topic Re: Forced Subscription?? in Arlo Pro 5S 2K

Forced Subscription??

Beaugas — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 15:13:15 GMT

Long time Arlo user. 7 cameras 2 doorbells at 2 properties. Subscribed to $14 per month service last year. 2 cameras started malfunctioning- repeatedly seeing animals not there, hearing things even with audio of and sensitivity at 0. Finally quit subscription thinking problem was at Arlo not my cameras. Then local feeds at the property I had a subscription for stopped working. Continued working at the unsubscribed location. Now I repeatedly get a message saying I have “found a premium feature” but can no longer see my local feeds. I think this is nefarious behavior trying to force subscription as no one I can get a hold of in Customer Service seems to be able to fix. I uninstalled everything at both locations and reinstalled. Deleted the app and reinstalled, - still no change. My 3 cameras and 2 doorbells are nearly useless. I can’t review motion detection without going to base station and pulling the USB stick. Arlo has declined seriously since Netscape bought.

Re: Forced Subscription??

StephenB — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 17:33:05 GMT

All currently sold cameras (including all doorbell models) require a subscription to get any cloud recording. Arlo stopped offering free 7-day cloud recording on new camera models back in 2018 (starting with the Ultra).

Also, the free 7-day storage on legacy cameras was always limited to accounts with 5 or fewer unsubscribed cameras.

So you definitely do need a subscription for cloud storage on the two doorbells. Similarly for Pro 3, Pro 4, Pro 5s, Ultra, and Essential cameras. If you have Pro or Pro 2 cameras (likely given your VMB4000 base), then you still do get 7-day cloud storage as long as there are no more than 5 unsubscribed cameras in the account.

@Beaugas wrote:

Arlo has declined seriously since Netscape bought.

FWIW, Netscape disappeared in 1998.

Netgear divested Arlo back in 2018 (somewhat before Arlo announced that the Ultra wouldn't have free 7-day cloud storage). They distributed all the Arlo shares to Netgear stockholders, so they have no ownership interest.