Geofencing Breaks when iOS App Login Session Times Out

[jcrain]

My wife and I both have iPhones with the Arlo app. Both if these are listed as devices which are geofenced.

We regularly find that one of our devices has been logged out of Arlo, and therefore won't trigger the geofencing (either Home or Away), leaving our system exposed.

We will both leave home, only to find that Arlo thinks one of us is still there, and won't arm the system. Similarly, we'll arrive home, and the system won't disarm, until we both log in, change mode to arm or disarm, and then back to geofencing.

The trouble is, neither of us know when this happens. The Arlo app doesn't tell us that we've been logged out until we go into it, which defeats the purpose of geofencing. We also don't understand why either of us would be logged out when we haven't touched the app.

This is very confusing and frustrating, any tips would be gratefully received.

Jamie

[ShayneS]

Hello,

This issue has been identified and a fix to resolve this issue will be coming soon. I will provide another update as soon as possible.

[ShayneS]

The Arlo development team is currently investigating this issue. We will provide an update as soon as we have more information to share with the community.

[billam]

OK - so read a few issues like mine with geofencing.

Having contacted Arlo and Verisure who blame each other and/or my Android xperia xz2 mobile 

i am now at the point of cancelling my recently installed  system

.

Having followed all settings instructions from Arlo and Verisure helplines i cannot get the geofencing map to recognise when i leave the home area and then come back again, unless i manualy update the map with the little green arrow on the geofencing map.

it just stays on the home setting while i am out so the system isn't set to alarm as instructed 

Has anyone got any idea why this is happening  ?

[homevale]

If you can’t use the geofencing the Arlo camera is an expensive piece of junk. There are other manufactures at h as of the price that g do I a good job but don’t have geofencing.

[Dannybear]

Geofencing only works for me if the app is open when you leave and return.
Since you have to open the app each time then you may as well set the mode manually as a workaround to the logging out issue.

[jguerdat]

This may be an Android vs. iOS issue since I have no problem on Android. I know @Dannybear uses iOS.

[ShayneS]

@Dannybear

Can you verify if you have this setting Location presences set to > Allow all the time?

[Dannybear]

Yes, always have, and using iOS app v3.6.8. Deleted and reinstalled.

Go figure, went out today with the App open and no geofencing alerts. App says I’m at home still.

Strange that it stopped working after I posted yesterday that it worked ok using the workaround. I’ll just give up and wait until next year to try using it again.

[swordfishBob]

I also think this is a really stupid scenario. The app shouldn't need to log out "for security reasons" if the phone itself is appropriately secured. It's a BIGGER security problem that geofencing suddenly stops working without any notification. 

A solution is possible. Even when the app "logs out", it can still alert that e.g. doorbell rang or camera detected motion (assuming geofencing didn't leave it disarmed). In that case, why can't geofencing still work? Or at least, why can't the app give an alert that says "Geofencing is disabled, log back in to resolve".

That said, I've decided in my case it's better to forget geofencing and just leave it permanently armed. It's annoying when working in the garden or on the car, but at least there's a "mute notifications" that can be set as temporary. That won't work for everyone. And now I know when the cat is at the door.

[Dannybear]

I believe that we may currently have two bugs with geofencing mode.

First is the legacy bug where the system doesn’t know you have left or when you get back to the home zone.
Sometimes I can drive 30mins away before it updates that I’m away. A few years back it would update when I drive outside the range circle and again when returning. This was with the app in background mode. Now the only time I can achieve this is if the phone app is opened during exit and entry of the zone circle but even then intermittently.

The second bug which started at the start of this year was that the app was being forced logged out and when this occurred it would force the base station to disabled mode so when your away your property was left unmonitored.

Note that I have been using the same iPhone 5s and same arlo and modem equipment for the last four years and have had no confidence in geofencing since the last three. It used to work great when I first got the arlo system, because it worked so well I put up with all the other arlo bugs, then the support and warranty ran out.

I know your pain.

[swordfishBob]

What you call the "second bug" has been an issue for me for as long as I've tried to use geofencing. That was earlier than this year.

[Dannybear]

I am using two base stations, one is for camera operation and the other is for siren extension.
When I leave I manually arm the main base until I return. This is the only sure way to keep it monitoring while I’m away. The other Base station is switched to geofencing mode and geo status notifications enabled so I can tell when it switches between home and away. I hope that one day it will start working as featured.

[Arques]

I have now moved to a newly built house and installed a Verisure alarm system that I linked my old camera to. I was hoping that this integration would be a bit tighter than it is.

Apparently the Arlo cameras are not able to trigger the Verisure alarm system when they detect motion and it was not possible to automatically arm the cameras when the Verisure alarm system gets armed. All the integration gives me is a link from the Verisure app to the Arlo camera stream (links to the Arlo app) and it gives Verisure guards the ability to view the Arlo camera streams.

