External Sensors w/o Cameras (External Motion Detection/"Tripwire")

[tboon]

Because of Arlo's excellent video quality and excellent field of view I am able to see most of a large room/outdoor area with one camera. Unfortunately this tends to minimize the effectiveness of the motion detection as the camera tends to be more centrally located and so it does not detect something/someone until it is halfway or more across the room/area if it detects it at all.  This leaves users with the undesirable options of either compromising their camera placement to accomodate motion detection or using an entire camera exclusively as a motion detector with little to no useful function as a camera. This latter scenario is a situation for which the camera is over-qualified and overpriced.  A separate motion sensor that would trigger the camera to start recording when someone enters the room/access point would alleviate this issue. It could also help with the issue that myself and others  are having with lag in recording start time. The sensor could be placed further out from the camera when necessary so that it could trigger the camera to start recording earlier, accounting for the lag time and recording what users actually wanted recorded.

An additional sensor would not be something that would be required of all cameras and placements, but it would be useful for specific scenarios and even having two sensors at opposite inds of a room/area triggering one camera could be a useful setup. As it is though, it is relatively cost prohibitive to expand your system to do this as the cameras are the only sensor option and cost too much to be wasted on being merely a sensor. Additinally these "wasted" cameras eat into your allotment under the current subscription you have and could create additional cost to the user for an upgraded subscription. As it is, I am hesitant to expand my system (currently at 4 cameras), even though I would like to have greater coverage, because of the up front cost of the cameras not being used to their full potential combined with the monthly cost of the upgraded subscription. I would be far more willing to expand my system and upgrade my subscription if there were external sensors that would allow me to use my system effeciently and effectively like I want to without the inflated up front cost.  

I could see how this could be achieved either through hardware development of sensors exclusively for Arlo or through software development of integration with already established systems which perform comlementary functions. With either one, if the price is right I'm in, if it stays as it is my expansion is stuck.

[Pet1700]

Could we have just motion detectors that we could mount outside, battery operated, that could help trigger recording on arlo much sooner and even before subject enters view?

It would prevent many of use from buying additional cameras to simply serve as motion detectors for other cameras.

[XJW]

Any news?  There are now many home automation solutions with IFTTT support with separate motion sensors and cameras.  But I do not want multiple hubs.  It looks like I will have to abandon Arlo in favour of one of the other systems with a more complete solution.  The Arlo motion detection is near hopeless when motion is towards the camera.  It is a major flaw in the product.  When will you fix this gap ?

[XJW]

Arlo is near useless when motion is towards the camera.  Its useless for monitoring a corridor.  It's near useless for monitoring my front gate.  There are now many systems available with separate motion sensors and cameras.  And as I don't want multiple hubs I will get rid of my Arlo system.

[XJW]

Arlo is near useless when motion is towards the camera.  Its useless for monitoring a corridor.  It's near useless for monitoring my front gate.  There are now many systems available with separate motion sensors and cameras.  And as I don't want multiple hubs I will get rid of my Arlo system.

[XJW]

Arlo is near useless when motion is towards the camera.  Its useless for monitoring a corridor.  It's near useless for monitoring my front gate.  There are now many systems available with separate motion sensors and cameras.  And as I don't want multiple hubs I will get rid of my Arlo system.

[bmattox79]

Out of all the ideas on this exchange I really think this has to be one of the best/easiest to implement. Arlo cameras have excellent images and do their job well, but the motion sensors are horrible ,I have been changing angles for a week to try and get the best motion sensing but it is very hard a separate motion only device would allow me to place it in a spot where I don't want a camera due to poor video coverage,  from a company view this should be a no brained it's another piece to upsell and apparently a lot of us woulD buy it.

[bmattox79]

I know this is listed as future consideration, but I think this topic needs to be bumped and kudo'd as much as possible, in the almost 2 weeks I've had the system  I have thought of returning it a few times due to the fact of the motion sensor problem if a separate motion center only was sold that could be programmed to trigger multiple cameras it would fix most if not all of the issues I have with this system.  I like the system and no it is better than having nothing as I will not run the wires and drilled a hole is needed for a wired system even the other wireless systems need power run to the cameras, so I definitely think separate motion detectors is the best idea on this board right now  and would fix most peoples problems with this system .  Come on Netgear it  should be very easy to just make a motion detector to sync up with the base and sell at a lesser price than a camera to have people who spend 500 or more dollars on the system have a very good working system 

[Markaxtell]

Would be good if we could have small extra sensors to trigger the cameras. I have a camera that covers the front of the house but isn't sensitive to cover all the area! An extra sensor placed elsewhere would be good!

[bmattox79]

There are a few threads in the Arlo idea exchange for that, go find one of them and give it kudos the more kudos the more they might listen

[generickitty]

For some reason I can't kudos this idea but how can we hack arlo with an arduino for motion detection? That would be the best thing. We need to access the api with a key that gets generated and that's about it. As long as the arduino runs whatever client/agent the cameras are running then it will work fine. So what Netgear is saying is hey. We need one of you guys to reverse engineer a camera. Copy the agent and put it on an arduino. Thanks netgear =(

I am seriously considering returning this to amazon and leaving a poor review for this product.

Conversely when I first purchased it, for a week it worked PERFECTLY. How does it stop working all of the sudden with no change in position and fresh batteries straight from the package not oem?