topic Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING in Arlo Pro 3

ACTIVITY ZONES STILL NOT WORKIN-LOSING PATIENCE

BELLASMOM — Sun, 10 May 2020 23:26:26 GMT

I'm about ready to toss this system in the trash. Come on Arlo! You NEED to fix this! Or at least take this product off the market. This has been going on since inception. And if I hear one more tech or representative say 'Our engineering dept is working on a fix" I'm going to explode!
This is beyond unacceptable. This is a HUGE part of this product and it DOES NOT WORK!

ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

BELLASMOM — Wed, 13 May 2020 18:28:17 GMT

Has anyone had any luck with getting their Activity Zones to work? After 5 phone calls to Arlo Support, all I got was "We are aware of the situation and our Engineers are working on a fix." This has been going on since inception. Totally unacceptable. This feature is the ONLY reason we purchased this product. Can anyone shed some light on this problem please?????????

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

atamt — Wed, 13 May 2020 20:53:33 GMT

Exactly the same issue.. I'm new to Arlo and shocked that either they don't know what's going on or they don't care! I'm very close to sending back too unless this fundamental feature starts working.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

BELLASMOM — Wed, 13 May 2020 21:02:42 GMT

Yeah we're about done with this crappy product. Changing Batteries every 2 days is pure insanity because the Zones do not work. I'm telling all my friends and neighbors to stay away from Arlo.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

george6 — Thu, 14 May 2020 03:30:21 GMT

On my Arlo pro 2, activity zones are only available if the camera is charging. But is not available when not plugged in.
I wonder if it's the same with the pro3.
I hope this helps someone.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

george6 — Thu, 14 May 2020 03:34:21 GMT

My battery life is in range of a week when it's constantly recording all motion. If it's random motion here and there, it's in the months range of battery life. Example front door gets a battery change maybe once every three months or so. If almost no activity, almost half the year passed till I had to swap a battery.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

BELLASMOM — Thu, 14 May 2020 12:58:06 GMT

I live on a very busy road.....lots of cars and people walking by.......even if I point my cameras just down on my driveway, they still pick up any car or person going by, which is about 300 a day. So my batteries last about 2 days. This is so ridiculous.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

JamesC — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 19:24:17 GMT

Arlo recently deployed a cloud update enhancing Activity Zone accuracy. This should improve the experience for users reporting symptoms of motion detection alerts and recordings occurring outside of their defined Activity Zones. We are continuing to monitor Activity Zone behavior and will provide additional enhancements in the coming weeks.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

BELLASMOM — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 22:12:26 GMT

So when will this feature be 100% fixed? Do we need to download anything from Arlo? We are still getting bombarded with over 200 recordings a day......batteries run out every 3 days.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

JamesC — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 23:34:39 GMT

BELLASMOM,

Activity Zones won't help with battery drain do the motion detected events. If you're seeing hundreds of recordings a day, even with activity zones enabled the battery will deplete at the same rate due to the cloud processing that needs to take place to determine whether or not motion was within the zone.

For more information on this, take a look here: How do I set up the Arlo Smart Cloud Activity Zones?

To alleviate the issue you're experiencing with battery drain, you will need to change the camera location so that the constant motion is outside the cameras field of view.

JamesC

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

Mizterz — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 01:55:04 GMT

Throwing in the towel. Tired of the non-response from support or the canned responses. Nothing has been done to address the issue. Support calls ending with "we understand your frustration, we will have this escalated to our engineers". Two weeks later and 3 request for an update on my support ticket - NOTHING, NADA!

Boxing them up and returning them.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

shadowdiver — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 02:28:13 GMT

Ref case 41693924

Same issue. I have a 5 camera system and activity zones were working and now they are not. Alerts are going off day and night, to the point I cannot arm the cameras. I have spent countless hours in chat only to get disconnected and re-routed to another support engineer and issues a 1/2 dozen or so support cases. We have troubleshot everything including cancelling the subscription and signing up again. I was told it was getting escalated and I would hear something back in 1-2 days. On day 3 I followed up to get a status. I told the engineer there was no point in continuing with the subscription until the problem was addressed so I cancelled it. I was told to be patient. I eventually got an email telling me they tried to call me. Nothing in the call log - no way they tried to call, total BS.

