Arlo iOS App - 2.6.0 -20th October 2018

[Waymar]

Please can you return the basic camera to the position you had it before this update.  I liked to be able to see at a glance which camera had a low battery or had just been activated. It was previously visible on the devices screen without having to open each camera.

[MoonlightGreek]

I completely agree, the personn that redisgnned the UI clearly doesnt use the app on a daily basis.  I would suggest a little usability testing.  Time to revert to old version.

[MoonlightGreek]

I completely concure!  What did you guys do??? You ruinned a great thing.

[Janetteramsey]

I can't figure this new app out at all. I'm so disgusted with Netgear I have cameras, lights, orbi and modems I will NEVER buy another product. I had a camera go down but it shows 45% yet its out of juice. Last month they fixed the battery drain now its the app layout for God sake leave the damned thing as it was the new one sucks and I now have lag times like never before by the time it records the person is long gone. LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS THEY ARE LEAVING FOR NEST

[taphil]

WTF did you do to the app????

It's like some stupid moron who doesn't use the product whatsovever designed it to be a facebook or instragram feed.  Or to redesign it to be a cute app to monitor a cat in a tiny apartment with just one camera.

Useless rounded corners

Big giant useless font

Big giant useless spacing

So much scrolling as though you're gonna stick ads in there

No more status icons

No more quick action buttons

Timestamps aren't up to date

Snapshots aren't up to date

What a disaster!  Or outright stupidity.

Please just give us back the last version of the app.  It worked well and looked like an actual security camera app.

[arlopro2user]

The new app is pretty awful. I've been on Arlo from the beginning and this is the first time I'm astonished how terrible the platform has become.

1. None of my cameras show correct "last recorded" times. Its all 1d or 2d... not like 5 minutes ago.

2. Once you click on a camera, the video icon for that camera disappears. To be able to view the videos for that specific camera again, unlike all the other previous versions, you need to waste time filtering out the full video view to find that camera's specific video library.

3. All the important information has been wiped clean off the main viewing screen (battery, reception, etc).

4. Every time the app opens, it blicks that all cameras have low batteries, then polls and realizes they are all normal and the battery icon disappears. this is so annoying. Its like salt in a wound for this terrible app.

In the day and age where new camera platforms are coming out, some that cost a FRACTION of Arlo offering a better UI or experience, what the heck were your developers thinking?

[AncientGeek]

Arlopro2user:  Yes.  Our family made extensive use of the thumbnail intro screen and the ability to do a quick filter view of the library images by merely touching the number (0-n) of images for that camera that had not been viewed.  This was an industry leading UI.  Extremely informative “at a glance” and easy to navigate.

Clearly whomever came us with the current UI design has never actually used this system to monitor their own property....or has a massive ONE camera system.  I cannot conceive of how a first rate design team who engaged their customers, would ever decide this was an upgrade from the prior design.  They had a winner and threw it away!!!  Baffling!

[Zegor]

I do recommend Arlo but it's getting harder and harder with so many software issues. The issue with Arlo is they have great hardware but their software is mostly lacking or buggy. They can't expect to operate like this forever without being overtaken by the competition.

[Croco2]

The new 10/2018 iPhone app for Arlo cameras is a real step back. Instead of seeing immediately the chrging status of the camera battery you need to click on two buttons to receive the same information. It is also not possible anymore (at least I do not find it) to get the screen for calibration of the picture. Please give us back the forme app or update your new app to bring as much camera infos on the start screen as possible. Also it should be possible to chose easily at the login screen different accounts. I have two of them as I use two base stations for 10 cameras. 

[trickytcamgeek]

The live video function does not work in the latest App update of 23 october 018

[trickytcamgeek]

Having pushed out the terribly flawed version 2.6.0 on 20th October 2018, they have released another version 2.6.1 on 23rd Octoer 2018 which is equally awful.  These new versions are simply not as user freindly as the earlier versions.   Clearly the department responsible for this is highly irresponsible.   Software should not be released without being properly tested.  If version 2.6.0 was released in error, how come version 2.6.1 has been released withn the same problems?

