Removing the microphone on the wyzecam v2
Today we are going to be physically removing the microphone on the wyzecam v2.
I have personally spoken to many people and read on the online wyze cam forum https://forums.wyzecam.com that many people are not concerned with the security and privacy of their wyze cams and other low cost home security cameras because they point their cameras towards parts of their home which they feel aren't private, such as through a window toward their front door or driveway. But what many people do not realize is that the microphone of the wyze camera is not directional. The microphone is not physically attached to the mic hole in the front of the camera. It is instead attached to a pcb that is suspended freely within the camera housing allowing it to pickup audio from virtually all directions. This also prevents you from just covering the mic hole with tape. This is something ive already tried before going on this adventure.
Id also like to breifly mention that wyze does offer an in app solution:
The primary issues with this option are that it does not allow you to prevent people from live listening to audio and also it isnt password protected or authenticated in any way(beyond you being logged into your account). So if your wyze account were to become comprimised in any way anyone who logs in would be able to toggle this setting. This software setting also puts alot of faith into the wyze development team and the security of wyzecam software/servers. But I digress.
Disassembling the cam
you will require the following tools.
A flat headed screwdriver to pry the mic off the PCB
A Phillips head screwdriver with a moderately narrow shaft to fit into a plastic tube
and of course a wyzecam to teardown
we will start by flipping the wyzecam over and moving the base(grey part) out of the way to gain access to its two bottom screws.
After removing the screws, I recomend rotating the base(grey part) to the side that had the screws and using the base to pull off the bottom plate. This works because one side of the base is held on with screws and the other with plastic clips.
With the base removed our next step will be to remove the camera backplate. This piece is unfortunately held in with plastic clips. I found it easiest to push the backplate in with one hand and to pull one of the sides away from the camera with the other. This step required significantly more force than i was expecting.
Heres the rear of the camera. The wires going from the camera to the backplate are for the speaker. The wire going from the camera to the left side of the camera housing is a wifi antenna that is glued to the side of the camera housing.
We will now remove the screw located at the bottom of the white plastic tube(next to the mini usb port) in the bottom of the photo. This is the only screw that holds all the guts of the camera in place.
With the one screw removed we can partially lift the camera guts out of place. only partially because we didnt bother with disconecting the wifi antenna cable or any cable for that matter. From the photo directly below the camera lens you can see the gold colored microphone labeled Mic1. You want to pry that off with a screwdriver.
Heres a photo with the microphone removed. The two pcb contact points were origionally undernieth the microphone. Now all thats left to do is follow these steps in reverse and reassemble the camera.
Finally, I would like to point out that without a microphone you will of couse lose your ability to record and live listen to sound. But you will also loose your ability to have your camera record an event when the camera detects noise and your camera will loose its ability to detect Smoke and CO alarms.
