Arlo Baby unfit for purpose - reliability problems are unacceptable

[cmackOTI]

Hi Arlo reps,

I bought an Arlo Baby (ABC1000) in April this year, and have been having constant problems with the device and service since then. I have persevered through the issues, and have tried to convince my partner that it'll all be fixed with the next Arlo update, the next version of IOS, the next whatever. However, after 6 months the time has come where both she and I are furious that a baby monitor, whose sole job is to allow us to monitor the most precious thing in both our worlds, is so unreliable that it fails to perform that one task often multiple times a day, including at night when we're asleep.

In my opinion, the Arlo Baby device and service are substantially unfit for purpose, and contain a number of major problems which have not been rectified by either NETGEAR or the Arlo product team in a timely manner. As such, I'm seeking a full refund of the purchase price for the Arlo Baby camera and Arlo Baby stand, per my consumer rights under Australian Consumer Law.

I've done all the basic troubleshooting, and some more advanced troubleshooting, and nothing has helped.

• Arlo Baby on the latest version at the time (currently 1.8.5.3, to fix the latest audio and streaming bugs)
• All Apple iOS devices (2 x iPhone 7 Plus, 1 x iPad Pro 1st Gen, 1 x iPad Pro 2nd Gen) on the latest version at the time (currently iOS 12.1)
• Arlo app uninstalled and reinstalled from Apple App Store
• Arlo Baby camera removed and re-added to Arlo app
• Arlo Baby camera removed and re-added to Apple HomeKit
• Arlo Baby power cycled (often multiple times per day to resolve issues - this infuriates my partner, especially when she has to walk into the room when our baby is sleeping)
• Arlo Baby reset to factory and set up from scratch

On the home network side:

• All Ubiquiti network gear (USG 3P, UniFi Switch 24, 3 x AP AC Pro) on the latest firmware at the time (with perhaps a week or so lag from release to install)
• Internet connection is Telstra NBN 50 fiber to the premises (FTTP). Speedtest.net regularly hits around 45 Mbps down, 18 Mbps up, including during the evening. Ping to local Telstra test server is 3ms. I have the Ubiquiti gear running periodic speed tests every 30 minutes, and the results are consistently similar.
• The room containing the Arlo Baby has a ceiling-mounted wireless access point, and the Arlo Baby has direct line of sight.
• The wireless AP controller shows the Arlo Baby connection with a signal strength of -44dBm, which is superb, and expected with approx. 2 metres line of sight between it and the AP.
• The 3 wireless APs are on 2.4GHz channels 1, 6, 11, and a site survey shows low channel utilisation for all 3 (~9% at idle), including interference. The 5GHz channels all show very low utilisation (~2% at idle).
• I've tried forcing the Arlo Baby to join either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz wifi bands - no difference.
• I've tried each of the 3 APs separately by taking the Arlo Baby around the house - no difference
• I've tried force associating the Arlo Baby with different APs from a fixed location - no difference

The problem is not my home network.

All the while my partner and I have experienced:

• Numerous 'The streaming service is reporting that the device is not streaming' errors (solution: keep closing the error message on the Arlo app and hope the stream starts up after the 5th/10th/20th error message is displayed)
• Numerous 'Your device is not connected' errors (solution: power cycle the Arlo Baby, and hope it starts working)
• Numerous silent failures of the audio/video stream (Arlo app sits on 'Connecting...' message continuously), until we realised the stream is broken or hear our baby crying when we are nearby (solution: calm the baby if crying, then power cycle the Arlo Baby and hope)
• Recently, live video working on both our iPhones, but not working (frozen image) on both our iPad Pros
• Stuttering audio and pixellated video when connected locally (which the latest firmware improves on)
• Consistently awful performance when outside the home over 4G (badly stuttering and laggy audio, and sub-1 frame per second video, if the video works at all), despite being able to consistently pull data at full speed (~18 Mbps) from other devices inside the home at the time (I strongly suspect Arlo's relay servers or data centre WAN links are badly under-specced)
• Missed recordings, and truncated manual recordings (e.g. 7 seconds recorded out of 60 seconds)

And the list goes on.

The sole purpose of the Arlo Baby Monitor System, and the reason I bought one, is to monitor a baby. Specifically, my baby. It has consistently failed to do this over the past 6 months in a substantially reliable manner, which is mandatory for product in this category. I would be irresponsible and negligent as a parent if I continued to accepted the product's inherent unreliability.

I've given the Arlo Baby time, effort, and patience - it's got great potential, and I've really wanted it to work. But it just doesn't.

Please let me know the next steps required to process a refund.

