topic Re: Grant access completely broken! in Arlo Secure

Grant access completely broken!

Ajvelasquez82 — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 02:13:04 GMT

My new nanny got an Arlo account in her Android device so we could share the Arlo baby camera access with her and this process is utterly and completely broken!!

we have sent the same invitation multiple times and here is the plethora of issues we’ve encountered:

1. Even though she already had an account, the email invitation assumes she doesn’t have an account and invites her to “create an account”. Clearly whomever designed this had no idea of user journey and workflows…

2. once she clicks on that mis-labeled button, we obviously choose the option to just log in with her account. Here she does that and instead of getting a dialogue that she needs to accept the invitation, the login process proceeds as if nothing has happened. Here sometime these extra issues arise at this step:

2a. She is forced to login again to Arlo and when she does this she is sometimes

2b. offered a “choice of subscription: Arlo secure or Arlo home. But she’s not subscribed to anything!!

3. Her dashboard and account info in her app or website based dashboard completely doesn’t show our shared camera even tho on my end as the admin in my app it says the n citation has already been accepted

4. we’ve tried to delete her invitation and resend invitation MULTIPLE times and nothing works

5. the available documentation, chatbot and other support are completely worthless. Arlo has also decided to eliminate support by live technicians which tellse the company is doing so badly that they are cutting corners

6. I don’t want to buy a new camera but I will be forced to if these issues continue. I can’t believe how awful

Re: Grant access completely broken!

DannyBearAgain — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 04:27:07 GMT

Have you tried deleting her account after removing her granted access and deleting the app from her phone.

Then start the process again using a pc to access the email link to open a browser to create her account again and install the app on her phone.

To delete the granted account go to the privacy centre under settings/ account on her account credentials.

https://kb.arlo.com/000039122/How-do-I-add-friends-to-my-Arlo-account

Re: Grant access completely broken!

Ajvelasquez82 — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 22:21:39 GMT

No. Nowhere in the app UI or your KB it is specified how to “delete an account” so I’m unable to follow this recommendation. Can you please tell us how to “delete an account”?

note: it’s appalling that this very unintuitive workflow is what the recommendation is. It’s obvious that very bad design and care is given to this product

Re: Grant access completely broken!

DannyBearAgain — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 23:36:38 GMT

Deleting the arlo account is via the privacy centre option in settings.

Settings/privacy centre/account/delete arlo account.

You can use the same login email again when creating the account again.

Be aware that if the account is used for the community forum it will wipe your forum login also so you will need to use a new username.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

JamesC — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 00:33:13 GMT

Ajvelasquez82,

Deleting the account should not be necessary.

If you're having an issue with seeing shared devices it's likely because one or more of the accounts has a mismatched UI version (even if the app version is the same). Start by making sure to download the latest version of the Arlo Secure app on both devices, then follow these instructions:

Both accounts (primary and shared) must see the "dashboards" feature for cameras to be visible. If an account does not see dashboards, we need to use the following method to force migration on that account so that it receives the UI update. In your case, it sounds like your primary account does not have the updated UI, as any new accounts you make (when sharing) will automatically receive the latest UI.

You will need to tap "Add new device", select "Arlo Home Security System" and you should be prompted to migrate to the new UI. After you receive verification that you've successfully migrated your account, you can then leave the Arlo Home Security System onboarding flow and then you should be able to share devices with the friend account.

After sharing devices, the shared account can tap the location dropdown at the top middle of the app screen and select the shared location.

JamesC

Re: Grant access completely broken!

Ajvelasquez82 — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 21:13:31 GMT

Okay that worked, thank you so much.

I have to say: this is unacceptable to have in this current state. Arlo should at least automatically update everyone to the UI (because this is the first time ever that I hear an app developer forcing a customer to “upgrade” outside of the app upgrade flow and I work in mobile development) or at the very least create a wizard to get everyone current. The fact this is happening gives me very little hope this company is serious about their monitoring products and I would never use them as my security system nor recommend them. It’s too bad as when the Arlo baby came out we were so excited about it’s capabilities

Re: Grant access completely broken!

jcoyle — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 15:28:19 GMT

When following this direction

* Add new device

* Arlo Home Security System

* It then requires me to connect to the station via wifi. If i'm a granted access user that will never visit the home station site it makes it impossible to gain access.

I've attempted to grant access to 3 friend users. All state that they are unable to see my devices. Given their frustration i created my own faux account and tried to invite myself. Then had the same issue of no access to devices. After following several answers on the message boards including this one i've been unsuccessful in sharing any access.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

StephenB — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 18:30:23 GMT

@jcoyle wrote:

When following this direction

* Add new device

* Arlo Home Security System

* It then requires me to connect to the station via wifi.

