Latest news with #DaveCrosby
The Verge
18-06-2025
- The Verge
Wyze tells us why its security cameras deserve your trust again
In an effort to restore trust in the security of its cameras, smart home brand Wyze has developed VerifiedView — a new layer of protection that embeds your user ID into the metadata of every photo, video, and livestream. Wyze claims the system matches this data to your account before playback, blocking unauthorized access to your footage. 'This is a safety net,' Wyze co-founder and CMO Dave Crosby tells The Verge. 'On top of doing everything we can to protect users, we've built this double check at the end to make sure that they're extra protected.' 'We realized that we cannot survive if we keep making these stupid mistakes.' The move follows several rough years for Wyze on the security front, starting with a vulnerability on its v1 cameras that it knew about for three years and never disclosed, followed by two high-profile incidents in 2023 and 2024, where users saw images from other people's cameras. Crosby says that Wyze now sees fixing its security practices as existential. 'We realized that we cannot survive if we keep making these stupid mistakes that we're making,' he says. 'We've got to make monumental changes so this kind of stuff never happens again.' VerifiedView is just one result of this major shift; Wyze has also expanded its in-house security team, Crosby says, and 'invested millions of dollars' in strengthening its security architecture from top to bottom. That includes re-architecting its security stack, requiring two-factor authentication, launching a bug bounty program, and deploying monitoring tools to detect and prevent threats. Wyze is also committed to being more transparent around security. 'One of the biggest mistakes we ever made was not being more transparent on that,' Crosby says, referring to a flaw Bitdefender identified in its camera in 2019, but which the company didn't disclose to customers until 2022. VerifiedView is available now via a firmware update that began rolling out in April. 'It's 100% deployed on our most popular cameras — Wyze Cam v4, v3, Pan v3, and OG,' Crosby says, adding that it's coming to the rest soon. Some older cameras don't have the hardware to support it, but Wyze is exploring ways to accommodate them. Users can check to see if their cameras are on the new firmware on Wyze's site. Investing in rebuilding After the 2024 breach, Cosby says Wyze regrouped around security. 'We went through our entire security stack, evaluating where we can improve, reviewing third-party tools, and removing them where we can. Where we have to use them, we are only building with the best platforms,' he says. 'We've invested in AWS tools – including Lacework, Security Hub, GuardDuty, and Q CLI.' Wyze also hired several security firms 'to verify and validate what we've done.' VerifiedView should prevent the types of scenarios Wyze experienced in 2023 and 2024 around issues with third-party tools. 'If everything else fails and people get into the cloud or data gets switched, people cannot see other people's content,' Crosby says. It works by attaching your user ID to your camera – and therefore onto any photo, video, or livestream it produces. Before you can access the footage, VerifiedView checks that the ID from the device you're using matches. If it doesn't, access is denied. The tech is similar to DRM (Digital Rights Management) created to combat content piracy, explains Sharon Hagi, a cybersecurity expert and chief security officer at Silicon Labs, who reviewed Wyze's published materials at The Verge's request. 'At the core of VerifiedView is a well-established and critical data security concept: cryptographic binding of user identity and device data to digital content,' he says, calling it a significant step forward in smart home security. While VerifiedView is designed to prevent unauthorized access to your footage, it can't stop someone with access to your account from viewing it. To address that, Wyze claims login security has been strengthened. Two-factor authentication is now required by default, secure sign-in options are available, and the company has deployed tools to detect suspicious logins. Crosby emphasized Wyze has invested a lot of money into these changes and that the ongoing costs to maintain VerifiedView, including engineering and cloud infrastructure, are substantial. This raises the question of how sustainable this is for a bootstrapped startup with razor-thin margins. Could VerifiedView eventually become a paid feature? 'We will never charge for this feature and we will never discontinue it,' Crosby says. 'It will be a regular feature for all Wyze Cams going forward.' Another question is why not just build in end-to-end encryption (E2EE), which ensures only the user and their authorized devices can access footage? Most cloud-based security cameras, including Wyze, encrypt data while 'in transit' and 'at rest,' which protects against bad actors, but allows the company to access it while on their servers to provide additional features. 'VerifiedView offers very similar protections to E2EE without compromising the user experience – it felt like the perfect trade-off.' Crosby says E2EE is the 'holy grail,' but it breaks the features users value. 