Sincerely,

Callum Mackintosh

[Narmag]

The arlo baby live stream on the website freezes constantly mimicking that it's live when in fact it's frozen. Don't buy this product if your baby's life is important to you! For 2 years + people in the forums are complaining about this and Arlo does nothing towards resolving these issues! I'd like to meet personally the head of Arlo's IT team. As a programmer myself I find his lack of interest towards these issues a disgrace for the whole company! This man deserves to suffer.

[Speasley531]

We received a replacement for our Arlo Baby and this past week it has been randomly disconnecting from the network until I go into the app, hit device settings, then click connected to, it gives me instructions on how to connect and then I back out and it says the WiFi network. Also it is randomly blinking purple or blue light quickly throughout the night which is disruptive to my baby's sleep. Does anyone know how to fix this?

We recently updated our Netgear router firmware and it did not help. We are not having any other interruption of services on any other devices in the house (computers, phones, tablets, fire stick, etc.)

[KB_]

Yes, it’s happened to me several times this week alone and has been completely frustrating. What’s even more confusing is that it will show up on my husband’s device sometimes, but not mine. I’ve tried rebooting the app, completely turning my phone off and on, turning the Wi-Fi off and on, and still ultimately have to go back and reset the camera to get it to work right. Absolutely ridiculous.

I never had these problems until they made us get the new app, which has been a huge disappointment overall.

[kartheek4u]

Has anyone had a success in getting required tech support from the Arlo Support Team? All I got was a replacement offer for which we have to pay 1-way shipping. I also did everything that was mentioned in the original post and some of the replies with no success. Either this product has a faulty wifi chip inside or the Netgear/Arlo never thought of upgrading the firmware to use it in the right direction. Any other alternatives to the Arlo that people have considered or bought? I am debating between Wyze and Nest Cam.

[AandS]

Honestly, this company is ridiculous.   I think we're only going to see action after a lawsuit comes out because of a child dying from SIDS and the camera not working.  

Is this what needs to happen Netgear for you to listen to us and respond? 

We just want a camera that works and doesn't lose it's signal.  You're a networking company.  This is what you're supposed to be good at.  

[Archer666]

Posted this in a thread i started but as this one has a lot of replies for people with same issue thought id put it here to:

Over the Christmas break i noticed something, when the pixellation on screen starts getting worse a dropout seems to be right around the corner.... the unit is also very, very hot when this happens.

I think its overheating and this is causing the droputs and pixellation of the video feed.

So i've been turning it off (physically via the switch on bottom) and leaving it off when not in use. Our son is down to one nap during the day and then night sleep, so i turn it off in the morning and back on just before he goes down for nap in middle of the day and same again after that until we put him down for the night. 

Haven't had a dropout since i started doing this and the video feed is A LOT clearer.

Its ridiculous to have to resort to this as a 'solution' but give it a try, might at least give you a bit of peace of mind while we wait for Arlo to get off their asses and fix the problem.

Although if its a hardware overheating issue as i suspect this will probably have to be a complete re-design of the cameras components and there's not a lot of goodwill left among their customers to try a new product at this stage im guessing (my wife would probably divorce me if i suggested buying a new Arlo Baby Camera at this point).

[jaffro2k]

I am having exactly the same issue with the monitor disconnecting from my wifi network (the app shows as offline).  Only a reset seems to fix it but is also inconsistent (and pointless as you have to go into the room and turn the light on which wakes up our baby!).

Even more difficult we have the monitor stand which to reset you need to take it off the stand (and remove the feet).

No other devices on my network disconnect / stop working like this.

Any help?  NetGear what are you doing about resolving this issue???

[Edrolet]

Since the firmware update yesterday, I've had a lot of trouble connecting to the camera. It's been slow in the past, but always managed to connect within a minute. I've restarted the camera and reconnected to the network twice in two days and when the feed is streaming, the picture is very glitchy. I've checked my home network connection and everything seems to be running smoothly, so it's just the camera that seems to be having trouble communicating.

[Archer666]

---

@Archer666 wrote:

Posted this in a thread i started but as this one has a lot of replies for people with same issue thought id put it here to:

Over the Christmas break i noticed something, when the pixellation on screen starts getting worse a dropout seems to be right around the corner.... the unit is also very, very hot when this happens.

I think its overheating and this is causing the droputs and pixellation of the video feed.

So i've been turning it off (physically via the switch on bottom) and leaving it off when not in use. Our son is down to one nap during the day and then night sleep, so i turn it off in the morning and back on just before he goes down for nap in middle of the day and same again after that until we put him down for the night. 

Haven't had a dropout since i started doing this and the video feed is A LOT clearer.

Its ridiculous to have to resort to this as a 'solution' but give it a try, might at least give you a bit of peace of mind while we wait for Arlo to get off their asses and fix the problem.

