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