Remote fault clearing on Cameras that are offline

[fototx]

After 3 months enjoying a stable system, I had 1 camera go offline last night and remain offline.  It is still unable to reconnect after restarting the basestation several times.  After working with customer care for some time tonight, the end solution was to cycle power on the affected camera.  That is physically opening the battery door to cycle power. 

She also indicated that since the new software update, she has had reports of excessive battery draw resulting in offline.

I see the "solution" to recycle power alot on the boards but, IMO, the camera should be smarter than that.  And customers should not be conditioned to simply "cycle power" as a solution....Like the base station which can be reboot, the camera should also be able to remotely "reboot", "cycle power" etc, to clear faults.   CSR indicates that they have not ability to do this, other than the suggestion to manually pull batteries. Welll.... this is not an acceptable solution for those of us who travel and are not arms length from a manual solution. 

Assuming there is battery power and no catestrophic failure of the device....there must be a way to discover deeper the issue at hand and resolve it by:

1.  Making the camera "discoverable" for troubleshooting/resoltuion when it is connected but reporting "offline".  That is, the ability to see faults / send commands to the camera to resolve common service affecting issues to bring it back online.

2. Making the camera "self-healing" when the device is truely off-line and unreachable through the network.  That is, upon fault, let the camera determine on its own, through some rule-base, to recycle/restart/reboot itself and reconnect to the network to complete service restoration or to faciliate additional trouble shooting (#1).

Shore up "network robustness" first, then pour money into features, IMO.   Service availability must be first and foremost. 

Regards

[JamesC]

fototx,

At this time if you wish to power cycle a camera, opening and closing the battery compartment door is the only method. Your concern and feedback on this matter is appreciated as we are always looking for ideas to improve the Arlo system.

Are you continuing to experience this behavior with your camera?

JamesC

[fototx]

At this time, the offine camera is back online.  It was offline for about a day and a half. Nonetheless, I hope you will consider this enhansement.

[rsinvestor]

Agree...

There needs to be a way to remotely restart a camera that is hanging-up.

Some of us may be hundreds or thousands of miles away from these systems.  The idea that we can just open a battery door to do a manual reset is troublesome at best; impossible at worst.

[cruicky]

Yes. I deployed a 3 cam system 5 hours drive away. 4 weeks after deployment 1 camera went off line. I assumed it was stolen as it was outdoors in a tree looking back at the house. And as the motion sensitivity was not able to be set low enough to avoid false alarms (thus excessive battery use) I has to run without motion recording. I had no way of knowing what had happened and feared the worst.
Once on site 3 weeks later after the 5 hours drive I found the camera only needed a power cycle.
A daily self reboot would solve this issue.
They need an internal watchdog timer.
Reliability of a security related product is top priority.
AC

[jgoldste49]

My power company scheduled an outage in our area, and when the power was restored, one of the cameras didn't come back on.  When you're over 1,500 miles away, it's REAL HARD to reinitialize a failing camera, also known as impossible!  It makes the system less than optimal.  Bad design!!!

[fwlske]

I am 2000 miles away from my camera. Had a power outage and cameras went offline. Had to send my neighbor over and he uplugged camera and then camera came back online. The firmware should be able to recognize that there is internet and the camera is offline for an extended period of time and then it should be able to reboot. After all we have cameras because we are not at the physical site. I have the arlo Q system and other than the offline issue the camera is great. Hope to see some action in the future for addtlional firmware.

[mbhanc]

Agree - with these comments....kind of crazy that you need to be physically in contact with the camera...the whole idea here is that you can't be there in person to monitor...

[Shrick]

I agree on this... the comment above is EXTREMELY IMPORTATANT... Service availability (robustness) must be first and foremost.

[Gkc]

OMG if I had know this I would have bought a different system.  Away from cameras and can't rearm them

[JamesC]

Gkc,

What do you mean when you say you can't rearm them? are the cameras appearing offline or the base station or both? Can you give more detail on the issue you are experiencing?

JamesC