There are many problems with the new release 2.6.1 for iOS.  (I use the large iPad Pro running the most up to date version of the software (iOS v12.1).  I advise anyone "DO NOT UPDATE THE APP ON YOUR IPHONE OR IPAD!!!!!!).  The updated APP sucks.  It does not work as expected.

1) The "Live" view in "Devices" does not work.  When you click on the "live" arrow, it says "live", but it is not.  It is an old static image.

2) The "Devices" view only allows you to see one camera at a time instead of the multiple cameras you could see with the old version of the App (very annoying).  You have to scroll to see the other cameras.   If you are monitoring for security reasons, you want to be able to see all cameras simultaneously on one screen, not constantly scrolling up and down.

3) The battery strength icon icon is no longer visible on top of the image.  Now you have to check each camera one-by-one.   Before you could see all the icons on the top of the camera image.   Before, with the earlier App, you could see in a second which cameras had weak batteries.   Now you have to scroll to each camera and click on the sub-menu one-by-one.  This is very tedious if you have lots of systems (I monitor up to 30 cameras in several locations).

4) there are many other problems mentioned in these forums with the placement of the icons, like the icon for the battery strength indicator monitoring, the one for movement, the icon for sound, and the icon for wifi signal strength.   Some of these icons are no longer working.  They have all been moved to a sub -menu for each camera.  

Frankly Netgear, we would have expected better from a responsible company like you.

[AncientGeek]

Trickytcamgeek:  

1.  I have seen this behavior, but when I stop and start the live view a second time, I seems to work ok.  I just checked again before writing this and it is working for me on iOS 12.0.1 with 2.6.1 and was working the same way on 2.6.0 for me.  Flaky, but not completely broken.

2.  Complete agreement!  They had a great design and tossed it away in favor of an inferior design.  Who thought this was better?  Do they use their own products?

3.  Exactly my situation and sentiment.

4.  Yes.  We lost a lot of very valuable information on the landing screen.  Library filtering was trivial and now, once the unseen image count goes to zero for a camera, you have to perform five menu clicks to get back there.  Even the new filtering button placement seems awkward and requires what feels like unnatural hand swapping   

I believe Arlo has been spun out of Netgear and to an independent company now...  so..  Arlo, please bring back the previous landing screen with multiple images scaled appropriately for our device screen size and loads of valuable information at a glance.  Please!

[sybersnot]

Maybe it's a ploy of some kind. Destroy arlo stock then release another product that functions well and make another fortune when people buy it instead of arlo. I can't believe it was unintentional.

[mikeg279]

I have all the same issues. Live video on iPad gone

[trickytcamgeek]

I got through to customer service team through the online chat. The first guy cut me off. The second one basically asked me questions like what steps have you done so far?   Finally after running through a host of steps he requested, like restarting everything, he finally said “I am really sorry, there’s nothing I can do. Please complain through the product suggestions section and maybe the software team will get to hear about this.”

In other words, the customer service team is only there to fix problems where the consumer is stupid. They are completely unable to fix problems with the software developers are stupid.

[Boostland]

Seems that a battery icon appears when battery level drops mine was around 25% and one showed up.

[ant]

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@AncientGeek wrote:

Arlopro2user:  Yes.  Our family made extensive use of the thumbnail intro screen and the ability to do a quick filter view of the library images by merely touching the number (0-n) of images for that camera that had not been viewed.  This was an industry leading UI.  Extremely informative “at a glance” and easy to navigate.

Clearly whomever came us with the current UI design has never actually used this system to monitor their own property....or has a massive ONE camera system.  I cannot conceive of how a first rate design team who engaged their customers, would ever decide this was an upgrade from the prior design.  They had a winner and threw it away!!!  Baffling!

