how to schedule with geofencing at daytime and always on at nighttime?

[Bliek]

Situation:

- 3 Pro 3 cams were installed exactly as we wanted

- 2 new Essential Outdoor 2nd gen cams

- forced app-upgrade while installing the new cams

- after this update I spend a lot of time trying to set the camera's the same as before, but no succes.

Can someone help me, please?

What do I want:

- From 7 am till 12 pm we want the cams only to record movement when we are both not at home.

- From 12pm till 7 am we want the cams to record every movement they catch.

How can we set the cams for this?

Thanks in advance!!

Bliek

[StephenB]

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@Bliek wrote:

What do I want:

- From 7 am till 12 pm we want the cams only to record movement when we are both not at home.

- From 12pm till 7 am we want the cams to record every movement they catch.

How can we set the cams for this?

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Not sure if you mean 12 noon (12 pm) or 12 midnight (12 am).  But I am assuming you actually mean noon.

First take a look at the rules in Arm Away, Arm Home, and Standby

• Arm Away and Arm Home should both have rules to record for all your cameras
• Standby shouldn't have any rules (so all cameras are disarmed when you are in Standby)

The rules should already be set up that way (it is the default setup).  See this guide for a bit more info on that:

• https://kb.arlo.com/000062777/About-Arlo-Routines-Modes-Rules-and-Automations

Next set up the schedule automations:

• "disarm" to change the mode to "Standby" at 7 am every day.
• "arm" to change the mode to "Arm Home" at 12 pm every day.

Both of these should be enabled in "Arm Home" and "Standby" modes, and both should be disabled in "Arm Away".  You can set this up by looking in the mode settings for each of the modes.

Finally, set up geofencing automations:

• "Leave" to switch to "Arm Away" when everyone leaves
• "Arrive" to switch to "Arm Home" when someone returns

Leave should be always enabled, Arrive should be only enabled in "Arm Away".

This isn't perfect - when you arrive home, the system will always switch to Arm Home, so it will record.  If this is in the morning, you'll need to manually change the mode to "Standby" via the dashboard.

Also, quite a few users are finding that the geofencing triggers aren't completely reliable - that they miss some arrivals and departures.  So you'll need to keep an eye on it early on, so you can get a good idea on how reliable the triggers are for you.

[Bliek]

Thanks! This really helps me out!

I meant midnight. Sorry about the confusion. This solves part of the problems I had.

Still, I needed your answer to solve the rest. There is a big part of the solution in accepting that I can't automate all that we want. I really don't like that, but is good to know it works that way. 

I have everything set as you suggested now. The next day(s) we will find out if it works as we expect. I will let you know.

Thanks again,

Bliek

[Bliek]

Sorry that there is some time between this post and my last. I tried to understand the cams, so i could write i good post. Truth is, i don't understand it. I have the settings as suggested. Now i see this behavior:

- The cams don't switch at 7am or 12am. They switch sometime between 7.00 and 7.30. And sometime between 12.00 and 12.30. I do not feel in control of the cams.

- The cams don't switch on when we leave. The don't switch off when we arrive. This I was partly warned for.

- I switched off notifcations for cars, because i am parked myself. Before this made my cams stay off. Now with the new app, my front cams are constantly making vids of my cars (without the notification)

- At the weirdest times i get notifications of geofencing turning in. Those notification do not appear in the log.

Questions:

- Is there any way to get the old app back? Or is there any change of a serieus update of this app?

- Can I adjust something to switch the mode at the exact times i want?

- Can I adjust something to automate leaving/arriving better? O shoud I always turn the cams on and off by hand?

- Can I adjust something so the cams don't film because my (own) car is there?

Thanks again.

De Bliek 

[StephenB]

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@Bliek wrote:

The cams don't switch at 7am or 12am. They switch sometime between 7.00 and 7.30. And sometime between 12.00 and 12.30. I do not feel in control of the cams.

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Several folks have reported that the schedule changes aren't made on time.  Arlo is aware of this, hopefully it is on their fix list.  

FWIW, I saw some lag, but not as much as you are saying.  Still, the schedule should run on time.

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@Bliek wrote:

- The cams don't switch on when we leave. The don't switch off when we arrive. This I was partly warned for.

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My own system switches reliable to Arm Away when I leave.  But it does not always switch to Arm Home when I return.  So definitely more things for Arlo to fix here too.

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@Bliek wrote:

Questions:

- Is there any way to get the old app back? 

- Can I adjust something to switch the mode at the exact times i want?

- Can I adjust something to automate leaving/arriving better? 

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The answer here is unfortunately no.  Hopefully Arlo will fix the scheduling and geofencing issues soon.

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@Bliek wrote:

Questions:

- Or is there any change of a serieus update of this app?

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For sure.  Arlo has said that they are either putting back custom modes, or putting in an equivalent method to get fine grained camera control.  That's a pretty major change.  I suspect they are also going to overhaul scheduling.

