Firmware lagging on 2 of 4 new Cameras

[sean_wong]

For those who travel this road after me.

Situation :
Picked up a 4 Pack of VMC3050Aer1.4 camera's at hte local Aussie Big Box store. to replace my original Arlo Pro's who are getting a bit long in the tooth. Batteries are getting tired and I'm climbing up ladders more and more often. So he for $110 each I though lets get some new tech. and use the spare SSID WiFi  channel I have on my fancy mesh WiFi toys.

Problem:
The Onboarding as smooth as it seems leaves some of the new cameras without a firmware update, seemingly random and annoyingly you are required to fully charge the cameras before attempting Firmware so as not to brick them. OK fair enough.

My Expereince:

Persisted with updates and resets for 4 days. Rang Support to ask WTF? ( yep are we getting Firmware on Wed Thur or Fri. Because I'm not getting my Firmware up from 1.4.3_847_b21d876 (that referecne is for those searching for this troublesome beast)

Root Cause ( guess )
It seems of course that the cameras receive a push or OK to down load "overnight" why that would be is beyond me as its night always some where and really inconvenient for a security camera to be rebooting and off line during its "on" time. So If your camera loses connection whilst your being the human asleep you wont know and cant fix it.

Solution :
Reset repeatedly  ( 25 seconds on the button till the orage lights flash ) and reconnect which prompts a firmware update.

Impact:
Seeing as persistent and annoying customers do this the ARLO servers are overloaded. Firmware downloads are not free for Arlo each GB of data traffic served means $ and so here we are ... Paying for service but not receiving it.

Call Help Centre:
Ask for escalation, take your humour and good will into the conversation the poor front line telephone team are just there to step you through the process and the back end engineers are between a rock and a product manager who's only focus is commercial.

Have fun! 4 x $110 worth and remember this functionality was thousands per camera not long ago.

[JamesC]

In most cases, as long as the camera is fully charged and has good connectivity, firmware updates will happen automatically with no issue. Firmware however is not available in all regions at the same time and is often rolled out to different groups at different times so the firmware on your cameras may not be updated immediately as new firmware starts to be released. If you have any issues, I encourage you to reach out to support or here on the community to investigate further.

JamesC