topic Re: With Ultra plugged in, spotlight is not on when recording starts in Arlo Ultra

With Ultra plugged in, spotlight is not on when recording starts

lklynch — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 15:41:54 GMT

Can anyone tell me if this is somehow expected? I just had outlets installed so that I can keep my Arlo Ultra 2 cameras plugged in all of the time. During the day this has worked out great. However, now at night time when recording first starts it is black and white. A few seconds into the recording the spotlight will turn on. Sometimes this even freezes the recording for a second or two.

Re: With Ultra plugged in, spotlight is not on when recording starts

StephenB — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 17:20:55 GMT

@lklynch wrote:
Can anyone tell me if this is somehow expected?

It is expected behavior.

When the camera is connected to AC power, the Arlo Foresight feature (also called "pre-roll") is engaged.

https://kb.arlo.com/000062053/How-does-the-Foresight-feature-work-on-my-Arlo-camera

The camera is continually capturing video, and when motion is detected it "backs up" a couple of seconds - so the recording starts a few seconds before the motion.

But at night, the spotlight turns on when the motion is detected. So the video is using nightvision (infrared red) until the spotlight turns on. Then the camera shifts to the normal color mode.

Re: With Ultra plugged in, spotlight is not on when recording starts

lklynch — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 04:26:32 GMT

Is there a way to turn that feature off? It is ruining any recordings captured at night time. When the spotlight turns on, the recording freezes anywhere from a second to a few seconds.

Re: With Ultra plugged in, spotlight is not on when recording starts

StephenB — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 11:54:09 GMT

@lklynch wrote:
Is there a way to turn that feature off?

The only way to do that is to turn off power. If you can put a smart switch on the circuit, you could maybe do that on a schedule. Note if you do that, the IR ("black and white") segment will be totally missing, the only part you'll have recorded is the part after the transition to color. In other words, the transition to color will still happen the same way, it just won't be recorded.

Other options are

turn off color nightvision, then the entire recording at night would be IR ("black and white") with no transition
get a floodlight for the area, so that IR nightvision never kicks in