Posted 1 September 2021
Yi Camera update removes major features!!
So Yi Cameras, now rebranding to Kami, just did the thing we all fear when we buy tech. It has removed some of its best features and put them behind a new paywall.
Previously, you could set your camera's to trigger on motion detection, capture 6secs of footage and send that to your phone. That's now gone. Still get a trigger but says "no videos uploaded to cloud today".
You also used to be able to scroll back through any previous recordings you had, both cloud and on your SD card. Now you can't see any previous cloud events (without subscription) and only 24hrs on your SD card (where previous was 30 day rolling).
So many of the free features which were the reason I bought the cameras are now gone and only available if I now pay £12 a month.
Horrible bait and switch. Feel conned.
So I'd suggest avoiding Yi/Kami. Recommendations on a new system? The Eufy stuff looks nice ...
update: app store, sort reviews by most recent. You'll see a lot of unhappy customers.
Previously, you could set your camera's to trigger on motion detection, capture 6secs of footage and send that to your phone. That's now gone. Still get a trigger but says "no videos uploaded to cloud today".
You also used to be able to scroll back through any previous recordings you had, both cloud and on your SD card. Now you can't see any previous cloud events (without subscription) and only 24hrs on your SD card (where previous was 30 day rolling).
So many of the free features which were the reason I bought the cameras are now gone and only available if I now pay £12 a month.
Horrible bait and switch. Feel conned.
So I'd suggest avoiding Yi/Kami. Recommendations on a new system? The Eufy stuff looks nice ...
update: app store, sort reviews by most recent. You'll see a lot of unhappy customers.
Community Updates
52 Comments
sorted byI know some people are wary about installing APK's from unknown sources (though most of the APK sites have been around for years now) but I've never had an issue with any of them.
I've downgraded the app to their previous version and everything is back to normal. Just need to block the app from updating again.
Looking at the official reseller on Amazon they are still listing with the 6 sec clip of detection, so not very good for those who buy now and end up unable to access the 6 sec clips. I guess Amazon will see a steady increase of complaints / returns.
Once the listing is updated and the word out there that the 6 sec clips and other features have been removed I don't really see these cameras selling well at all, they are decent and the overall package with the app a good stater for anyone wanting a no nonsense easy set up, but with so many options out there now many I feel will spend a little bit more and get an altogether better camera with future proof app / local network storage.
Dear Steven
thank you very much for your message and we are sorry for the inconvenience.
Do you have an iPhone? If so, this is a temporary bug which should be fixed soon.
Kinldy keep us updated in reply to this message.
Looking forward to hearing from you
Sincerely,
YI Technology - Customer Care
Try Aptoide, it's similar to the Play Store. That's where I got the old version from.
Thanks... I just did this via
apkmirror.com/apk…ad/
It works just fine.
Also... Here's the direct link for Google play store to turn off automatic updates.
play.google.com/sto…nal
Same here, I just had to uninstall then re install the older version again, my auto update is also off
I had my app set to auto update, so maybe make sure you don't update 🙈
They removed the timeline scanning feature for about 5 months but it eventually came back in an app update. Hopefully Yi might pull a similar U-turn?
Thank you, you are so clever. After following your instructions I now have the old version of the app with the useful features returned. Hopefully saved me £££££ on some new cameras.
Thanks for the advice. Any recommendations on which site to download it from? Google didn't bring up an exact match for the _202 APK, although there was a close one on apkmirror.
Thanks
Similarly, there were many disgruntled customers.
On the camera page there are two buttons Cloud and SD Card, if I select cloud I get the problems as mentioned above, if I select SD card I can rewind the footage back for days like I always could. However it doesn't allow me to pick the day, I have to manually move the slider back through the hours.
Can switch to landscape mode as well as before.
I don't have trigger alerts set anyway as they would go off every minute with my street.
Other features have gone.
Used to be able to watch the camera in a small floating window whilst doing something else, can't now. Also with used to be able to fast forward at 4x or 8x for my Kami (Yi) cameras.
I have gone back to an older version of the app
I downloaded it from apkmirror
Correct.
Of course, we all love it when our mobile from last year gets updated to the latest version of Android or iOS, but this is the downside of long updates...
If you got them from amazon they will refund you for all that are under a year old
I have it on iOS
Happy again!
Really hope this is not the case.
Hi. Thanks for the tip. Any brands/units I should investigate?
Why they thought this is a good idea I do not know. Most if not all have purchased YI due to their great price and the fact no subscription was needed. There's plenty of alternatives so all this will so is force people to buy other brands. And a £12/ month subscription is ridiculous.. I thought RINGs subscription at £2.50/ month for my doorbell was a lot.
forum.yitechnology.com/t/n…/26
I am absolutely disgusted at the way Kami have updated the application. They did not tell us that they were going to make this app useless. Just did the update automatically. With my iPad Pro and my iPhone I can only look at a video in Portrait mode.
The first picture shows my 3 cameras. The next with a fox on the wall is a normal fullscreen landscape picture from the SSD card. Fine! The following picture is how the portrait mode is the only available way to check a notification. Just look at the view at the top of the page on the only available view squashed at the top of the page. I wear glasses. Terrible terrible Kami.
That is it. Can you believe it?
There is much more than this. Need to find out how to delete this con to persuade us join iCloud subscription is not good business especially to loyal customers who have supported and recomended friends to buy Yi / Kami cameras. Ok if they started with new accounts to gain new business NOT!!!!
Will download old version and leave it at that
Hi, do I need to download the aptoide app and then search for the YI V. 4 from that app?
Do you have timestamps on your videos? Mine have gone, so while I can scroll back loads (a pain) I can't tell what day I'm on!
Can't we flash these things to get onvif support?
Also if I purchased another one from Amazon now and use the same method it would also work? (edited)
You are correct, mine have gone as well. Does make it hard to find anything
I only have one camera online at the moment as I'm refurbing the house, and thats an external but I'm guessing it affects internal too. I thought it was burnt in on the video itself, but I guess not. Is it gone for cloud subscribers too?
Also iv just noticed that whilst I used to have about 11 days stored videos on my memory card all my cameras now have a max of 6 days... Thats with using the older app version. Anyone else found this or have i truly lost the plot. I have 64gb cards and 128gb cards and all are max of 6 days recording so looks like old age hasnt kicked in too much just yet but Yi /Kami have changed this.
I did the same, however, one day later, and it's updated itself again to the newer version
Think thats what I'm going to do
Which does what?