Benefit of geofencing?

[Ihate100bees]

What do you use geofencing for? What is the difference between manually arming and disarming the system, then setting it for geofencing? I find that I still have to select "away mode" or "home mode", when I have it set on geofencing. I thought the benefit of geofencing was that the system would know when your phone left your home, therefore arming and disarming automatically when I left my boundary. But that is not the case, because I still have to do it manually. So what is the point setting it's on geofencing? Thanks

[TomMac]

When set up properly and you gps is on, the phone app will ( should )  auto switch between the two selected modes you have set. ( home or away )

It has worked well for me on an S7 android but not 100% when more than one phone in the mix

[Ihate100bees]

Sorry... but I'm still not clear on the difference it makes, rather than just arming or disarming. I do have my phone set for GPS and sometimes it will disarm when I come back into range, but I find that it is glitchy. Sometimes when I am in the house, it rearms itself and sets my alarm off. Overall, I find that I have to select away or home, so what difference does it make if I just select arm or disarm? Maybe I am missing something?

[TomMac · Accepted solution]

The app uses the gps to have location for turning on or off the system ( change modes ) via the geozone size set.

If the gps is not active all the time it can interfere with the proper change of modes

[Ihate100bees]

Thanks I'll give it a try but I'm pretty sure my GPS has always been on, but I will double check to make sure. So what you are saying is... when I select geofencing, as long as my GPS for my phone is set to on, the system should automatically arm my home when I leave out of range? Disarm when I returned into range? But then why is there a mode for home and away? Are you saying that I should not have to select these, that the GPS should do it automatically? If I have to select them, then this is what I am trying to understand... why not just arm and then disarm the system to those modes?

[Dannybear]

As an example I run two iPhones with geofencing continually so that I don’t have to change anything when me or partner are away from home.
When we both leave I get a notification that arlo is in away mode which i have set for armed mode. When I get home I get another notification that arlo is set for home mode which i have set for schedule mode that has my custom modes set for when I’m home.

On iPhones you can set arlo to also notify when a phone goes in and out of zone, but I only use this for testing the geofencing.

This is ideal for me as I can sometimes forget to manually arm/disarm arlo when away.

You can also set the geofencing away mode to a custom mode but it is pointless for me unless arlo adds a second scheduler feature.

[Ihate100bees]

Thanks for your reply. Sounds pretty complicated! But I will try to decipher what you said and apply it. I have Android, not Apple. I would think that it should be much easier then this but I will try to what was it. Thanks again.

[Dannybear]

You’re welcome, sorry if it seems complicated, but if you read the arlo user articles it should be clearer.
I used my example as it for fills my needs and likely yours also in time when you customise the modes and rules.

I do point out that if you’re cellular networks signal is weak in your home then it may cause you headaches using geofencing. Try testing the location reliability around the home using geofencing settings page with the phone’s wifi turned off to see if it drops out.

[Ihate100bees]

Thanks that's a very good idea. I will definitely try it. Yes my signal is pretty weak within my Wi-Fi. I live in an historic home in the walls are very thick and the Wi-Fi has a hard time throughout the house, however it seems to be working fine when I just use the arm and disarm modes. Thanks for all the information!