredible! Yes, it really works.
But just because a person or vehicle is detected, doesn't mean what is happening is important to you. The NBD Filter uses another layer of AI to analyze the video footage and the text generated from descriptive alerts. It then assigns each video an importance score.
The importance score is between 1 (no big deal) and 5 (whoa!!).
- Score 1: Low importance—think routine activities a robot vacuum cleaning your home, cars driving along a road, or even you just doing the dishes
- Score 2: Likely low importance
- Score 3: Moderate importance—events like a package delivery or your baby crying, which might warrant your attention
- Score 4: Moderate importance, but could be more unusual
- Score 5: High importance—critical situations such as glass breaking, a gunshot, or an unknown person lingering near your door
Event videos that are rated a 1 are filtered out of your notifications to keep your phone screen clutter-free. The videos are still recorded and can be watched in your event videos later on.
Event videos that are rated 2-5 will still send a notification…for now. We’ve been tempted to notch up the filtering to remove videos with ratings 1 and 2 ratings based on feedback from early testers. Since we are asking AI to make a judgement call, we will wait to see feedback from a bigger audience before filtering out the 2 ratings, to be on the safe side. The importance score happens in the backend and will not be displayed or visible to users in this first roll out.
Ultimately, we plan to give full control to each user and allow settings to be personalized on each individual camera and even down to each notification. Stay tuned for future iterations and please share your feedback!
Ending repetitive notifications
The NBD Filter also detects and removes repetitive notifications happening over a 3-hour block of time.
Imagine your kids are playing basketball in the driveway. Without the NBD Filter, your Wyze Cam might send you a notification every few minutes for the same activity.
With the NBD Filter enabled, you’ll receive just one notification alerting you to the kids playing basketball. As long as the scene stays roughly the same—kids dribbling and shooting hoops—you won’t hear another peep for up to 3 hours.
But if something changes, like a dog darting into the driveway or a car pulling in, the filter detects this as a meaningful shift and sends you a new alert right away.
This makes it perfect for busy environments—like a big party in your driveway where people are coming and going. You won’t be spammed with alerts for every guest’s arrival, but you’ll know when the party’s over or something unexpected happens.
Real Examples
These are real videos that we fed into the NBD algorithm, including their descriptive alerts and ratings.
Videos rated 1
"🤖 Robot Vacuum Cleaning"
"A white robot vacuum cleans a living room floor near a light-grey couch and kitchen area. A few grocery bags are near the kitchen."
"🚗 Rainy Day Traffic"
"Several vehicles are driving on a wet street near a parking lot. A few cars are parked."
Videos rated 2
"Nighttime Backyard Movement"
"Nighttime backyard video shows a small, fast-moving object crossing the lawn near a bird feeder. A clothesline and garden area are also visible."
"🚶Nighttime Backyard Activity",
"Nighttime footage shows a dark backyard with a basketball hoop and a wooden fence. An object briefly appears near the bottom left corner."
Videos Rated 3
"📦 Package Delivery"
" A delivery person in brown uniform delivers a large cardboard box to the porch and leaves. Two small plants and a doormat are visible on the porch."
"💃 Wedding First Dance"
"A couple performs their first dance at an outdoor wedding reception. Guests watch and applaud. A person films the event."
note: this scored a 3, but would have likely been filtered out anyway because its flagged as a repetitive event during this 3 hour wedding party.
Videos Rated 4
"🦝 Raccoon in Coop"
"Three chickens are in a coop at night. A raccoon enters the coop. The chickens flee."
"🐻 Nighttime Backyard Visitor"
"Night footage shows a dark-colored bear briefly appearing in a backyard, near a fence."
Videos Rated 5
"🚨 Police Activity"
"At night, several figures in dark uniforms apprehend a person near a house. A police vehicle's lights are visible."
"🚶Nighttime Package Theft"
"A person in a hooded sweatshirt approaches parked cars at night and takes a package from one of them before leaving."
"🐾 Cougar on Patio"
"A cougar walks across a stone-walled patio at night. The cougar is light brown and walks from left to right, then exits the frame."
The NBD Filter is an exclusive feature for subscribers of our Cam Unlimited Pro plan. This premium subscription unlocks a suite of advanced AI tools to supercharge your Wyze Cams, and the NBD Filter is the latest addition to the lineup. The plan also includes up to 60 days of cloud storage, Descriptive Alerts, and AI Video Search. Try it today on my.wyze.com.
The bad news: this plan is more expensive than what you might expect from Wyze...but we aren't making money here. The higher costs are a result of the high costs to run all this AI. Over time, the costs will come down, but we don't want to wait to get this technology into the hands of our early adopters.
It’s been a long eight year journey trying to figure out how to end the non-stop notifications. We’ve made significant progress during that time from motion detection, to person detection, to descriptive alerts, and finally to the best solution yet:
The NBD Filter.
It only gets better from here.