Although if its a hardware overheating issue as i suspect this will probably have to be a complete re-design of the cameras components and there's not a lot of goodwill left among their customers to try a new product at this stage im guessing (my wife would probably divorce me if i suggested buying a new Arlo Baby Camera at this point).

---

So an update on this.

I've now been doing this (turning off the camera via the switch on the bottom when its not in use) for a little over two weeks and i have not had a single dropout/disconnection/freeze in that entire time. Prior to doing this it was a daily occurrence. Picture when in use is also so much clearer, with zero pixelation/screen tearing.

So if you don't mind the little extra hassle i suggest giving this a try, its not ideal but it seems to be working for me... id be interested to see if others have the same result.

I've also removed the little animal head skin as well as this seemed to be insulating the head of the camera even more.

[rossgenandivy]

I have an Arlo baby too, not sure if my device is defective or if the product is ineffective. I love the idea of the Arlo Baby, but the flaq I am getting from my wife about his I think I will be off get another baby monitor soon. I was trying to connect support but can only find this forum.

I have found that this year the drop out have been alot worse, seems to happen most around 23:00 - 01:00 GMT+8, but at many times of the day; the terrible things is that half the time image freezes on the APP so it looks like you the baby is alseep just fine, but is just a still image. The Arlo baby typically keeps no light on. During the drop outs I have checked the internet speed and wifi strength right next to the device, speeds typically > 60 Mb/s and full strengh on an iphone respectively. The room temperature is always 23-25°C.

I see some fixes on this for involve power cycling the device, Arlo reps, you are missing the point of a Baby Monitor if you a fix is power cycle it. If you do power cycle it, you need to fubble the device in the dark to turn off the battery switch and disconnect the USB cable. Then when it boots up the lights flash quiet brightly (orange and then purple I do belive), so if the fubbling around near the baby did not wake the baby up the lights would have.

What I would like to know from Arlo is acknoledgement that there is a problem and an indication that they are trying to fix the firmware?

[chefslim99]

Based on the last reply, I bought WiFi controlled outlets and going to turn off at 9am and turn back on my baby cameras at 7pm. Also I noticed it did get hot, especially when we listened to the cameras all night long. Noticed when we didn’t listen the units wouldn’t get as hot and we would get more alerts. I’m an engineer and work in electronics, this is most likely caused by resistors heating up and throwing off the tolerance setpoints for alerts. Resistance changes with temp and needs to be compensated for. I’ll let you know if I get good results with turning them off and on automatically. I figured if we put kids down for a nap we can manually turn it on with button or homekit...arlo should fix this...

[Narmag]

Ok, so doing a little testing of my own. I have only Android phones. The Android app very rarely freezes since they updated it so it shows a little 'house' icon, meaning it connects locally I reckon. The website is the big problem. It is soo outdated. It uses Flash (who the * uses Flash nowadays???), and it freezes, disconnects and throws random errors. Obviously if these idiots from Arlo manage to hire somebody to rewrite the website, channelling the stream locally, like the mobile app, things will be waaay better. 

Do you read this, Arlo team? Are you happy with the money you steal from us? 

[drewg]

Deserves to suffer is a little extreme... I'd prefer he just fix the issues

[Thorosiris]

Mine just stopped working last night. It will no longer detect the device, although it can still play music and the light will turn on. I've tried reinstalling the device multiple times at this point. I'm tired and so is my wife. I'll be returning it to Amazon tomorrow for a refund. This is the 3rd time it's disconnected in a week. I can't have a baby monitor be this unreliable. 

[grillorafael]

Hi,

Latest firmware, connected to 5ghz network (nest WiFi). Almost daily I have connection gaps on the camera while all other devices work flawlessly.

I’m not sure what to do anymore. I have a ISP router and then I bought a neat WiFi with hopes to solve the issue but apparently my home network is fine.

Any ideas ? It disconnects for about a minute and then comes back almost daily and sometimes longer

[grillorafael]

My situation is very similar and I wish I could return it as well.

[powerscc]

Saw this message and couldn't help but to replay.  I also was an early adopter and loved ArloBaby so much I invested in other Arlo products.  I too have had the same problems you describe the last few months and thought they would resolve but to no avail.  I have tried all the troubleshooting options and nothing works to fix it.  Guess I hit my final straw tonight and will look into other options.  The ArloBaby is NOT SAFE for a baby monitor.  It is TOTALLY UNRELIABLE.  Just a matter of time before we see a post on here that a person was injured because the monitor just randomly decided to stop working like it constantly does.  Netgear should not sell a prouduct that parents are conunting on to provide some safety to their kids.  Wish I hadn't already invested in so many other Netgear products as wel (3 Arlo Pro2 and an XR700 modem and mesh extender)......Let me know if you ever found anything that worked to make it behave like it did when I first purchased it.  Thanks!!!