This means I could unfortunately not use this integration to bypass the broken Arlo geofencing function which has been broken since I bought the camera almost 1.5 years ago and now I have two pretty independent alarm systems that both have to be manually armed/disarmed when leaving/entering the property.

But a few days ago I set up a system on my own to deal with this. By installing and configuring the application "Home assistant" with integrations to both Verisure and Arlo I have been able to make it automatically arm the Arlo cameras when it detects that the Verisure alarm has been armed and vice versa when it gets disarmed. It's harder to forget arming the Verisure alarm than it is with Arlo since for Verisure I have an alarm panel with pin code entry and visual and auditory feedback right next to the main door of the house. It also feels a bit more important/meaningful to arm/disarm because I am also paying for other people to monitor the alarm for me and take action if it gets triggered.

With Arlo you just have the app on the phone and if geofencing worked it would be much simpler to use that than having to remember to open the app to manually arm/disarm the cameras every time you leave/enter the property.

[erulastiel]

This never worked. I’m going to have to switch to another brand. Sorry. 

[Simmm]

Will this ever be fixed?? Having exact the same issue and no fix have been implemented so far. The geofence is absolutely useless. 

[ShayneS]

@Simmm

How often does this issue occur?

[Simmm]

Every week if my wife does not open the app daily. iPhone 

[Dannybear]

@Simmm 

Which symptom are you experiencing, not working when out and about reliably or just not

working at all.

Regards the delay in switching, I believe I have since solved this by plugging the phone into the charger before leaving home. Doing this must force the arlo app to update the geofencing location to the base station repeatedly. With the iPhone on battery only I can travel up to 10 miles or 30mins away before my geofencing recognises me gone.

With the charger plugged in the geofencing switches at 150yards away or 1min.

I believe this is a global issue that gets masked since the majority of customers plug their mobile into the car’s phone dock as they leave.

There is no mention of this requirement in arlo documentation which is understandable as arlo would not want to advertise that for geofencing to work you need the phone plugged in.

If not working at all, this is usually because the mobile app when running in background is logged out. This occurs without your knowledge every two weeks and presents as a time-out session message. This means that the background app has stopped and hence no more geofencing updates to your base station. (Note that opening the app will not extend the session expiry date.)

The workaround is to set a reminder in your phone so that you force a logout and login again to extend the 2 week session.

Again this is not referenced in the arlo documentation and you can easily guess why.

Just to add that a third issue is now being reported where it stops working within the base station itself. No workaround so far.

[Simmm]

This has been an ongoing problem since start. When both devices leaving the area, cameras does not activate sometimes. Every time this is caused by one or both of the devices Arlo app has been signed out. Both devices are running iOS 15/16 and the latest app. All permissions are correct set (background activity, location, precise location and so on). My son bought an Arlo PRO and is facing exactly the same issue.

A quick Googling confirms that this is an existing issue that renders the Gefence feature unusable unless everyone makes sure to keep their app logged in on a daily basis.

Why does your app constantly log out users? Even when Face ID is activated, it happens.

[jcrain]

Dear @ShayneS

Please do not give posters in this thread false hope by asking questions like "How often does this occur?" or "Have you updated your OS?" when you know this issue has remained unfixed for several years now. It is clear that Arlo has no intention of fixing this issue.

[StephenB]

---

@Simmm wrote:

This has been an ongoing problem since start. When both devices leaving the area, cameras does not activate sometimes. Every time this is caused by one or both of the devices Arlo app has been signed out.

---

Is one of the devices using a "friend" account?  I'm thinking that is the case, but wanted to confirm.

[Simmm]

No, all accounts gets logged out every 2 weeks, even if app is opened and used daily. For family members who just the app installed in order to enable the geofence feature of the system - and never opens the app, this makes the Geofence feature absolutely unusable since cameras will not activate every 2 weeks or even more often, depends on each family members last logon cycle...

[ShayneS]

@Simmm

The Arlo Secure app access token expires every 15 days for security purposes. This will log the users out of the App. This is likely what you are experiencing with the app signing out. 

[wurstbeutel]

i would like to control that token by myself, for security purposes! 

[Simmm]

And that makes the Geofence feature useless if you share your home with others if they are not interesting into opening the app every seconds week at least.

And WHY are you expire the token every 2 weeks?! And WHY are you not extending this time at least by 2 new weeks calculated from the latest use of the app?

[ShayneS]

How often does this occur?

[erulastiel]

Hello. This will probably be my last post on this issue. As I've switched to Eufy.

This would occur every 3-5 days after not accessing the app during that time. I don't have a lot of reasons to open the app daily, so the app needs to allow geofencing to continue to occur after the app is closed for a few days. Basically, as I said above, it seemed like my app login "session" would end after a few days and it would have to log in again, usually with a FaceID auth. This issue had been going on for at least a year and a half. 

This issue did not have to do with my iOS privacy/location settings, persisted across multiple iOS devices and across different iPhone models.