This likely will not happen in one release.

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@Bliek wrote:

- I switched off notifcations for cars, because i am parked myself. Before this made my cams stay off. Now with the new app, my front cams are constantly making vids of my cars (without the notification)

- Can I adjust something so the cams don't film because my (own) car is there?

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FWIW, Arlo briefly did surpress recordings when a smart notification was turned off, but they got a lot of negative feedback - so they changed that back.  

Are the cars triggering the recordings?  Or are just in recordings that something else triggered?  I often get recordings classed as "vehicle" when my car is in the field of view - even when the car has been parked for hours.

If the cars are just parked, then have you tried adjusting the motion sensitivity?  I generally recommend using the motion detection test while walking in the field of view.  Then find the lowest threshold that detects you reliably.  Set the actual threshold a little bit higher than that.
 

[Bliek]

First to say: I really appreciate the quick responses and serieus help. Thank you!

Second: It gives hope Arlo will change things (back). For me, the old app did what I needed. I wonder why Arlo wants to decide if they should make a vid when notifications are off. Should be an easy setting to let the user decide.

Thanks for the suggestion that the car isn't the trigger. I think it is possible the lights and shadows of the road trigger the cams. When they see the car after the trigger, they report that. I adjusted sensitivity. Based on one night, I have fewer 'car-vids'. I wil play some more with this.

I also put back my Pro 3 cam just above my Essential (changed it as the battery of the Essential should be better). I gave the Pro 3 the same setting. The Pro 3 did only get triggered bij a cat en did not give me extra vids of the car. 

Thanks!

Bliek

[Bliek]

One thing is solved now. The cams switch on and off at the right time, well close enough.

Also i had a slow connection and a blinking orange light on the hub. The only solution was to reset the hub. De connection is restored and the light is blue.

The reset also resets everything in the app. Not nice. But, now i have to fix that, I want to try the geofencing again. Could it be that the hub was bad before and a problem for the setup?

Now I can't find the way to add trusted phones for geofencing anymore. I used it before, so it should be there. Can someone help me here? Thanks again!

[StephenB]

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@Bliek wrote:

Now I can't find the way to add trusted phones for geofencing anymore. I used it before, so it should be there. Can someone help me here? Thanks again!

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"Available Geofencing Devices"

1. Press the profile icon in the upper left
2. Press Privacy Center
3. Press Available Geofencing Devices

"Ghost" devices do sometimes show up, so it is good to make sure each device has a useful name (not just phone model).  The device you are using is labeled "Your Device".

[Bliek]

Thanks for the quick reply. This screen shows the available devices. The problem is that only my own phone is there, i need to add another phone. How to add it? 

[StephenB]

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@Bliek wrote:

Thanks for the quick reply. This screen shows the available devices. The problem is that only my own phone is there, i need to add another phone. How to add it? 

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If this additional phone used with a different Arlo Account (e.g., a "friend" account)?  If it is, I think you need to add it using the other phone.

[Bliek]

Yes, It's a phone from a friend account. I re-added the friend-account and automatically the phone was there. Thanks for the good suggestion!

Now i have another strange thing. When only my phone was there, the cams switched to armed away when i left home. That worked like it should.

Now the second phone is there, they do'nt switch anymore when we leave home both. (Same problem as i wrote about before the hub-reset.) I checked the settings. Location en devices nearby are permitted on both phones.

So I ruled out a bad hub, and my own phone. There should be something with the other phone and/or the new app. Some setting i overlooked maybe? Or are there known problems with a Moto G73? Any Ideas?

Thanks again for all the help!

[StephenB]

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@Bliek wrote:

Now the second phone is there, they don't switch anymore when we leave home both.

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Is this happening every time?  Or just sometimes?

[Bliek]

It never switched to arm away, from the moment the second phone was added.

[StephenB]

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@Bliek wrote:

It never switched to arm away, from the moment the second phone was added.

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If you manually shift it to Arm Away, does the arrive automation trigger when the second phone returns?

[Bliek]

Just tested what worked. It did switch to arm home, when coming back with arm away active. Tested it the other way around. It does switch to arm away when leaving with arm home on. So i tried the problem again. Now it did switch to arm away from stand-by. (I just stated here it never does that. Sorry, i tried it a lot of times before). Happy that it seemed to work, i went back home. But now it did not switch to arm home...

I think that we are where you pointed it me in de second post. Geofencing does not work that good. Didn't imagine it would be this bad. Allthough the system is really frustrating me, I really appriciate your good help. 

I have to trust Arlo will fix this soon. Is there a way to get a notification when there is an update for geofencing-issues?

Greets,

Bliek

[StephenB]

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@Bliek wrote:

I think that we are where you pointed it me in de second post. Geofencing does not work that good. Didn't imagine it would be this bad. Allthough the system is really frustrating me, I really appriciate your good help. 

