System not sending notifications to phone. Essential Spotlight 2030

[RegularJoe]

This is the second time I've written about this... the first post... I edited it twice... and the system flagged it as spam and removed it. So, here it is again... and I've tried to reword it to clarify what I want to say.  This is such a complicated thing to explain... 

  In an ideal world (how they're advertised to work)... when motion sets off the cams... the phone dings to alert me of motion, the motion icon turns yellow... and a little bit later, after the video has been authenticated by their system, I get another ding on the phone telling me a video has been put in the library. I also get "push notifications" on the home screen of my phone. 

   Well, it rare that it will work that way for very long.  It  gets to where it fails to notify me of motion and new videos when it clearly has recorded some.... and there is nothing ever showing for the video count on any of the "devices".

 After I look at the Push Notifications, sometimes I will find that the video count numbers have populated the circle under each particular device.... other times, they won't.

  Is that normal?   

  This whole system seems so unstable, it's buggy and erratic in it's function.

  Sometimes it will work flawlessly, but later on when you have seen traffic in front of the cameras.. there will be no indication that the cameras caught any of it. I've just taken to "restarting" them when things seem too quiet.. I can't trust them to capture all the action. Unreliable.
  Here are some pictures showing two particular cameras this evening... I drove past and walked in front of them. I could see the infrared lights were illuminated.. it saw me... but my phone never got notified and nothing showed up on the video count.
  WHen I looked at the push notifications... there they were. 5 on each camera. After I glanced at the push's... nothing ever showed up on the video count. Sometimes they will, but oft times they won't.

  Totally random....

[Dannybear]

Probably best to include the system setup details, model numbers firmware info.
You should also include your arlo user interface method and firmware info.

I’m using four pro2, two 4000base, iPhone 5s, iOS app 3.6.8 and only have basic push notifications to the phone that alert me of wanted camera triggered notifications, I get nothing else. No subscription.

After I receive a push notification, If I open the app on the phone, if it can open quick enough, I can see the camera’ orange motion status dot is active and then extinguish after motion stops. The camera new recordings number for that camera updates and I then have the recording in the library. So I get the one ding (tri tone) for the event.

If I don’t open the app, the app badge number increments by one.

If I instead wait for a while after getting a push notification the app badge has increased and when I open the app I will see the camera’s new recordings number still saying one but my other cameras will show many since they don’t have notifications enabled. If I close the app again, the app badge number increases in addition of the other new camera recordings. So the badge number will not always reflect the number of new recordings in the library until you login to the app, but until you do the badge reflects the number of push notification events. Entering the app library clears the app badge and camera new recordings numbers.


Regards the intermittent recordings, the camera uses a PIR sensor to start the camera recording so the front face sensor requires to see a rapid change in the heat presented. As the sensor pickup is not specific to directions it relies on a fractional lens to detect heat moving across it rather than up and down. Hence if you walk directly up to your camera it is possible to not be detected. This is of course an exaggeration but the recommendation is to place the camera to capture side to side motion.

If you’re using smart notifications then although the camera records all motion events then notifications are only sent when the wanted event object is observed by the server. If you have both methods of push notifications enabled then this could be the cause of the multiple dings and ambiguous new camera event numbers.

[StephenB]

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@RegularJoe wrote:

  Here are some pictures showing two particular cameras this evening... I drove past and walked in front of them. I could see the infrared lights were illuminated.. it saw me... but my phone never got notified and nothing showed up on the video count.

  WHen I looked at the push notifications... there they were. 5 on each camera. After I glanced at the push's... nothing ever showed up on the video count. Sometimes they will, but oft times they won't.

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Some of this sounds like a phone issue.  It looks like the phone pulldown is showing you all the notifications - so the phone received them, but didn't give you an audio alert???  That could be the mode of the phone (do not disturb, focus, etc).

The counts are a bit tricky - the ones on the main page are intended to be new recordings that you haven't seen.  If you go into the library, then they usually clear.  Honestly, I don't find them to be very helpful, so I generally ignore them.