topic Re: Frequent camera connection failures in Arlo Pro

Frequent camera connection failures

HB15 — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 19:20:54 GMT

For those of you who have had your Pro systems up and running for a while, can you share with me how freuqently you try to connect to a camera and get a connection failure.

I'm finding that I get these random failures several times a day, and not specific to any of the four cameras I have.

So far I've been able to try a variety of techniques to get the camera to "wake up" and connect to the base:

1) Toggle the on/off switch under devices

2) Keep hitting the "go live" button until it connects

3) Switch from my Iphone to my Mac

4) Shut down the application and start it up again.

Eventually, some combination of the above four techniques seems to wake the camera up and establish a connection, but it's quite frustrating.

I'm on the latest version of firmware for the cameras and base. Iphone 7 Plus on latest version of iOS. All cameras showing 3 bars signal strength to base.

I also notice that push to talk will not work on my Mac using safari, but switching to Firefox works fine. Is this a known problem as well?

Re: Frequent camera connection failures

BosGuy — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 21:15:44 GMT

I just installed the Arlo system and get the exact same failed to connect error on the app. It is very annoying and not stable. Does this happen to everyone and people just deal with it?

Re: Frequent camera connection failures

jguerdat — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 22:56:06 GMT

I have two that have never gone offline. What is the WiFi signal showing for your cameras? How close are they to the base? Are there any 2.4GHz wireless devices near the base? Have you tried both the app and a browser? For the app, have you tried both cell service as well as WiFi?

Re: Frequent camera connection failures

HB15 — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 23:10:41 GMT

The cameras are anywhere from 25 feet to 100 feet from the base. They generally all show three bars signal strength but I have noticed that sometimes the furthest away units will drop to two bars and then sudden go back to three.

I do have a dual band router about three feet away. I've moved it as far away as practical to minimize interference but I don't really have any other place to put it. Is 2.4 Ghz interference a definite issue for these units?

There is no consistency on which cameras will fail. All of them do on occasion but eventually come back online after fiddling with the software.

Re: Frequent camera connection failures

TomMac — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 00:21:56 GMT

Sorry ,can't help... my PRO has been rock solid

Re: Frequent camera connection failures

HB15 — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 01:28:44 GMT

I disabled the 2.4Ghz frequency on my router, so that it now only supports 5Ghz. I'm not sure what devices may break as a result of this, but I'll keep an eye on the camera connections to see if this improves reliability and report back.

Re: Frequent camera connection failures

HB15 — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:57:33 GMT

So far I've had two failures to connect since disabling the 2.4Ghz band on my router. And my nest thermostat stopped working. Apparently 2nd gen Nest only supports 2.4Ghz, while 3rd Gen supports both bands. I was able to reconnect the Nest to an alternate access point on the second floor, so no big deal.

But it appears that the connection failures are not exclusively related to 2.4Ghz interference.

Any other suggestions for troubleshooting this?

Re: Frequent camera connection failures

jguerdat — Thu, 22 Dec 2016 18:24:59 GMT

If it's interference, it may not be WiFi interference but 2.4GHz devices such as cordless phones, etc. And it may not be interference at all but something else, such as a flakey base.