topic Re: Stay away from new app in Arlo Pro 3

Stay away from new app - Geofencing issues

razrback99 — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 20:11:22 GMT

Unless forced, do not upgrade to the new app. It is so buggie, even a programmer like myself can’t tell what the heck it’s doing. Geo fencing seems to only work one way, if it works when you leave, it won’t work when you return or it won’t work when you leave but works when you return, which is stupid because it never armed to start with. You can’t tell who it thinks is still in geofence anymore.

Hate to say it but after 7 years with it working very well, may be time for me to look at other providers. I can’t believe they implemented something like this. I would fire the whole damn bunch, revert everyone back to old app and start over.

Re: Stay away from new app

BrookeN — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 20:07:12 GMT

You will want to start under Routines and then modes. There is three mode options:

Arm Away

Arm Home

Standby

Start with the Arm Away mode ~ once you click on that you will see all your cameras listed. You will want to click on each individual camera and choose each option you are wanting for that individual camera.

Standby Active

Disarm your devices and keep specific ones armed.

Once each section is set up you can now manually change each mode from the dashboard. However, if you want them to change automatically that is when you set up automations and schedules.

You will now click on Automations on the top next to the modes option. Two options will pop up:

Add schedule

Add Arrive/Leave

You will click onto add schedule. From there you can customize a schedule. You can click on the day of the week you are wanting your schedule. and then you can either choose sunrise and sunset. Or you can add on the times you want.

For example: I am going to choose 6:00 pm as my time Monday-Friday. I am going to choose what mode I want it to change to and then the action you are wanting it to do. You can add as many actions that you want.

You will see your saved schedule and then you can add more as needed.

Now that you nave the modes set up as well as the scheduling you will now want to set up the Arrive/Leave.

Under this section of Anyone Arrives you can choose Everyone or You can Choose Specific People. Same as for Everyone Leaves.

You will want to add the Action for what you want to happen if someone arrives home or leaves the home. You can choose for it to either change the mode or Enable/Disable the Automation.

I hope this helps, if you have any questions let me know.

Re: Stay away from new app

razrback99 — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 23:43:56 GMT

Thanks for your reply, but not the issue. The problem is, geofencing doesn’t work, it either doesn’t see those allowed, or it just sets the system armed (rules are when everyone leaves to arm) when I’m sitting here. I can’t tell which users the system thinks is in or out geofence any longer, but it should see me, the owner of the system.

Re: Stay away from new app

StephenB — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 00:46:45 GMT

@razrback99 wrote:

The problem is, geofencing doesn’t work, it either doesn’t see those allowed, or it just sets the system armed (rules are when everyone leaves to arm) when I’m sitting here. I can’t tell which users the system thinks is in or out geofence any longer, but it should see me, the owner of the system.

First, you can check the available geofencing devices on your phone by

pressing your profile in upper left
press Privacy Center
select Available Geofence Devices

The phone you are using is first. You can edit (or delete) devices using your account. But if you shared the cameras with "friend" account, then the friend devices need to be edited/deleted using the "friend" accounts.

Sometimes there are dups, so it is useful to log into each device, and edit the name of that device in the list so they are all unique. Then delete any dups.

As far as the reliability of geofencing triggers, I suggest the following:

set up Arm Home and Arm Away so they are identical
set up the Arrive automation so it is always enabled, and switches the mode to "Arm Home"
similarly, set up Leave so it is always enabled, and switches the mode to "Arm Away".

You will then see the mode switches to "Arm Home" and "Arm Away" in your feed whenever the geofencing triggers. That makes it pretty easy to see how reliable it is.

Note you can do this on each phone by selecting just that one device in the automations, instead of "anyone arrives" and "everyone leaves".

Re: Stay away from new app

razrback99 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 02:07:10 GMT

Yes, I understand how to see my phone. I can no longer see the status of every phone I have granted access. In the old app, I could see everyone and if arlo thought they were in the zone. At times it would leave someone connected, I could turn their phone off and back on and it would reset. How do I do that now?

Re: Stay away from new app

StephenB — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 13:23:33 GMT

@razrback99 wrote:

In the old app, I could see everyone and if arlo thought they were in the zone. At times it would leave someone connected,

Not sure I understand what you are meaning by "leave someone connected". Are you saying that the system thought they were home, when they were actually away? Or something else???

Re: Stay away from new app

razrback99 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 17:25:06 GMT

Sorry, yes when the app had someone at a location and they were not, i would uncheck their box save and then recheck and all was well. I believe you said that if the app thinks someone is within the geofence, their name(s) will no longer display grayed out. I haven't specifically seen this happen, may just haven't noticed. I will verify later.

Question - if someone is not grayed out, can i click on them and perform the above.

Other issue, the system does not see my phone, at least at location 1. When all others leave, system (location 1), will arm even though I'm here. As above, my phone displays as grayed out. Please note, I have 2 locations (accounts) and I share between the 2 so I can see both when in the app. One is free, other is pay (not by choice).

