VMC2330 will not connect to WiFi

[Belcher]

I purchased the Arlo Essential Spotlight with three cameras. I cannot get them to connect to the WiFi and when I chatted with support staff they were unable to figure out why. We tried many different things, and nothing worked. While the box says it is model number VMC2330, the camera at the charging port says it is VMC2030. Very frustrated and think I will have to return. Has anyone figured out what to do to get these cameras to connect?

[StephenB]

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@Belcher wrote:

 Has anyone figured out what to do to get these cameras to connect?

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A couple of things:

• You do need to be careful to select "Essential Spotlight" when you add the device.
• The network needs to be secured with WPA2 (AES)
• Some punctuation in the network name and password can get in the way
• Some routers (Eero for example) have security features that need to be adjusted.

If you are doing this from your phone, it's best if you can disable your 5 gHz network.  Another thing you can try is doing add device from a PC (ideally connected with ethernet).

[schnuckies]

I am also unable to connect to 2 different Arlo Essential Spotlight wireless cameras that I just purchased brand new.

I have a TP-Link Deco W6000 mesh WiFi network.  I have disabled the 5GHz band so that only the 2.4GHz band is operating.  The network is secured with WPA2-PSK [AES].  I have tried my cell phone as well as my desktop PC connected to the network via Ethernet cable.

Neither of the 2 will connect and they are both brand new.

I have verified that the SSID and password are correct.

Any thoughts?

[StephenB]

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@schnuckies wrote:

I have verified that the SSID and password are correct.

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Do you have punctuation in the SSID or password?

[schnuckies]

No.  The SSID is all lower case letters and the password is a combination of lower case letters and numbers with no spaces, punctuation or special characters of any kind.

[StephenB]

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@schnuckies wrote:

No.  The SSID is all lower case letters and the password is a combination of lower case letters and numbers with no spaces, punctuation or special characters of any kind.

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Are you seeing the camera in the router's attached device list?

Do you have their homeshield feature enabled?

[schnuckies]

Well, I'm going through the initial out of box setup and the cameras are not being found, so I do not think they would be attached yet to the router.  I did go ahead and look and do not see them in the list of devices.

I do not have the TP-Link homeshield feature enabled.

[schnuckies]

As an update, I was able to connect the camera by creating a hotspot off of my phone's cellular data, connecting a laptop to that hotspot and then connecting the camera to that hotspot using the PC.

The Arlo then updated its firmware and streamed video just fine.

When I tried to switch it to the main home network (The TP-Link Deco W6000 Mesh - WiFi6), it did not work.

Are these Arlo cameras just not compatible with WiFi6 networks?  Any thoughts on possible settings changes?