'With E2EE, you can't use third-party integrations like Alexa, and AI identifications in the cloud don't work. VerifiedView offers very similar protections to E2EE without compromising the user experience — it felt like the perfect tradeoff.' It's true that encrypting your footage keeps a company's cloud servers from looking at it and acting on your behalf to tell you when, say, a package is at your door. But some companies like Apple, with its E2EE HomeKit Secure Video, use a local server to do that processing. Alongside the local storage it offers on some cameras, Crosby says they are exploring adding more local processing, something it has on its higher-end cameras. 'We want to move more and more to the edge,' he says, adding that could mean new local devices, but didn't clarify if that's new cameras or some type of hub for local processing. Wyze is also working on bringing back Real-Time Streaming Protocol, Crosby says. This would let users stream video to a local recording device and/or platforms like Home Assistant. When asked why not at least offer E2EE as an option, Crosby again pointed to the lost functionality of E2EE, such as Wyze's new AI features that help cut down on notifications. 'We created VerifiedView to be a third layer of protection so users can benefit from the AI features … while knowing their videos are secure.' Clearly, the cloud will always be a core part of the Wyze service. 'There will probably always be some sort of edge-cloud collaboration,' Crosby says. 'Today, we do the easy stuff on the edge and the hard stuff on the cloud. As our cameras get smarter, we move more to the edge. But situations are getting harder, too, and we're adding more use cases to what we monitor. So, it will always be a process of learning and getting better at something, and then moving that to the edge.' Crosby believes that users should now feel safe using Wyze's security cameras. 'We are more locked down than ever,' he says. 'I feel very confident. And while you can't be too confident in this game, because everyone feels confident until something happens, we're building layers of tools on top of each other. It's the best we can do at this point, and I feel very confident with it.'
The Verge
18-06-2025
- The Verge
Wyze says its security cameras deserve your trust again
In an effort to restore trust in the security of its cameras, smart home brand Wyze has developed VerifiedView — a new layer of protection that embeds your user ID into the metadata of every photo, video, and livestream. Wyze claims the system matches this data to your account before playback, blocking unauthorized access to your footage. 'This is a safety net,' Wyze co-founder and CMO Dave Crosby tells The Verge. 'On top of doing everything we can to protect users, we've built this double check at the end to make sure that they're extra protected.' 'We realized that we cannot survive if we keep making these stupid mistakes.' The move follows several rough years for Wyze on the security front, starting with a vulnerability on its v1 cameras that it knew about for three years and never disclosed, followed by two high-profile incidents in 2023 and 2024, where users saw images from other people's cameras. Crosby says that Wyze now sees fixing its security practices as existential. 'We realized that we cannot survive if we keep making these stupid mistakes that we're making,' he says. 'We've got to make monumental changes so this kind of stuff never happens again.' VerifiedView is just one result of this major shift; Wyze has also expanded its in-house security team, Crosby says, and 'invested millions of dollars' in strengthening its security architecture from top to bottom. That includes re-architecting its security stack, requiring two-factor authentication, launching a bug bounty program, and deploying monitoring tools to detect and prevent threats. Wyze is also committed to being more transparent around security. 'One of the biggest mistakes we ever made was not being more transparent on that,' Crosby says, referring to a flaw Bitdefender identified in its camera in 2019, but which the company didn't disclose to customers until 2022. VerifiedView is available now via a firmware update that began rolling out in April. 'It's 100% deployed on our most popular cameras — Wyze Cam v4, v3, Pan v3, and OG,' Crosby says, adding that it's coming to the rest soon. Some older cameras don't have the hardware to support it, but Wyze is exploring ways to accommodate them. Users can check to see if their cameras are on the new firmware on Wyze's site. Investing in rebuilding After the 2024 breach, Cosby says Wyze regrouped around security. 'We went through our entire security stack, evaluating where we can improve, reviewing third-party tools, and removing them where we can. Where we have to use them, we are only building with the best platforms,' he says. 'We've invested in AWS tools – including Lacework, Security Hub, GuardDuty, and Q CLI.' Wyze also hired several security firms 'to verify and validate what we've done.' VerifiedView should prevent the types of scenarios Wyze experienced in 2023 and 2024 around issues with third-party tools. 'If everything else fails and people get into the cloud or data gets switched, people cannot see other people's content,' Crosby says. It works by attaching your user ID to your camera – and therefore onto any photo, video, or livestream it produces. Before you can access the footage, VerifiedView checks that the ID from the device you're using matches. If it doesn't, access is denied. The tech is similar to DRM (Digital Rights Management) created to combat content piracy, explains Sharon Hagi, a cybersecurity expert and chief security officer at Silicon Labs, who reviewed Wyze's published materials at The Verge's request. 