topic Re: Escalation - Alarms for Motion, Animals in Arlo Video Doorbell Wire-Free

Escalation - Alarms for Motion, Animals

marl111 — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 17:58:15 GMT

My door bell is set such that in armed mode the "rule" is "if motion on door" then record video and activate siren.

Then, in smart notifications, it says to make motion alert if people are found but NOT if vehicles, animal, or all other motion is found.

It is my expectation that the siren should not be activated and the video should not be recorded if the door bell sees motion or animal, but, only if it sees person. Is this correct expectation? My goal here is to get the siren and alarm only when a person is detected, not when an animal or motion such as wind is detected.

But I keep getting alarms, sirens, recordings when the system is armed and an animal walks by or there is wind.

Is there any way to escalate this case? I've been going in circles with support for 3 full months now. They aren't helping me with this at all. They keep asking me over and over again to repeat steps I did before then they close my case then I start again and I have been patiently going in circles on this for 3 months. If my expected behavior is correct then can anyone help me escalate to higher tier support so that I can get some actual help?

Re: Escalation - Alarms for Motion, Animals

StephenB — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 18:06:50 GMT

@marl111 wrote:

It is my expectation that the siren should not be activated and the video should not be recorded if the door bell sees motion or animal, but, only if it sees person. Is this correct expectation?

No, neither the siren not the recording is controlled by the smart notifications. As the name itself suggests, those controls only affect notifications.

Re: Escalation - Alarms for Motion, Animals

marl111 — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 19:22:50 GMT

@StephenB thank you for your reply.

If "smart notifications" affects only "notifications" and not "alarms" then can you help me understand, what is the definition of a "notification" and how does a "notification" differ from an "alarm"?

More importantly, is there any way to set the door bell so that it sounds a siren and makes an alarm when a person is detected but does not do so for other kinds of movement?

Re: Escalation - Alarms for Motion, Animals

StephenB — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 21:46:06 GMT

@marl111 wrote:

If "smart notifications" affects only "notifications" and not "alarms" then can you help me understand, what is the definition of a "notification" and how does a "notification" differ from an "alarm"?

"Notification" is when the cloud notifies you that there is motion detected - either using the web push notification or email.

The siren option is separate from the notification, as you can see in the structure of the rule:

If motion is detected then do the following:

Record
sound the siren (which is what you are thinking as the alarm).

Followed by "how would you like to be notified".

web push or
email

The smart notification only affects that last part.

@marl111 wrote:

More importantly, is there any way to set the door bell so that it sounds a siren and makes an alarm when a person is detected but does not do so for other kinds of movement?

Regretably, no.

I think it would be very nice if Arlo had similar smart filtering on the siren and the recordings. But they don't.

Re: Escalation - Alarms for Motion, Animals

marl111 — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 22:14:35 GMT

Thank you for clarifying this, @StephenB .

Apparently nobody at support knows this, they have been running me in circles for months on diagnostic steps.

So, at the end of the day, it seems like the arlo doorbell is useless as an alarm to deter attackers. It seems to work fine for identifying and recording motion, which is helpful to have peace of mind when away from home, but the siren sound on person detection is what I would hope would cause an attacker to pause and reconsider, and that feature is useless if it goes off every time the wind blows or an animal walks by, because it wakes me up all night, and annoys the neighbors.