Essential indoor / spotlight camera not working with Smarthub. Shows offline in few seconds.

[Heili8701]

Bought the essential spotlight and indoor camera to pair with my existing Ultra smarthub (with 2 Ultra cameras connected)

Once the Essentials connected to the hub, they just straightly go offline in few seconds. Rebooted with no luck. If the Essentials are connected via 2.4ghz wifi instead, there will be no issue, but I lost the local recording capability

To get things clear:
- Internet speed is fine, 900mbps download 800mbps upload.
- the existing 2 Ultra cameras connected to the hub well with no issues noted at all
- the 2 Essentials are placed close to the smarthub without any physical block in between

Please help, this is very frustrating as I expected the Essentials to connect with the Ultra smarthub

[jguerdat]

Try a camera reset to see if that helps. There's an FAQ in the support section here that details the steps.

[Heili8701]

I had already reset not only the Essentials, but my Ultra cameras, and the smarthub before but that does not help.

[StephenB]

Have you tried adding them with a PC browser (my.arlo.com) as well as the app?

[Heili8701]

Tried both, didn't work.

[JessicaP]

Hi Heili8701,

If you're still experiencing this issue, please navigate to Settings > Support in the Arlo App for service options available to you including live chat with the support team.

[Heili8701]

I had already initiated such but those staffs just repeatly providing the same reply as above (reset, reset and reset) even I replied with them that reset just doesn't work. I am hopong to see if any real users here experienced the same before to help otherwise I am going to return all these products as they are simply incomplete and never worked!!

[Heili8701 · Accepted solution]

PROBLEM SOLVED!

After multiple trials at my end without any useful help from the support team, I finally figure out the solution by myself. Just updating here for sharing purpose.

1. Add new camera and choose connect to via Smarthub as usual

2. Power on Essential cameras and follow the on screen instruction until you see the screen prompting you to “Press the sync button to start”.

3. Now, instead of pressing the sync button on Essential cameras (This is where the app instruction gets wrong), press the sync button on the smarthub instead!

4. Once the Smarthub started flashing, press the sync button on Essential cameras

5. Then you can press Continue on screen and it now connects to your Smarthub.

The root cause is that the in app sync function just simply won’t trigger both Smarthub and Essential cameras to talk, so you have to manually press the sync button on Smarthub instead.

Would suggest the team to update the instructions in app to get things clearer!