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

[satogato]

I have three cams, one of them is offline.  What to do?

[Max-]

Place the offline cam (after you checked the battery status) next to the base station (1-3 ft) and press the buttons one on the base station and one on the cam, so they can reconnect. Read the instructions. 

Happens often with these Arlo wifi. 

[brenno]

Excellent idea, not only for the Arlo Baby, but for all the arlo cameras (I have three Arlo Q and am about to purchase an Arlo Pro 2). +1

[koten]

I agree too, I have 3 cameras and one often offline, no way to reboot it. I also tried with the arlo API but it can only enable/disable the cameras. What is the news about this issue? Do you have improvements?

Thanks

[Zoroz]

I have same issue with Arlo Pro. The car era affected is the closest. Literally 15 feet. Just changed batteries plus updated firmware two days ago. 

[CBTB]

Please update firmware to allow manual/automatic remote camera reboot, not an acceptable solution to open battery and power back up.  People live (as do I) considerable distances from these cameras and,or mounted in locations requiring a ladder to access them.  A solution would be greatly appreciated. If this is not possible PLEASE inform us so we can return this product, as it holds no value in its current state.  Thank You 

[Sjk1010]

I’ve been having this issue with my cameras going offline for years. It’s a royal pita constantly pulling my cameras down and resetting them only to work for a few hours and then going offline again. This is completely unacceptable and in no way should ever be considered a solution to a camera problem. Lately since the last update or two my batteries have been draining like crazy. I think it’s completely crazy that I spend around $80 every couple months to purchase new energizer batteries when they are supposed to last up to “6 months”. In the time I’ve had these cameras I could have bought the most expensive hard wired system available and have it installed with the money I’ve spent on batteries. Netgear/Arlo has got to figure out how to solve these issues. Unfortunately I really don’t think they seem to care. Every time they come out with a new update things get worse not better as expected.