Run AC power to use activity zones with no subscription?

[prschmn]

Amazingly after discontinuing my $10 a month subscription I have to run AC power to use activity zones?

Smacks of greediness to me. Makes no sense otherwise to me.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@prschmn wrote:

Amazingly after discontinuing my $10 a month subscription I have to run AC power to use activity zones?

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When you are on AC power, the camera itself can do the pixel processing.  But that requires too much power to be done on battery.  So when running on battery, every time motion is detected the video is streamed to the Arlo cloud.  The Arlo cloud then needs to decode that video and do the pixel processing needed to see if motion is inside the zone or not.

This cloud processing does cost Arlo money, and they've chosen to only offer it with a paid subscription. There is nothing new here, it's been this way for a long time. FWIW, the alternative would be for paid subscribers to subsidize your processing costs so you can get a free ride.

[prschmn]

Ahh OK thank you. I certainly don't expect a "free ride"

[Reallyconfused]

Buy AC adapters. I did. Saves you lots of money in the long run and you no longer need to climb up and down on chairs or ladders to swap out batteries all the time. Its win win as far as I see it.