Turn off Mode change notifications - it is a pain in the ass

[Retired_Member]

I use a routine to Arm Home at midnight, and then switch to Standby in early morning. 
Now I get woken to an Arlo notification in my phone when the automation runs and the system is Armed and then unarmed. 

Please disable these! We wake up to an Arlo alert, which can be frightening, only to see our system as armed like we wanted it to. 

Or give us the option to disable such non-useful notifications. 

[JamesC]

We appreciate and are reviewing the feedback provided about the recent enhancement for mode change notifications. The details provided in this thread and others has been shared with the relevant teams internally. I will provide an update here once I have more information available to share.

JamesC

[GoBraves]

I have been saying this for a month now based on their carefully worded email replies. I cancelled my subscription today. This is the review that I left for them. I hope they take this seriously as they are the only reason that they lost a long-time paying customer.  I can't believe that it took us almost 9 months to get them to admit that they have no intention of reversing this horrible decision. 

Just cancelled my subscription today. After 8 long months of back and forth with Arlo over unnecessary forced notifications in the Arlo app it is apparent that Arlo doesn't care what their paying customers have to say. We have been telling you for over 8 months that we don't want the notifications or to at least give us the ability to turn them off. Well Arlo, you played chicken and lost. I'll be taking my money to your competition, where they actually care about and listen to their paying customers. SO LONG SUCKAS!!

[Brewgod23]

Hi GoBraves, if you don’t mind, can you post Arlo’s reply to this message you sent them? I am interested in what they say to you after you cancel.

[jguerdat]

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@Ron-R wrote:

Note the part of Arlo's response that I underlined, which seems to suggest that they don't think Arlo's customers are smart enough to understand how notification settings work.  What a demeaning comment from Arlo 😲.

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To be fair to any support person, they can only know what has been presented to them and a lot of folks like to sound like they know what they're doing. While the response may be demeaning to you, to someone else it may be the perfect response. Even here many times we respond generically since we don't know what's been tried, experience level, etc.

[Ron-R]

Ok, fair enough.

But the point we are all making, is simply give us the choice to turn these notifications on or off.  For example, below is Arlo Secure notification setting screen.

       

Would it be too hard, or too confusing to customers, to create something like this, below ?  Simply add the option to mute the Mode Change Notification.  This is very straightforward.  What am I missing here ?

       

 

[GoBraves]

To be fair he didn’t call out the support person. He called out ARLO for literally demeaning us the customer by insinuating grownups are too stupid to use their app. By saying we can figure out how to silence every other notification but this specific one is literally calling us stupid. So NO, this would never be the perfect response! How’s that working out for them? It’s costing them money. 

[StephenB]

FWIW, while I do see some value in always delivering these notifications, I do think there should be a way to silence them (while not silencing motion alerts).

No idea what types of users Arlo chose for their research, but there are several use cases Arlo obviously missed in the new web UI.  IMO this is one of them.  This would be particularly annoying when you are away from home in a different timezone.

[GoBraves]

For me there is zero value in this notification. I have several reasons why I say this. 
1. This wasn’t always a notification. ARLO just decided to force it upon us using “safety” as their justification. 
2. I can change every other notification available. 
3. With my system ARMED I can turn every camera off individually and I get ZERO NOTIFICATIONS and my cameras won’t record. HOW DOES THAT KEEP ME SAFE IF THATS WHAT ARLO IS TRULY CONCERNED ABOUT?

4. My wife works out of town regularly and it’s ALWAYS in a different time zone!
It just makes ZERO sense for this notification to be forced upon the user. I have spoken with several customer support representatives and every single one of them is versed in this complaint. ARLO is very aware, THEY JUST DON’T GIVE A DAMN! 
Either way it’s not a me problem anymore. It’s a them problem as I have cancelled my subscription and have taken my money elsewhere. 

[GoBraves]

I have every reason to suspect that they will not respond but on the off chance they do I will definitely post it here. 

[StephenB]

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@GoBraves wrote:

For me there is zero value in this notification. I have several reasons why I say this. 

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It does provide some confirmation that the mode has been changed (and that a schedule is working as intended). And if the mode changes unexpectedly, then it is a sign of trouble.

In any event, the issue posted here was about the notification sound, and not the notification itself.  And getting the sound on scheduled mode changes seems unnecessary to me.  If Arlo decides that the control isn't warranted for some reason, another option is for them to make it always silent.

[GoBraves]

Maybe your issue is about the sound but literally everyone else has issue with the notification in general. It is useless and unnecessary. Again, it won’t be a me problem after April 14th.

And while yes there is an icon on the app when you turn off the camera that is it. No notifications so again if “safety” is truly what ARLO was going for they failed miserably. If  I decide to go walk at 2am because I can’t sleep, which happens from time to time, I don’t need to wake my wife up every time because of this useless notification. 
We don’t mind waking up because of notification that someone is on our property. Again ARLO literally told me this was done for customer “safety” yet I’ve punched holes in their story and shown them how it DOES NOT make us and safer but they cling to their narrative even tighter. 

[StephenB]

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@GoBraves wrote:

Maybe your issue is about the sound but literally everyone else has issue with the notification in general. It is useless and unnecessary. Again, it won’t be a me problem after April 14th. 

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Given the flood of notifications we all get on our smartphones (email, text, etc), it's hard to understand why anyone would be bothered by a couple more if they were silent.

The post that started this thread is a complaint about being woken up - so not "literally everyone else".  

