Arlo Essential and Base Station

[Nawab88]

Hello Experts,

I'm planning to join the Arlo Family and have a few questions before I buy my product.

1. What is the purpose of a base station in general?
2. If Essential doesn't require a base station, then where is it storing the data?
3. Subscribing to the cloud is necessary or it has a memory card slot or something?
4. If I buy a base station and connect it to Essential, will that work to store my data instead of buying the cloud storage?
5. What base station models are supported with Essential? 

[jguerdat · Accepted solution]

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@Nawab88 wrote:

1. What is the purpose of a base station in general?
2. If Essential doesn't require a base station, then where is it storing the data?
3. Subscribing to the cloud is necessary or it has a memory card slot or something?
4. If I buy a base station and connect it to Essential, will that work to store my data instead of buying the cloud storage?
5. What base station models are supported with Essential? 

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1) The use of the base has changed over time from being required to providing features such as local recording and sometimes a siren.

2) Without a base, all data is cloud-based. Even with a base, the system uses the cloud although a subscription is needed for cloud recordings. Otherwise, recordings are only to the base station using a USB drive or microSD card, depending on the exact model.

3) The sub is optional but does give you extra features such as easier access to recordings when offsite (local recordings require the use of a VPN or port forwarding on your router) as well as Smart notifications. See #2 for local recording info.

4) The only way to have recordings without a sub is to use a base or hub with local recording configured.

5) https://kb.arlo.com/000062284/What-is-the-difference-between-each-Arlo-SmartHub-and-base-station (lots of other info in there, too).