'At the core of VerifiedView is a well-established and critical data security concept: cryptographic binding of user identity and device data to digital content,' he says, calling it a significant step forward in smart home security. While VerifiedView is designed to prevent unauthorized access to your footage, it can't stop someone with access to your account from viewing it. To address that, Wyze claims login security has been strengthened. Two-factor authentication is now required by default, secure sign-in options are available, and the company has deployed tools to detect suspicious logins. Crosby emphasized Wyze has invested a lot of money into these changes and that the ongoing costs to maintain VerifiedView, including engineering and cloud infrastructure, are substantial. This raises the question of how sustainable this is for a bootstrapped startup with razor-thin margins. Could VerifiedView eventually become a paid feature? 'We will never charge for this feature and we will never discontinue it,' Crosby says. 'It will be a regular feature for all Wyze Cams going forward.' Another question is why not just build in end-to-end encryption (E2EE), which ensures only the user and their authorized devices can access footage? Most cloud-based security cameras, including Wyze, encrypt data while 'in transit' and 'at rest,' which protects against bad actors, but allows the company to access it while on their servers to provide additional features. 'VerifiedView offers very similar protections to E2EE without compromising the user experience – it felt like the perfect trade-off.' Crosby says E2EE is the 'holy grail,' but it breaks the features users value. 'With E2EE, you can't use third-party integrations like Alexa, and AI identifications in the cloud don't work. VerifiedView offers very similar protections to E2EE without compromising the user experience — it felt like the perfect tradeoff.' It's true that encrypting your footage keeps a company's cloud servers from looking at it and acting on your behalf to tell you when, say, a package is at your door. But some companies like Apple, with its E2EE HomeKit Secure Video, use a local server to do that processing. Alongside the local storage it offers on some cameras, Crosby says they are exploring adding more local processing, something it has on its higher-end cameras. 'We want to move more and more to the edge,' he says, adding that could mean new local devices, but didn't clarify if that means new cameras or some type of hub for local processing. Wyze is also working on bringing back Real-Time Streaming Protocol, Crosby says. This would let users stream video to a local recording device and/or platforms like Home Assistant. When asked why not at least offer E2EE as an option, Crosby again pointed to the lost functionality of E2EE, such as Wyze's new AI features that help cut down on notifications. 'We created VerifiedView to be a third layer of protection so users can benefit from the AI features … while knowing their videos are secure.' Clearly, the cloud will always be a core part of the Wyze service. 'There will probably always be some sort of edge-cloud collaboration,' Crosby says. 'Today, we do the easy stuff on the edge and the hard stuff on the cloud. As our cameras get smarter, we move more to the edge. But situations are getting harder, too, and we're adding more use cases to what we monitor. So, it will always be a process of learning and getting better at something, and then moving that to the edge.' Crosby believes that users should now feel safe using Wyze's security cameras. 'We are more locked down than ever,' he says. 'I feel very confident. And while you can't be too confident in this game, because everyone feels confident until something happens, we're building layers of tools on top of each other. It's the best we can do at this point, and I feel very confident with it.'
CNET
03-06-2025
- Business
- CNET
Wyze's New Bulb Cam Turns Any Light Bulb Socket Into a Security Camera
If you don't want to deal with the hassle of setting up cords or batteries for an outdoor security camera, you're in luck: the new Wyze Bulb Cam is powered by your outdoor lighting fixtures. The new camera is linked to a smart light bulb that you can screw into any existing socket. Both of these devices work in tandem to provide brightness and surveillance capabilities, and you can control them from the Wyze app. The Bulb Cam provides a 160-degree field of view with 2K HD resolution, wide dynamic range and color night vision capabilities. It comes equipped with a two-way microphone and can record up to 256GB of continuous local footage (though a microSD card is not included with your purchase of the Bulb Cam). Paid subscribers to Wyze's Cam Unlimited Pro feature can receive AI-powered push notifications when suspicious motion is detected on the camera. Wyze co-founder and CMO Dave Crosby explained that the Bulb Cam was devised as a way to help provide security for outdoor areas where an outlet isn't readily available. "The Wyze Bulb Cam makes keeping an eye on those places easy with a high-quality camera that's affordable and simple to set up," he said. "It's literally as easy as screwing in a light bulb." The Wyze Bulb Cam is retailing for $50 -- any accessory bulbs you need to buy will be an additional $17 each. Up to five Wyze accessory bulbs can be connected within a single Bulb Cam system.