Tonight I called the number they gave me. Sat on hold for two hours. Eventually I got an engineer, gave her my information only to be told she would put me on hold so she could read the case notes. after 15-30 minutes, I heard a click and the phone disconnected. I tried to call back later only to find support was closed. Note that the email claimed they are available 24/7.

I then went to their FB pages to lodge a complaint. When I went back later, they had deleted my post. Not comment, no feedback, just deleted. Rude...

Now I am sitting in the chat queue.

I am find with occasional problems. What I am not fine with is a service organization that is not interested in helping its customer, gives the run around and wastes my time.

To date, they have not admitted they are aware of the problem but I can see from the community they are well aware of the issue. All I want is for some clarity on what the problem is, when it will be fixed. If I cannot get that, then please take the cameras back and let me be on my way.

A very unhappy customer... next step will be the presidents complaint office...

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

BELLASMOM — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 12:56:26 GMT

JamesC

That is the most ridiculous explanation and resolution I ever heard. Of course the batteries are draining from all the hits.......it records and tells me! Then it shows me the person, car, dog or bicycle being recorded. THAT'S WHAT'S DRAINING THE BATTERY. I and the rest of us are not idiots. I didn't pay $600 to point my camera's into the ground.

This entire thing is so not acceptable. I cannot believe this product is still on the shelves.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

Shaun1234 — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:32:09 GMT

Update-
So I'm probably writing this too soon,
I noticed that my app showed the latest version was mid may, anyway I went down the route of uninstalling each camera from the account then uninstalling the base from the app then uninstalling the app.
Interestingly I reinstalled the app then whilst still in the play store once the app installed it said update, now the app says latest update was may 29th whereas it didn't say this before and there was no updates available.
Anyway once I added the Arlo hub I had to physically take the cameras down to reinstall as they was now all switched off.
It's only been today but so far my activity zones now seem to work,
I've had no false notifications,
I've had one video that still recorded too short and I had 3 duplicate videos, this is a huge improvement for what I was having as they became unusable. This is out of 70 videos, but like I say probably writing this too soon!..
I will update the forum in a few days with how I'm getting on.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

Shaun1234 — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:33:18 GMT

Update day 2
I am pleased to confirm that on day 2 after what I done in my previous posts, so far all my zones are working perfectly on 3 cameras,no false notifications, no false recordings and no short videos.
Only thing is a few duplicate recordings but I can live with that for now.
I will update again at the end of the week if anyone is interested.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

BELLASMOM — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:48:34 GMT

Shaun1234, do you have the Arlo Pro3 System?

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

Shaun1234 — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 18:04:33 GMT

Correct

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

dcfox1 — Thu, 04 Jun 2020 19:44:21 GMT

Yea since they fixed it in the cloud this week Activity zones work as expected. I did not have to do anything else as it was a cloud fix. It started around 06/02 for me. But hope your update with the app fixes other things for you Shaun.

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

JamesC — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 22:41:32 GMT

A recent update was deployed to the Arlo cloud that should address the accuracy of Activity Zones. This should improve accuracy by more reliably sending notifications only when motion occurs within defined zones. More work is being done to improve the behavior of Arlo Smart notifications and to fix the Activity Zones error that some users are seeing when not using an AC adapter (battery only). Stay tuned for future updates.

JamesC

Re: ACTIVITY ZONES NOT WORKING

atamt — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 16:47:12 GMT

James,

It got a bit better over the past week or so and then yesterday I had over 300 notifications again outside activity ones across my 4 cameras on the same site. What on earth is going on there.

Ive got another 5 days where I am able to return the 4 camera system so if it's not fixed before its going back. Cant understand why you are still selling this kit when it doesn't work!

Also, the customer service when issues are logged is appalling, you never hear back.