[TrulyJenJen]

Have been using the Arlo baby monitor without a problem since July. Lately this week it’s started dropping connection at least 5x a night. The white noise goes off, a solid orange led light goes on after about a minute it starts flashing purple and blue then reconnects. My biggest problem is the rapid light flickering that happens with the blue and purple flashing it generally wakes my 7 month old up every fricking time. he’s usually a good night sleeper but this causes him to call out for me. Please tell me how to fix this!!

[Tsewang_2019]

My arlo baby camera having problem with the connections !!!

[Ttredwell]

Any one else have issue with Arlo Baby randomly loosing connection for a while then coming back? We seem to have this issue a couple of times a week with no real pattern. We used google mesh and have two other arlo Q’s that work all of the time.

We have another baby on the way and plan to use the arlo Q as the baby monitor since we have had so many issues with the Arlo Baby.

WiFi signal in the baby’s room is full strength ~500 down ~30 up

[powerscc]

Seems this is the norm now with no solution or care to resolve the problem from Netgear. Best to try and get your money back or buy a different product if you intend to use it as a monitor. You would think a fix would already happen when you have a thread with this many replies describing the same problem.

[Tjackson1667]

My app keeps shutting off while we are sleeping this dose me know good. It has been very unreliable.

[megsellinger]

I did a lot of research before registering for a baby monitor, and Arlo Baby seemed to constantly pop up on the "best of" monitors, the only downside being listed being the price point. I registered for it anyway and was given it as a gift at my baby shower.

However, I would never ever EVER recommend this product to anyone. I have had nothing but constant issues with it, and a quick search through this community seems to prove I am not in the minority here. We have a good internet set up, we can stream our Ring camera for days on end with no issue if we wanted to, we have a Google enabled Smart Home, and my husband works in tech - we aren't dummies. However, whoever made this device is.

Firstly, it does not stay connected. I cannot rely on this product for monitoring my child, even in her short nap times. We had to buy an alternate audio monitor for night time because the Arlo Baby will not for the life of it hold a constant stream overnight. Even worse, when it disconnects it will not attempt to reconnect on its own - why? Even if my internet has a hiccup or whatever it should attempt to reconnect. Instead it just accepts its fate of "oh, I guess I don't work now" and sits, lifeless on the wall above my baby's crib. Often I have to do a hard reset or power cycle to get it to reconnect - I'm not entering my sleeping child's room at 2 am to do this. So if it disconnects in the middle of the night, oh well, I guess I can't utilize this monitor for the express reason I registered for it.  Occasionally I have to factory reset to get it to work, as a power cycle won't work either. That is super fun, to get to try to reconnect it.

I have even more gripes with the web service. I try to get some work done during naps and try to stream the monitor through my up to date Chrome browser. First off, for whatever reason Arlo is still using Flash for its web streaming, a service that is going to die in December of this year. Will they update to something else? Who knows! My bets are on no. Second, without fail it seems to time out around an hour into a stream. Why would a SECURITY MONITOR SERVICE intentionally time out after an hour? It isn't a browser issue, my Ring will stream all day on the web service. To top it all off, once my session times out the web service simply refuses to reconnect to the device. I can use any of my mobile devices to connect, so it's not a problem with the device, but something with the web browser service.

To add to the frustration, the "support" is useless. I have made comments on their facebook page and been asked to provide email/ticket number - no response. I have opened a ticket - I got an auto reply asking me to try all the troubleshooting and come here for advice. When I try to respond to that ticket? I get an error saying their servers aren't accepting ticket updates!! When it FINALLY lets me reply? I have no idea if it actually goes anywhere because my ticket doesn't get updated and days and days have gone by without me getting a response. If they had bothered to look through the previous times I contacted support they would see that I have completed the troubleshooting suggestions and have not seen an improvement in the monitor.

I have constant artifacts on my screen, constant disconnects, constantly having to power cycle. I have uninstalled, reinstalled, wiped, deleted data/cache, factory reset, contacted support. I finally bought a Wyze and am waiting for it to arrive. I just hope that in the future parents looking for a reliable monitor can do a google search and find this community instead of the obviously paid for "best of" lists advertising a product that fails to function. 

[Xphstos78]

I have the same exact problem! The first month it worked fine then some issues arised first the night light would randomly turn off and same with the music. Then after that I keep on getting the spinning circle. This is really pathetic! How do i know if my baby is safe! Still to this day 10%of the day the camera works... I either want this fixed or my money back!

[Jonnymoorhead]

I’m having the same issues continually.

The device will not connect and can’t be viewed on either an Android or iOS Device without turning it off and on again.

This doesn’t help as it then knocks off the other device that is trying to view the stream.

You can’t monitor a baby like this!