Starting to add the device (either the security system or a Pro 5s) is enough. You don't need to complete the procedure.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

jcoyle — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 18:49:23 GMT

This still didn't fix the issue of not being able to see the device in my devices after being granted access and following message board steps to repair the issue.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

DannyBearAgain — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 00:49:44 GMT

All new arlo created accounts are forced into the new app experiment.

To be able to invite new granted users access to the shared cameras the owner account app needs to be updated to the same app experience.

Once this is achieved you will need any existing granted users to also update to the new app experiment.

Warning: Once you update the app you have no option to revert so you are stuck with the new app limitations.

Using a pc to access the email link to open a browser to login and accept the invite seems to be the only workable method if the invite isn’t being accepted.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

jcoyle — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 15:12:14 GMT

Primary attempts were made on PC. Tried using Mozilla, edge and chrome. We also tried using the App. We still can't grant access.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

StephenB — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 18:45:08 GMT

@jcoyle wrote:

Primary attempts were made on PC. Tried using Mozilla, edge and chrome. We also tried using the App. We still can't grant access.

Have you seen this?

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Secure/Invited-friend-cannot-see-devices-on-their-dashboard-Arlo-Pro-2/m-p/1889396#M1813

Re: Grant access completely broken!

AncientGeekVT — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 01:24:02 GMT

Wonderful. I can upgrade my UI, but the price is then all of my Arlo-Q cameras are unsupported. That doesn’t work! So now I have broken my Arlo environment consisting of 42 cameras at six locations.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

DannyBearAgain — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 01:42:56 GMT

@AncientGeekVT ,

Shame on arlo for not providing a legacy app to back date to, they did this previously.

Even giving you a choice of the old experience UI when you create a new account.

It is little wonder why arlo customers feel like they are being stampeded off a cliff and into a arlo financial abyss.

Good luck with the multiple subscription plans.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

Lonestarcookie — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 02:15:22 GMT

I have had the exact same problem trying to add myself to my husband’s invite. This is very frustrating. I’m going to check if his is updated now.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

AncientGeekVT — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 14:04:47 GMT

So true. And losing custom modes! I used to tell people Arlo had the most incredible permissions model of any camera system. I have several custom modes. What would be the alternative…all armed and all disarmed? That’s useless in a system of any sort of complexity.

This reminds me of the debacle several years ago on version 2.X was it? The UI was destroyed by an update. I resorted to restoring an old backup on my iPad, turning off manual updates for about a year and updating several dozen apps manually month after month. I kept one iPad on the new version, so I could monitor it and see when they finally got the app back to a useful spot. This one is worse, because the update is at the account level rather than the device level.

Some marketing guy in a conference room sold a bunch of execs a bill of goods on the new business model without fully understanding how the migration was going to destroy years of work and investment by the existing customer base. I have thousands of dollars worth of Arlo gear installed and relying on the prior functionality.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

AncientGeek — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 14:11:13 GMT

I just realized I used the wrong account for my community posting.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

jguerdat — Sun, 19 Feb 2023 14:21:06 GMT

@AncientGeekVT wrote:

Wonderful. I can upgrade my UI, but the price is then all of my Arlo-Q cameras are unsupported. That doesn’t work! So now I have broken my Arlo environment consisting of 42 cameras at six locations.

Ummm... What? My Q is working fine in the 4.x UI.

Re: Grant access completely broken!

wfdawson — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 15:47:57 GMT

I upgraded the UI on my iPhone app, but still cannot share devices with myself on another email account. This is the most ridiculous crap I have encountered in recent times. I have over 40 years experience IT and just can't, even. Arlo's support model comes as a surprise to me, as I bought in as a retail consumer and was OK with everything until I recommended the Pro 4 to my brother and then came up against this device sharing debacle. I have sent, deleted friend, re-sent, accepted, can confirm that both users are seeing the latest UI, yet the devices are nowhere to be seen in the guest side of things. Can we get something that just works?!

Re: Grant access completely broken!

jguerdat — Sat, 25 Feb 2023 15:54:32 GMT

Assuming both accounts are using the same UI, log into the one that has been granted access and click on Home at the top. Choose the bottom choice to see the cameras. By default each user gets their own home which is how the system knows about the location. Each one is named Home so it can be confusing. I suggest renaming at least one (the one that's sharing cameras) so it's obvious which one to choose.