The Wyze Cam v3 is finally available for purchase after a short launch-day website snafu, but that $20 launch price the company told us during our review hasn't quite panned out — at least, not the way any of us thought it would. Right now, the only way to way to buy the camera is with a Cam Plus subscription, which can cost you almost twice as much, depending on how you do it. And when sales open more widely later, it still won't be $20.

Right now, there are two ways to buy the Wyze Cam v3. Cam Plus subscribers already paying for a subscription can pick one up for $20 (plus $5 for shipping, as usual). Everyone else will need to either pay $35 (plus $5 for shipping) for a Wyze Cam v3 plus a year of Cam Plus, or you'll need to subscribe to Cam Plus separately ($2 a month or $15 a year) and qualify for that $20 pricing. Additional cameras on top of the $35 price will only cost $20, so you can add one $35 camera to your cart and then load up on the $20 versions, and the Wyze Cam v3 does not need Cam Plus to work, so you can buy one for a friend or cancel your subscription after purchase.

If you think you can circumvent the Cam Plus requirement by buying another Wyze product with a Cam Plus trial, we're told by the company that won't work.

The product listing originally and misleadingly claimed that the $35 price included free shipping, but we're told that was a "typo."

Wyze claims this adjusted pricing is due to issues securing components and that things will change when supplies even out. But even then, we're told that non-Plus subscribers won't get the camera at the original $20 price the company claimed last year. The stabilized price for non-subscribers will be $24 (again, plus $5 shipping — see a trend?), though it will remain $20 for Cam Plus subscribers. This is even more frustrating when you consider pre-orders managed to get the real $20 price without being Cam Plus subscribers.

Jump to 0:41 for Wyze's original claim that pricing wouldn't change.

In short, Wyze's original claims that the new camera wouldn't raise prices over the prior version, which ran a flat $20 without any required subscriptions, are bunk. Customers either pay more right now by virtue of the mandatory cost of Cam Plus, or they pay more later at the higher $24 non-Cam Plus pricing. But no matter what, everyone pays more than the $20 the company originally claimed last year, and more than the $20 folks paid during the original pre-order period.

As an aside, I was on deck to pick up probably five of these for my new house, and while I'm totally fine paying more given the increased costs and ongoing shortages, I'm upset by the company's efforts to obfuscate this change. This overly-complex pricing, paired with a lack of sufficient communication regarding pricing changes, has me sketched out. Rather than reward this sort of behavior, I think I'll hold out for another product — ideally with better Assistant integration.

Source: Wyze