Arlo Pro 2 detection gets worse with updates!!! Cameras now useless🤬

[BeSafe]

I’ve had these cameras several months. When I first got them they detected motion at well over 30 feet. Each update I did the detection range got worse. Down to 20feet then now 10feet. They are useless for me now. Can anyone tell me what happened. If not I will throw them in garbage so no one will have this junk. I will get ring instead. The picture quality is absolutely great the detection sucks now. I hope it’s not because they want me to buy more cameras when the two I had were perfect when I first got them. Just a few months old. Please help.

[Allan477339]

I did not realize how much shorter the detection range it is now.   One of the other cameras picked up a couple of intruders but not the camera covering the entry. It used to cover the entry to my back yard as soon as someone came around the corner of the house.  Now it only covers the steps to the back door.  An yes I've rebooted the hub, deleted and added the camera.

[ShayneS]

Have you tried contacting customer support regarding this issue? I have attached the link here for you - Arlo Tech Support

[BeSafe]

I have talked to them. They had me reset base station, delete and reinstall cameras, and a few other thinmgs nothing worked. Do you have any ideas?

[BeSafe]

I also had a chat session with them that did not turn out so well. After several min. of typing back and forth the session locked up with the chat session, not my computer. I will have to try again. this has to be improved or these cameras are useless to me

[Dannybear]

I have seen similar issues with my cameras and suggest that this is caused by a firmware bug.

It’s possible that the camera’s detection sensitivity value has been changed internally although it shows the correct value from the base station and on the App.

If you find this to be the case then you will need to make a change to the detection value other than the default value, pull the camera battery, remove from the account and then re syncing.

Hope this helps.

[BeSafe]

The Arlo tech had me do this it did not help. I will try again as it seems this is the issue. every time I do an update the distance of motion detection gets worse. I have it set for 100% sensitivity now but have tried multiple settings with no help there either. I have a lot of activity on this camera, could it be this was turned down on Arlo’s side on purpose to save on the 7 day cloud storage on there end?

[Dannybear]

Reading about other users detection issues on the forum suggests reseating the camera battery solves it most times.
I’ve previously experienced value changes in the mode rules that get masked and so don’t show correctly even using the web browser.
It would be nice if the cameras had a factory reset feature to flush the existing firmware.

[BeSafe]

I agree. This has to be able to be fixed with firmware update. It had an incredible motion sensing distance when I first got the cameras. It stayed that way until I did the updates. Two updated and the distance got worse each update, when I was hoping for it to fix my problem.

[Dannybear]

Forgive if this has already been mentioned.
Have you confirmed that the motion detection distance works correctly using the utility in the camera’s device settings?

[BeSafe]

The distance seems no better as I turn it up. Does this make it more sensitive or does it increase the distance of detection?

[Dannybear]

The way PIRs operate is very basic, it is just a chip that picks up the infrared presented to its face.
I am not sure how the detectors are configured in the arlo cameras but suggest they are using reflective mirrors around the sensor chip to create a wider field of view for pickup.
The way the detection works is normally by detecting a variation of the infrared level not the amount, hence why motion across the FOV is always recommended.
The sensitivity adjustment does not set the distance that is covered, just the size of the object detected.
My front yard camera picks up moving objects better from the side of FOV but struggles with objects head on. I turn sensitivity down during the day to limit false detections.

It would be nice to know if you can get in to clean the sensor and mirrors in case it is a film buildup causing the degradation.

[BeSafe]

So how can you control distance? My cameras definately detected much farther when i first installed them. It lasted about a month or so and when i charged them up there was an available update. I did the update and thats when my problems started. The next update was in hopes they fixed the decreased detection distance i had on the first update but instead it was even worse! this absolutly happened in my case. Cameras are mounted in same locations as they were from the beginning. Nothing has changed on my side of things.

[Dannybear]

I expect that the customer will never know what changes are made within updates, the common theme is just bug fixes from the the firmware release notes.

If as you say the updates have caused this, I would speculate that the sensitivity range has been nobbled to accomodate corrections for the smart detection features that were introduced. Subtle changes can be easily overlooked by most customers so it is just put down to your faulty setup.

Example, for months i’ve been battling lots of unexplained issues since purchasing the system, I’ve been given the impression that i’m the only one and it’s just bad luck, even from engineering I get silly requests.

All has mostly been working well for me now that I have removed pinch and zoom and activity zones from all my cameras.

I guess you’re next step is to seek support for a full system replacement.

[BeSafe]

If Arlo tech don’t help then that’s what I will do.