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More like they never did any testings and listen to us. 😞

[ant]

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@Janetteramsey wrote:

I can't figure this new app out at all. I'm so disgusted with Netgear I have cameras, lights, orbi and modems I will NEVER buy another product. I had a camera go down but it shows 45% yet its out of juice. Last month they fixed the battery drain now its the app layout for God sake leave the damned thing as it was the new one sucks and I now have lag times like never before by the time it records the person is long gone. LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMERS THEY ARE LEAVING FOR NEST

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Ditto. FYI. https://investor.netgear.com/releases/press-release-details/2018/NETGEAR-Announces-Planned-Separatio... and https://www.cnet.com/news/netgear-spins-its-arlo-smart-home-security-brand-off-as-a-public-company/

[pg87111]

Live streaming does not work on the iPad Pro.  I tried after downloading 2.6.1 and it did not resolve the problem.  I hope all of these issues are fixed soon.

[AncientGeek]

Live streaming works on my iPad Pro...10.5” version.

it sounds like people are having different experiences for some reason.

[AvA110]

The latest version 2.6.1 is terrible.
The most important feature for me was live view which is not at best very flaky. The worst part is that it shows live text on top of the picture and you can hear live audio but the picture is frozen. You have stop/play couple of time then it might show live feed for few seconds before it freezes again.
I wish we could just go back to previous version:(


Terrible, I think I should return the devices to Costco and move to Nest while I still can

[trickytcamgeek]

Boostland Turner,  I have 23 Arlo cameras.  The battery icon appears on ONE only of the 23.    That battery is at 13%. I have othe cameras with less than 13% where there is NO battery icon.   Even at 1% the battery icon does not appear.

Therefore, I do not think the appearance of a battery icon has something to do with low power.  It must be something else.

This version of the App is awful.   Please Netgear, give us back the old version while you fix the problems.

[DawgFace]

I’m done with these things, selling and moving on to another hopefully more reliable solution, Latter being a low bar for sure.

So if anyone wants in on some defective garbage cameras let me know. 2 base stations, 4 pros with 4 solar panels. 

Probably not the best place to command top dollar... 

[lico]

Total 6 camera's 1/2 work now?

Camera 1 should trigger record camera's 1,2,3,4. Now only records 1,2,3. Checked camera set up & is correct. it is keyed to record #4.Restarted base and still have problem.idually

Camera's 2,3, 4,5,6 no longer trigger individually. checked set up and looks good. Don't know why motion will not trigger and record video.

Could go on with other issues, but question is was this caused by update?

My system worked perfectly before! Any idea what my problem is?

[lico]

Total 6 camera's 1/2 work now?

Camera 1 should trigger record camera's 1,2,3,4. Now only records 1,2,3. Checked camera set up & is correct. it is keyed to record #4.Restarted base and still have problem.idually

Camera's 2,3, 4,5,6 no longer trigger individually. checked set up and looks good. Don't know why motion will not trigger and record video.

Could go on with other issues, but question is was this caused by update?

My system worked perfectly before! Any idea what my problem is?

Android 

my Devices 2.6.1_22700 10/23/18

[AncientGeek]

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@trickytcamgeek wrote:

....

Therefore, I do not think the appearance of a battery icon has something to do with low power.  It must be something else.

.... 

Acording to the release notes for 2.6.1 for iOS, the battery level indicator is SUPPOSED to be related to a low battery level (see attached), but it sounds like there is a bug there.

Amazingly, it should be clear to everyone that if the app is fetchng the battery status to determine whether or not the battery level is low, the data for the battery level is already being pulled down to the app.  All they have to do is use a conditional or Case statement to display an icon that relates to the current battery level.  There would seem to be EXTREMELY little additional overhead for that...3 or 4 icons and the same number of extra lines of code!  What on earth was the benefit of eliminating the disply of battey status at all levels.