[GoBraves]

Yep and you’ve taken it out of context. Read the whole post. The complaint is about being woken up by a notification BECAUSE THE SYSTEM HAS ARMED OR DISARMED. Nobody minds a necessary notification like a camera picking up a person. That is a very necessary notification. 

[StephenB]

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@GoBraves wrote:

Yep and you’ve taken it out of context. Read the whole post. The complaint is about being woken up by a notification BECAUSE THE SYSTEM HAS ARMED OR DISARMED.

No I haven't taken it out of context.  If that particular notification was silent, then the poster would not have been woken up. 

All I am suggesting is that a way of silencing that one notification would be a solution for the issue that would also accomodate Arlo's security concern.  While I agree that concern is overstated, Arlo normally won't budge on something they see as a security issue.

[Ron-R]

@StephenB  Stephen, the issue is simple:  don't force notifications while simultaneously removing the customer's ability to switch off such notifications if they do not want them.  The problem statement is really that simple.  And the fix is not hard; let's be honest: every Android or iPhone app provides their customers the ability to tailor notifications to their liking.  It is very hard to comprehend why Arlo refuses to do the same especially in the presence of so many customers requesting it. 

[GoBraves]

That poster is complaining about this notification waking them up. Not all notifications, just like any other rational person. Again, this notification is unnecessary. I don’t even want it popping up on my screen. It wasn’t there from the beginning and it has not made me or my family any safer. Again, if I can ARM my system and turn all my cameras off and get ZERO notifications I am no safer than I am getting this useless notification. 
I have 1 month left and then my ARLO cameras will just be overpriced paperweights. 

[StephenB]

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@GoBraves wrote:

That poster is complaining about this notification waking them up. Not all notifications, just like any other rational person. 

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I agree, and my suggestion (just a suggestion) was tailored to silencing that particular notification.  I've repeated that several times (I think in every post here), but for some reason you seem determined to misunderstand it.

That doesn't mean I wouldn't like full control over all the notifications (as @Ron-R suggests).  Just saying that a simple solution for the original poster would be to deliver that one particular notification silently (either with a setting or by default).  Though not perfect, it accomodates both Arlo's (IMO overstated) security concern and the obvious problem of being woken up by something that is routine and happens every day. 

FWIW, given Arlo's bug backlog, a minimal solution would be more likely to get implemented (especially since for some reason they don't get why this is a problem for people).

[GoBraves]

I’m not determined to misunderstand anything. I get exactly what you are saying. I’m inclined to slightly agree but if you have read every post here most if not the great majority of people want the entire notification disabled or to be able to turn it off not just silenced. I have participated in a few chats on other platforms and it’s essentially the same. Most People want this notification disabled or given the option to turn it off, not just silenced. 

[StephenB]

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@GoBraves wrote:

if you have read every post here 

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FWIW, I routinely read every post in the forum (not just this thread).

[DT44]

Each time I change my Arlo status (arm away, arm home, standby) it sends a notification to my phone. This is frustrating and very LOUD as I'm well aware the mode change since I just did it.

I've checked my phone notification settings and the only option is to fully disable notifications. The app also doesn't have a specific option to disable mode changes. Is this Problem being fixed? I am sure it would be an Easy fix since the mode change notification was Disabled in the previous Arlo app version. Please put it back the way it was. 

[nsset]

It’s months later and we still don’t have a resolution? Come on Arlo, why make us hate you?

[Ron-R]

Amazing lack of customer service, isn't it ?  But I am learning more about Arlo's reticence for addressing this.

I've been interacting with Roselle Villarobos in Arlo Customer Service.  I keep being told Arlo is "looking into this".  It has been 10 months.  But I learned an important nuance in my interactions with Roselle:  Arlo considers the ability for customers to switch off the mandated mode change notification to be a new feature.  As I've said to Roselle dozens of times, this is not a new feature !   It is a fix to the issue that Arlo themselves created by mandating push notifications onto everybody's app, and not giving customers the ability to turn it off if they don't want these new notification.  But instead of acknowledging the glitch and taking responsibility for their shortcoming in creating this change, Arlo is putting it back onto their customers and treating it as a new feature request, which means it gets stuck in the queue along with a bunch of other new features they might be considering.

What a glaring example of not putting customers first.

[GoBraves]

ARLO has no intention of correcting this mistake. They have said so to me and a few others that have posted here. In their view it was done due to “safety” but I have proven to them that we the user are NOT any safer because of this notification. We are actually less safe by being able to ARM the system and TURN OFF each camera individually. The kicker to this is that there are no notifications when you do this! After I told them this they abruptly ended the chat I was in, closed the case I had open and will not open a new case for me. I have tried! So, I canceled my subscription last month and as of April 14 I will be free of ARLO. I will eventually be installing a wired Power over Ethernet system. No more batteries to charge. No more subscriptions. Just peace of mind!

[Casper_NL]

I was looking for a way do disable the notification for a mode change for a while now and found this thread.

@Arlo: can you please take care of this a.s.a.p? It is VERY annoying if you decide what notifications I receive. It is my own responsibily to disable this, but I really want to have the opportunity. Thanks in advance

[Ron-R]

@Casper_NL   Well said

[RIPOC]

Has this been fixed. In addition to the unwanted notification the change of mode is recorded in “the feed” and has to be individually deleted. Cannot see any reason to wanting a record of the time & date the mode was changed. Can this be disabled.