"Always listening" stops minutes after the phone is locked

[Shebocian]

I have 2 kids in bedrooms far from mine, so i need the always listening to ALWAYS LISTEN even after I lock my phone and go to sleep. Since the new app came out this stopped happening on my Samsung Galaxy S9. It goes silent after a couple of minutes, and doesn't resume when I unlock my phone again. I open the app and it asks me to sign in again! This completely defeats the purpose of a Baby monitor. Anyone know how to fix this?

[JessicaP]

Hi Shebocian,

Have you tried reinstalling the Arlo app and rebooting your Samsung Galaxy S9 phone to see if that helps?

[Shebocian]

Hi JessicaP, yes I have tried that but it didn't make a difference.

[JessicaP]

Make sure to enable the "Always Listening" before exiting the app. You can read here to learn how to enable "Always Listening": How do I enable or disable the Always Listening feature on Arlo Baby?

[Shebocian]

Hi JessicaP,
I follow the steps you referenced as I always have followed before. By the way, the same problem is happening on another device (a Samsung Galaxy S7) which is solely dedicated to the Arlo App - we use it as our parent unit to hear when our babies cry. So basically I'm flying blind (and deaf) all night, it's quite unsettling. Could there be any setting on the app or the phone that could be causing this? I never had problems before, so something must have changed. I have already checked the battery power saving settings on both devices to make sure Arlo App is never put to sleep and is allowed to run in the background despite draining a lot of battery. I'm not sure what else to look for.

[JessicaP]

What Android version are you running on both the Samsung Galaxy S7 and Samsung Galaxy S9? Make sure that you don't have "Background Restriction" enabled from the Android Settings for the Arlo app and the battery optimization is not optimized.

[Shebocian]

I have done that. I have checked and rechecked every possible setting numerous times, and I just believe it's not a problem with my devices. Several reviews on the Play Store all mention the same issues. We get logged out all the time, we get unreasonable error messages (as "already logged on in another device" or "maximum 5 streams at a time"), we have to log in every time we launch the app, we can'tfind recording of movements even when we know thar there was significant movement. I use this as a baby monitor and you don't offer an option of a parent unit, so I am 100% dependant on this app, it has to be reliable. Is anything being done to address all these issues? The update from Nov 7th made no difference whatsoever.

[JessicaP]

If you're still having problems, I would suggest to contact the Support Team to further investigate this issue. You will find several options for contacting support in the provided link.

[Mattjkilo]

Dear All,

You’re wasting your time. I’ve owned one now for over a year and tested across several different devices, houses, routers.

The always listening is flawed and Arlo continue to avoid fixing what is a most important issue to fix for a baby monitor.

Hours upon hours on the phone to technical support, waiting for phone calls to be returned for updates (haven’t happened), failed investigations by the Arlo technical team, incorrect Technical instructions from Arlo, phone operators that can’t understand English; you’re sadly but simply wasting your time.

[JessicaP]

Hey Mattjkilo,

You mentioned that you're waiting for updates through phone call from the support team. Let me reach out to you via private message to gather more information from you.

[Mattjkilo]

I have replied via PM. In short this has been nothing short of an upsetting experience (namely due to the amount of time I have invested in getting this issue rectified) - I'm an engineer with over 15 years experience in both IT and mechanical engineering that is for military grade application. If I can't understand how to operate this camera in a manner that is safe for use I genuinely struggle to understand how the average user will cope. 

[Shebocian]

I couldn't agree more, Mattjkilo. I've basically given up, i have two little kids to look after, don't have the time to troubleshoot any more than I already have. Spent hours review all the setting on all my devices, and I'm myself quite savvy too with technology due to my work. I believe though that this feature used to work and then it stopped, at least on Android. I have friends with Apple devices that don't seem to be having the same issues. Anyway this is just an upsetting experience as you say, I'm so over it...