Re: Stay away from new app

StephenB — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 17:59:19 GMT

@razrback99 wrote:

Please note, I have 2 locations (accounts) and I share between the 2 so I can see both when in the app. One is free, other is pay (not by choice).

Just to clarify - do you mean two locations in one account? Or two accounts, which cameras in one being shared with the other?

@razrback99 wrote:

I believe you said that if the app thinks someone is within the geofence, their name(s) will no longer display grayed out.

No, I didn't say that. I believe it is still supposed to do that. But it's not something I've paid much attention to. I'll take a look the next time I leave the zone.

Re: Stay away from new app

razrback99 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 19:41:03 GMT

Two email accounts (one for each location) - two arlo systems

1) Free - base and 5 cameras at one location

2) Pay - base and currently 6 cameras at another location

Re: Stay away from new app

StephenB — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 19:47:00 GMT

@razrback99 wrote:

Two email accounts (one for each location) - two arlo systems

1) Free - base and 5 cameras at one location

2) Pay - base and currently 6 cameras at another location

It seems likely that geofence triggering for the free account will fail when you are logged into the paid account (and vice versa). Do you think that going on now?

FWIW, with "Feed" you could consolidate to one account with two locations. You could still have a paid plan at one location, but not the other.

Re: Stay away from new app

razrback99 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 21:29:27 GMT

To be honest with you, I'm not sure what it's doing. I am at the free location, logged into the app for free location and able to see pay location since it's being shared. So, it's not seeing me at the free location even though I'm logged into that account. Pay account was set to arm manually when i left several days ago.

Back before the pay account, it worked very well. Since then, I'd more trouble with it working as before, but still manageable. I don't know anything about the FEED option, but if it is the preferred method for multiple locations, pay and free accounts, then I can look into it.

Re: Stay away from new app

StephenB — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 21:34:42 GMT

@razrback99 wrote:

I don't know anything about the FEED option,

Do you see "Feed" and "Dashboard" in your app menu? Or do you instead see "Library" ?

Re: Stay away from new app

razrback99 — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 21:55:56 GMT

I see Dashboard and Feed

Re: Stay away from new app

StephenB — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:25:22 GMT

@razrback99 wrote:

I see Dashboard and Feed

Then you do know about the "Feed" option...

The "Feed" interface has explicit support for multiple locations. Each address requires its own subscription, but that doesn't apply in your case since only one of your addresses has a subscription anyway.

Not sure this is "preferred" or not. But since there would be no switching between accounts on your phone, I think it is more likely to work correctly with geofencing. Of course it is also possible to use the "Friend" account feature to minimize account switching.

Re: Stay away from new app

razrback99 — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 17:54:38 GMT

I was not aware this was possible with Feed. I’ll look into it.

So, I’ve figured out, for whatever reason, it’s not seeing me at all in either account(regardless of location or login). How do I fix that?

Re: Stay away from new app

StephenB — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:35:30 GMT

@razrback99 wrote:

So, I’ve figured out, for whatever reason, it’s not seeing me at all in either account(regardless of location or login). How do I fix that?

Does "not seeing you at all" mean that you are not seeing your phone in the "Available Geofence Devices" list? Or does it mean something else?

Re: Stay away from new app

razrback99 — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 00:42:55 GMT

Means the app does not recognize that I am in the zone to change the mode. Doesn't matter which physical location, nor which login.

Re: Stay away from new app

StephenB — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 01:43:14 GMT

@razrback99 wrote:

Means the app does not recognize that I am in the zone to change the mode. Doesn't matter which physical location, nor which login.

Ok. So your phone is in the geofence device list.

While normally I only set up Arrive to run in "Arm Away", I have found the following test to be useful:

disable the schedule automations
set up Arrive and Leave so they are always enabled
change both automations so they are only to detect when you arrive and leave

Then you should always see the mode changes listed in the feed when the automations trigger. With the usual settings, if the system misses "Leave", then it won't enable "Arrive" - which gets in the way of troubleshooting.

There are a couple of phone settings that you might want to double-check - they are included here:

https://kb.arlo.com/000062822/What-are-Arrive-Leave-Automations-and-how-do-I-set-it-up-for-my-Arlo-system

With "Feed", Arlo started advising people to keep WiFi enabled on the phone. If you generally don't do that, you might want to try keeping it that way.

Re: Stay away from new app

razrback99 — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 02:56:13 GMT

Made changes to Arrive and Leave. Only iPhone setting not enabled was precise location, it is now. I’ll check tomorrow to e see is anything changed.

So, my question is, why after 7 years and the app upgrade, it quit detecting the location of my phone? Is this common with the new app?

Re: Stay away from new app

StephenB — Thu, 13 Feb 2025 13:02:20 GMT

@razrback99 wrote:

So, my question is, why after 7 years and the app upgrade, it quit detecting the location of my phone? Is this common with the new app?

Several have reported unreliable triggering, but I haven't seen many posts saying it cannot detect the location at all. My phone has always shown my location when I go into one of the geofence automations and then selected "Edit Geofence".