Geofencing not working on Arlo Essentials XL

[harpbri]

I set up an Arlo Essentials Spotlight XL a few days ago with hopes of using the geofencing feature due to my wife and I coming and going at different times. Unfortunately its not working as I hoped which makes me wonder if the feature is available on my camera? I have all the settings set to the Arlo help forums recommendations, we're using newer Galaxy S phones with full location privileges given to the Arlo app, and the configuration all seems correct. Every time we leave I get the notification saying I'm leaving the Home fence, then another when my wife leaves, but it never arms the camera. I have it set to arm while we're away and work from a schedule when home. When I set it everything looks correct, showing disarmed and schedule while we're home but once we both leave it sends the notifications saying it's changed to away mode but when I look it still says disarmed and schedule when it should be armed. Not sure I've done anything wrong, I've factory reset the camera a couple of times and uninstalled and reinstalled the Arlo app several times too. One of the biggest draws for me to buy this was geofencing, if its not going to work I can return this and purchase two Wyze outdoor cameras and save the monthly fee as well. Any help from the community would be appreciated...

[JamesC]

harpbri,

Do you experience the same behavior if you do not use schedule? Set the Geofencing settings for Home to Disarmed and Away to Armed and test to see if you experience the same results.

JamesC

[harpbri]

Unfortunately James I experience the same issue when using those setting as well. Once having it all set up with the schedule/geofencing setting together and finding it not working I set it up with the default setting, with two phones. Basically I set it all up from scratch, then only set up the two phones, no schedule. I get a notification anytime one of us leaves but the camera modes do not appear to change. If I manually click on geofencing it seems to update. I'm using the Essentials XL connected directly to my router w/o a base station. I wanted to try the brand out before investing in a big kit at Costco. Everything on this camera is superior to most other cameras I have used but I can't get this geofencing to perform as it should. I reset everything again once getting home, unenabled both devices, cleared apps, signed back in and and enabled both devices. I tried rebooting the camera as well.

I understand that once I leave nothing should change until my wife leaves, the problem is the Arlo isn't arming itself when we are both gone or disarming when we are both home. I haven't had an opportunity to try it this evening but I'll keep you posted.

[harpbri]

Something else I've noticed is when making changes to the settings in geofencing, like changing the home setting from schedule or disarm, it's not updating the settings on the previous page where it shows the mode. For example if I hit the modes tab it lists my camera and its current mode, the little map symbol for geofencing and the word disarm. When I go into geofencing and change the home from disarm to schedule and go back a page it still shows the map symbol and disarm, not schedule as the new settings are set to. What I can't figure out is why all the other settings update instantly but the geofencing won't update at all unless I change modes completely and then click back to geofencing. I feel like it's poor communication between the app and camera and wonder if the camera not using a base station is the cause.

[JamesC]

harpbri,

And to clarify, is your wife signed in using her own account? She needs to be using her own login and the camera needs to be shared using the grant access feature for everything to work appropriately: How do I add friends to my Arlo account?

JamesC

[harpbri]

I actually used the link provided above last night when I set this all up. My wife is using her own sign in completely separate from mine. The app on my phone shows I have granted access to one person, my wife, and both of our devices appear in the "enabled devices" section on geofencing. Her phone's app appears to have access to pretty much all the settings though her geofencing section doesn't have the pencil to allow her to make changes in there. It seems only the original account holder has access to the actual geofencing section.

[harpbri]

Enabled devices tab screenshot.

I logged into the web interface and it follows the app. The Arlo app or the Essentials XL or a combination of the two are not communicating well together. If I make changes in the geofencing settings on my phone and then log into the web interface the settings are not updating there as well. The only way I can get the geofencing settings to update is to click on a different mode then click back on geofencing. I logged a complaint with the support team via the app earlier as I have been over every setting necessary to get this functional and they are all correct. As I can't find a lot of info on the Arlo Essentials or the Essentials XL and geofencing either I'm the only one with this problem or the camera is too new to been flagged by enough people. There are tons of articles about the Arlo 2 and others not geofencing correctly which I have tried all the solutions on those threads, I believe a few suggestions I have tried already were previous ones you have made in the past. I have until January to return this thing, If I can't get it working I will try a different brand that offers the geofencing feature as its the only way a camera system will work for our home. Thanks for your help.

[JamesC]

harpbri,

I will reach out to you in a private message to gather more information on this issue.

JamesC