topic Re: Problems setting up USB on Base Station in Arlo Essential Wire-Free Cameras

Problems setting up USB on Base Station

TexasT — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 16:27:08 GMT

Hi all,

I've got an older Arlo system with a base station that has two USB ports. I want to have my recordings save locally on the USB (because it's no longer in the cloud, Arlo turned it off, and I don't want to subscribe).

I'm following the instructions online, which seems simple, however, I don't see the USB options on the base station i.e. I've got two USB ports, but, when I have plugged in a USB (have tried three different ones, just to be sure), the options outlined in the instructions do not appear on the base station device.

Ideas or suggestions?

Re: Problems setting up USB on Base Station

StephenB — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 19:07:03 GMT

@TexasT wrote:

I've got an older Arlo system with a base station that has two USB ports. I want to have my recordings save locally on the USB

What model is the base station? There should be a label that starts with VMBxxxx on it.

@TexasT wrote:

because it's no longer in the cloud, Arlo turned it off

They haven't turned anything off, and have redacted their earlier statements about ending 7-day cloud storage for legacy cameras. Now they are saying it will continue for the indefinite future.

Re: Problems setting up USB on Base Station

TexasT — Wed, 05 Apr 2023 20:38:14 GMT

Thanks for any help, all my recordings stopped on March 31 (last day) and haven’t kicked back in. The model on the base station says VMB3000 and it does have two USB ports, figured I could try to use those

Re: Problems setting up USB on Base Station

DannyBearAgain — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 00:23:41 GMT

Only the vmb4xxx series Base stations support USB storage.

Have you been using email notifications for motion alerts?

Re: Problems setting up USB on Base Station

TexasT — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 01:04:45 GMT

Hm, weird, why would there be two USB ports on my base station then? Are they for something else? And I’ve had all motion alerts and video files saved for one week until this past Tuesday. What a pain!

Re: Problems setting up USB on Base Station

DannyBearAgain — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 01:39:16 GMT

I must admit I also wondered the same, @StephenB may know.

If your able to make manual recordings and they play ok then the issue is more likely related to the camera mode rules not triggering the recordings.

I wonder if could be arlo’s way of getting around the 7days cloud EOL policy retraction by disabling motion detection.

Re: Problems setting up USB on Base Station

StephenB — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 02:01:45 GMT

@DannyBearAgain wrote:

I must admit I also wondered the same, @StephenB may know.

I don't know, but suspect Arlo (Netgear back then) was planning to add storage to that base, but ran into a problem when they tried.

@DannyBearAgain wrote:

I wonder if could be arlo’s way of getting around the 7days cloud EOL policy retraction by disabling motion detection.

Seems unlikely. They retracted it in response to the community backlash, and trying something like that would provoke an even stronger negative response.

It might be a longer-term side effect of the server outages in a week or so ago.

Re: Problems setting up USB on Base Station

jguerdat — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 14:07:07 GMT

Unfortunately, @DannyBearAgain seems to see nefarious motives in too many things. I guess time will show that it simply isn't true.

The VMB3000 was released with 2 USB ports but nothing was even stated what they were for. When we asked about uses for them, it was always stated that they were not useful for anything. This was long before local recordings ever happened. If you want, check very old threads about this back in the mid-20-teens - there were lots of them all asking the same thing and all had the same answer.

Re: Problems setting up USB on Base Station

TexasT — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 16:39:27 GMT

Thanks so much, all, for the comments and advice. Recordings started back up today! Woohoo!