"Arlo NFC switch": a physical switch + NFC tag at your front door

[jak0lantash]

TL;DR: Use a physical button / NFC tag at front door to turn ON / OFF the cameras.

Geofencing mode is nice but it's very difficult to make it work properly.
If you base the geofencing on the phone's location, you need to have the location service always running on your phone, which drain the battery.
Also, most people don't live alone, so you need to have the same service running on several devices.
If you base the geofencing on the phone's presence on the home network, it's not going to work properly as, unless set otherwise, the phone will
turn off its radio regularly to save power. If you change the settings on all the phones, it will drain their battery faster.

A simple way to tackle this would be to use a little piece of hardware that could be used to easily turn on and off the cameras.
This little box could be wirelessly attached to the Arlo station and physically attached near the front door. It should support NFC and have a physial
button to turn the cameras on.
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- When you leave the house and want to turn on the cameras, simply press the ON button before leaving. A notification is pushed to the phone to
confirm that cameras were activated. That way, you don't have to launch the app, connect to your account and change mode. If for some reason, the
activation with the button doesn't work with the physical button, even if you're already gone, you can still activate the cameras from the application.
- When you come into your house and want to turn off the cameras, an OFF button is not enough, identity and authorization must be verified. That is
the purpose of the NFC tag. You could simply pass your phone in front of the "Arlo NFC switch". The phone would read the NFC tag in it, launch the
Arlo app, check authorization and show a simple button to turn the cameras OFF. That way, you don't have to manually launch the app, connect to
your account, change mode, etc.

Imho, this would be easier to set up, to use and more reliable than the software geofencing.

[JamesC]

The Arlo development team routinely reviews posts in the Arlo Idea Exchange to assess which features the community would like to see implemented. We greatly appreciate the community’s contribution and will keep the status of this idea updated as we get new information on its potential implementation. Thank you for posting your idea!

[MarkC]

You can do this pretty easily already with IFTTT (or similar app) with the exception that you can only ARM or DISARM the system rather than setting a specific mode. It will also only cost you the price of an NFC Tag if you do not already have one.

For the exit strategy you can pick up a button like "Flic" or similar so when you press it it arms the Arlo. There are several 'button' solutions on the market that IFTTT supports. Or simply have the system ARM when you disconnect from your homes WiFi Network etc. the possibilities are endless. You can have it send you notifications also.

For the entry strategy and I have used this on occasion, you can simply create an Applet that disarms Arlo when your phone securely connects to your homes WiFi network or pretty much anything, for example you could use a BlueTooth device that requires a secure code to connect to initially then when you get close it will automatically connect (will not connect to others phones without the code), there are numerous options you could use that are baked into IFTTT. Also possible with NFC tags, see the below link for more info, it involves a few more steps but still extremely easy to do.

https://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/use-this-low-budget-hack-to-control-your-smart-home-more-easily/

Doing this with IFTTT is no less secure than having an NFC tag launch the app etc. as it is all still confined to the device you have set it up on and only you are able to set it up initially. All it does it talk directly to your Arlo Base Station rather than launching the app itlsef, which will give you a much quicker respose anyway.

Download IFTTT, link it to Arlo and have a play with creating some Applets. You will have your request up and running within a very short period of time, minutes if you a little bit tech savvy.

There is also a relatively new app called Stringify which allows you to setup multiple rules and steps to events but it still have limited support so not really fit for purpose at the moment but may be in the future.

Hope this helps.

[jak0lantash]

Wow. Thanks very much! This greatly help indeed! I'll research all this 🙂