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My own issue has been with Arrive.  Normally it should only be enabled in Arm Away, but it only works reliably for me if I also enable it in Arm Home.  With two phones, that would result in having Away run when one person leaves and returns, even if the second person never left at all. 

I think @jguerdat might have posted a similar symptom to yours - "Leave" not working reliably with two phone.

No idea how to really fix that, but if WiFi is normally turned off on the problem phone, then you might try enabling it.  Also if there is a precision location setting option, then enable that.  If the second phone is using a friend account, then also make sure Access Rights are enabled.

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@Bliek wrote:

Is there a way to get a notification when there is an update for geofencing-issues?

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I wish they did a better job of communicating their fixes.  But unfortunately they don't say anything in their release notes, and usually there isn't much that the mods say either.

[jguerdat]

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@StephenB wrote:

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I think @jguerdat might have posted a similar symptom to yours - "Leave" not working reliably with two phone.

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Correct. Recently it's been working better but when it fails it's always when Leave is supposed to happen.

[Bliek]

I checked the last of Stephens suggestions . Wifi is allways on and precise locations ar on.  Location en devices nearby are permitted (i think that is what you mean with access rights).

I read part of the issue jguerdat started, but that's got over 300 reply's. That's a bit to much to find the key-messages. But i read here that the problem is still there, mostly when leaving. That is the most important thing of geofencing... I would not like it, but I can switch by hand when coming home and see unwanted cam-notifications. But when arm away fails, there is no cam-notification that can trigger you, while that is the time you need safety. 

[jguerdat]

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@Bliek wrote:

I checked the last of Stephens suggestions . Wifi is allways on and precise locations ar on.  Location en devices nearby are permitted (i think that is what you mean with access rights).

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Access Rights are a setting that the owner of the cameras uses when granting access to another user. That allows the second user additional capabilities (although not complete control) compared to a user without those settings. If you're the owner but have granted access to another user, check their settings to see if that is toggled on or not.

[Bliek]

Ah, of course. Access rights are on.

[jguerdat]

Back to the original issues, which ones are you still having problems with? It seems your schedule is working (mostly) correctly but it's geofencing that isn't. Is this correct? One thing to remember is that both phones need to have the app running which also means that each user needs to be logged in. Do not log out at any point - just background it. Also, be sure that both users actually use the app occasionally or it will be logged out automatically. This occurs after 2 weeks on non-use so I suggest at least once a week each user opens the app even if there's no need to do so. WHen my wife wasn't checking her app it would log her out and geofencing would never work properly.

[Bliek]

1. I needed the settings and @StephenB was a big help here.

2. The orginal issues:

- The cams don't switch at 7am or 12am. They switch sometime between 7.00 and 7.30. And sometime between 12.00 and 12.30. I do not feel in control of the cams.

Solved (bij Arlo?)

- The cams don't switch on when we leave. The don't switch off when we arrive. This I was partly warned for.

Geofencing is still a problem. Yesterday it switched to arm away twice while the partnerphone was still at home. 

- I switched off notifcations for cars, because i am parked myself. Before this made my cams stay off. Now with the new app, my front cams are constantly making vids of my cars (without the notification)

Solved by @StephenB 

- At the weirdest times i get notifications of geofencing turning in. Those notification do not appear in the log.

Still happening.

3. Your questions and help

So, correct, the schudule is working thanks to @StephenB (although with a manual switch to stand-by), and i can't trust on geofencing.

Both phones are still logged in. The first days we had the problem was after the forced install and log-in of the new app. So this could not be the problem. It is a good tip though.  

[jguerdat]

I do note that my various notifications happen at random times, likely due to the phone sleeping. Something will wake it up enough to then get any notifications stacked up, waiting to complete. Arlo is normally fairly quick, though. 

What phones and OS versions are you using? Geofencing has been working maybe 80-90% of the time lately although it"s failed twice the past 2 days (didn't detect us leaving).

Edit: I had reason to open both phones and the Arlo app on each. Geofencing noticed that we were both away and switched modes properly. Thus it seems that sleeping phones/apps are somehow the issue.

[Bliek]

The Samsung A54, android 14, worked fine when it was alone. 

The problem start when the Moto G73, android 14, was added.

Failing once a day is a pretty bad score for a security system, i would say 😀.

Also loosing its function with an inactive phone sounds bad 😀. But there should be a setting in the phone to prevent the app to become inactive. I doubt it is the problem as everytime when testing the phone were used just before. But even when not a solution, it seems wise to prevent an inactive problem. 

Thanks again!

[jguerdat]

No Samsung here, just Pixels, so I can't lead you to potential settings. I believe I remember someone saying that there is a setting in Samsung phones to keep any app from at least a deep sleep but I couldn't point you to it. Maybe another user here can jump in with details?