Business Wire
03-06-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Wyze Launches Bulb Cam: Turn Any Light Fixture Into a Smart Security Camera and Smart Light
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Wyze, a company creating products that make homes smart and safe, today announced the launch of the Wyze Bulb Cam, a motion-activated smart light and security camera conveniently powered by any light fixture for effortless, all-in-one outdoor protection and automation. With the Bulb Cam, users get wire-free, pro-grade protection without the hassle of cords or charging batteries. Wyze announced the launch of the Wyze Bulb Cam, a motion-activated smart light and security camera conveniently powered by any light fixture for effortless, all-in-one outdoor protection and automation. Share 'We know areas of your home you want to protect, like garages, decks, and pools, may not be close to an outlet,' said Dave Crosby, co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Wyze. 'The Wyze Bulb Cam makes keeping an eye on those places easy with a high-quality camera that's affordable and simple to set up, just like all of our other Wyze cameras. It's literally as easy as screwing in a light bulb.' Wyze Bulb Cam Features Smart Surveillance and Lighting Combined — A powerful security system and a smart, app-controlled light bulb together in one, convenient, affordable device. Adjustable, Wide View — Protect more space with a 160°-wide field of view and manually extend, rotate, and tilt the camera to find the right angle. Crystal Clear Visuals, Day or Night — 2K HD resolution, WDR, and color night vision provide an even, detailed, and full-color picture around the clock. Grouped Smart Lighting — Create a full-coverage smart lighting system by auto-connecting up to five of the new Wyze Accessory Bulbs. Custom, Dimmable Lighting Control — Customize the brightness of Wyze's long-lasting 800 Lumen LED bulb. Enhanced Two-Way Audio and 24/7 Local Recording — Speak to people and pets from anywhere, directly from your smartphone. Gain peace of mind from continuous local recording to a microSD card (sold separately) up to 256 GB—no subscription required. AI-Powered Notifications — Descriptive Alerts accurately summarize motion events using AI to provide critical details and contextual information, and the 'NBD' Filter smartly reviews events and decides whether to notify users when motion is detected. Available with Cam Unlimited Pro for just $19.99 per month or $199.99 per year. Hassle-Free Setup and Integrations — No need to scan QR codes with quick and easy Bluetooth® setup. Bulb Cam integrates with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, and Wyze Rule for seamless automation and customization. Pricing and Availability The Wyze Bulb Cam ($49.98) and Wyze Accessory Bulb ($16.98) are now available at Visit to learn more. About Wyze Wyze is on a mission to make quality smart home technology accessible. Our innovative product team is driven to deliver tech products, software, and AI features that make our customers' lives easier while remaining accessible. Wyze's user- and wallet-friendly security cameras, home monitoring, connected home, health and wellness, and lifestyle products are trusted by more than 10 million households. For more information, visit
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints delivers 40,000 pounds of food to Spokane Salvation Army
Feb. 18—More than 40,000 pounds of food were delivered Tuesday morning to the Spokane Salvation Army by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The delivery from the church's Salt Lake City headquarters will provide meals to between 800 and 1,000 Spokane families, according to the Salvation Army. "We're seeing more and more families seeking assistance, and so we are excited for this truckload of food to put food on hard-working families' tables," Salvation Army captain David Cain said. The church dropped off 72 cases of spaghetti, 68 cases of cream of mushroom soup, another 68 cases of pork and beans, and much more, according to a news release. Donations at the Salvation Army have been a challenge this year, he added. A call for help was put out to the Latter-day Saints church, which has previously been known as the Mormon Church. Spokane Latter-day Saints Mission President Todd Kerr said the church is trying to be a good local citizen for the Spokane area. "We think the world of Salvation Army. They do such a great job returning to the community, and we're super excited to be here today to help with this offloading and process and to support their efforts to provide to the needs of those who really need some help," Kerr said. The donation "comes at a crucial time," since families may have to choose between heating their homes during the recent cold snap and buying food, the news release said. Once the truck from Salt Lake City arrived, approximately a dozen LDS missionaries stationed in Spokane unloaded the dry and canned food. They were joined by Dave Crosby and his three children to unload the truck. The family belongs to the local church and runs the popular family vlogging and music YouTube channel "The Crosbys." "It is super important to teach your kids to perform service whenever you can. We want to help be representatives and promote all the goodness that the church is trying to do in the area," Dave Crosby said. Leaders of the two Christian groups said interfaith cooperation in helping those in need was essential. "We're all God's children. Right? It's like the basics of survival — just being fed so you can meet your other needs. It's very important to us to feed the needy and the poor," Latter-day Saints spokesperson Kata Dean said.
