Base VMB4000 cannot setup at assisted living home

[dbd126]

My mom just moved into an assisted living place with WiFi. We’ve tested speed and it’s good. I bought a new base station because I wanted to leave the other base and 3 cameras at her home. So, I have a new base and one camera to use at assisted living. I could not get the base or camera to connect to their WiFi. I bought a WiFi extender with an Ethernet port and hooked it to the base. Still no luck. Any advice? Other residents have a security camera in their room.

[Dannybear]

You need to be able to connect to the local wifi with a pc browser to access the arlo web portal or connect using your mobile device to access your account to add the base and camera. I.e. need to be on same network.

[dbd126]

Thank you! I found out from doing a Live Chat that I can’t use the Arlo Pro 2 camera to do this. I need the Arlo Essentials or the Arlo Pro 4 camera. With either one I can connect directly to a wifi network and I won’t need the base or the extender. 

[dbd126]

Even after purchasing the Arlo Essentials camera and accessing the WiFi network in my mom’s assisted living facility, I still haven’t been able to get the camera to connect in the final step of the process. The camera reads the bar code and chimes, but then the camera can’t be found when the app on my phone is searching for it. My sister is the admin on the app and set up the other cameras (Arlo Pro 2) at our mom’s house. I’m wondering that since I’m not the admin, is this the reason I can’t get the camera to connect. Maybe I should delete the app on my phone, reinstall it making me the admin and try again. 

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@dbd126 wrote:

Even after purchasing the Arlo Essentials camera and accessing the WiFi network in my mom’s assisted living facility, I still haven’t been able to get the camera to connect in the final step of the process. The camera reads the bar code and chimes, but then the camera can’t be found when the app on my phone is searching for it. My sister is the admin on the app and set up the other cameras (Arlo Pro 2) at our mom’s house. I’m wondering that since I’m not the admin, is this the reason I can’t get the camera to connect. Maybe I should delete the app on my phone, reinstall it making me the admin and try again. 

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Not sure why this is on the VMB4000 thread, since it sounds like you are directly connecting the Essential to the assisted living wifi.

FWIW, Arlo doesn't quite have the concept of "admin".  The primary account is the one on which the cameras are onboarded, a secondary "friend" account has shared access to the cameras.  Your sister's account might be primary for the Pro 2 cameras, but if you are onboarding the Essential from your account, then your account is the primary one for the Essential.

Is the assisted living WiFi encrypted?  The camera requires WPA2 (AES), and will not connect otherwise.  There are some other possibilities (one is that the facility doesn't allow WiFi clients to "see" each other).  You might need help from the facility's tech staff to help you sort this out.