Arlo Essential XL Spotlight camera - hub availability ?

[LTA01]

Hi, I’ve recently purchased 2 x Arlo Essential spotlight cameras to be used for external use. I understand the subscription plan to store videos but I don’t want to subscribe, I would prefer to store on my own PC, iPhone, or iPad. How do I do this please ? Thankyou.. (I’m from Sydney.)

The subscription is not cost effective for me.

I’ve tried to contact Arlo direct using the 1800 549 680..no one responds. I’ve tried to send an sms ...doesn’t allow me.

The product looks good but due to unavailability of Arlo support, I’m about to pack cameras up and return.

Any help/advice is welcome.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@LTA01 wrote:

Hi, I’ve recently purchased 2 x Arlo Essential spotlight cameras to be used for external use. I understand the subscription plan to store videos but I don’t want to subscribe ...

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https://kb.arlo.com/000062337/What-is-Direct-Storage-Access-and-how-do-I-use-it

Note direct access to local storage has several limitations

• no manual recordings
• no thumbnails
• videos cannot be accessed from the web interface (only from the apps)
• videos not available to "friend" accounts
• often difficult to get working remotely
• Requires a VMB4540 or VMB5000 smarthub

[LTA01]

Thanx for your reply Stephen. So basically, to  view recordings “on demand” from my iphone/iPad, I would need to subscribe to one of  the Arlo plans, unless I was to purchase a smart hub, and then I still wouldn’t get the same functionality of “on demand” and I’d lose some of the features that subscribing to a plan would give me.

[StephenB]

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@LTA01 wrote:

So basically, to  view recordings “on demand” from my iphone/iPad, I would need to subscribe to one of  the Arlo plans, unless I was to purchase a smart hub, and then I still wouldn’t get the same functionality of “on demand” and I’d lose some of the features that subscribing to a plan would give me.

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Correct.