Activity zones-Arlo bait and switch?

[TerribleCams]

My question is at the bottom here with the *** in front of it with a little bit of a rant sandwich.

I'm nearing the end of my 3 month trial and feel I've been scammed. These cameras are sold touting some features that do not do what they say they do. These features are major selling points of these cameras. The bait is on the box, the switch is in the hardware/software.

Activity zones and smart notifications being the two most prevalent offenders ....so far.

These touted features do not work. Almost 3 months in and not once have they worked. I'm fairy tech savvy too. I've tried everything. I've also scoured the web and I'm not the only one over the course of a couple years and it seems Arlo's best answer is to point the camera elsewhere... Where? At a wall? They are using these features to make sales but those features do not work. If they did, you wouldn't need to point the camera elsewhere. That's the definition of a scam in my opinion.

I have set a smaller perfectly square box (I just pinched the box down that appears when you add a zone so I can be sure it's square) as an activity zone just covering my front steps just to be sure. My steps are 40 feet from the road. The camera doesn't even point toward the road and I have it on "Full" screen instead of "wide". About 1/5 of the view can see the street in the cameras "peripheral" in the top right corner and I have "motion" turned off in smart notifications. The camera points perpendicular to the driveway and parallel with the road.

Well guess what, the activity zone is completely useless because 7 to 8 out of 10 cars trigger a notification for motion. AND smart notifications are useless because I have "All other motion" turned off yet I'm being notified as "Motion". Not person, not vehicle, not animal. Motion, because it's outside of the activity zone so it doesn't care what it is I guess. Well with motion turned off, I shouldn't receive a notification.

So now I've burned up a 3 month trial trying to get something to work and now they want me to pay to continue to use these features that don't work.

***My question is, does anyone utilize activity zones and smart notifications and do these features actually work for you?
If it says these features work on the box and they don't... Who do we talk to about getting our money back? A lawyer? The BBB? Attorney general? False advertising?

I've burned up a 3 month trial period. These features did not work throughout the duration of the trial period. They say they're "working on it"... In nine days my trial period is up. Who's going to notify me when it's fixed so I can pay to use these features on the cameras I bought so that I could use these features? What, am I supposed to do? Just pay monthly for something that doesn't work until they fix it? That's a joke. They should credit/comp me another trial period so I can actually see these features work when they fix them and then I can actually feel comfortable paying for a subscription. They won't though and I'm stuck with junk that doesn't work and I won't be able to see that it works when they supposedly fix it so I won't be able to feel comfortable paying for a subscription. This is absurd.

My buddy has a decently well known YouTube channel that covers Tech and he's asked that I start taking screen recordings so he can review these things and post the footage of these features failing consistently. Maybe that'll get these guys working on the fix when they're put on blast.

Pretty sure I've been scammed. Who else?

[JamesC]

I've spoke with the team internally and the cause of this issue is understood and a fix is ready to be delivered. The fix to resolve the issue will come in the form of a cloud update, so it's not something users will need to do any work on their end to resolve. We expect this fix to be released within the next couple of days, I unfortunately cannot provide a more accurate timeline than that.

I will reach out to you in a private message with more information,

JamesC

[TerribleCams]

JamesC,

If this doesn't work properly in the next couple days, how am I supposed to feel comfortable buying a subscription when my trial period is up? Am I supposed to just hope that it's going to work eventually and pay? How many months will I pay till it works as advertised? How much money will I spend until it works? 10 bucks? 60 bucks while I wait for the fix? I feel like we're paying top dollar for Beta equipment and software trials. People are paying for these features, these cameras were purchased under the valid assumption that these features work as advertised. They do not, not in the few months I've been set up. Now suddenly they're going to fix it in the next couple days? I won't hold my breath.

.........😐

[TerribleCams]

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not paying for features that don't work. If I don't see them working, why would I buy a subscription?

Who's going to notify me when they're supposedly functioning correctly. And how will I feel comfortable paying for features and service that I watched first hand, fail consistently?

I already bought the cameras under the impression that the features touted on the box worked....

Fool me once....

Buying a subscription would be shame on me. No?

[JamesC · Accepted solution]

The cloud fix for this issue has been released and you should be seeing the results of the fix now. You may need to remove and reapply activity zones and toggle your smart alerts now that the fix is available. Please let us know if you are still seeing inaccurate smart alerts and/or motion being detected outside your activity zones.

Thank you,

JamesC

[TerribleCams]

I'm going to reply the same here to keep these threads updated. No need to respond to both though I'll update both as I go in case others are curious.


Hi James,
Today was very quiet while I was at work. In fact I didn't get any notifications at all, not one. Not even when I left the driveway, or when I got home. The last notification I had was when I was walking out the door going to work. Normally the front camera sends a "vehicle" notification when I'm leaving and returning and my truck/trailer is only about 20 feet max from this cam.
Upon returning and noticing I didn't get a notification, I reapplied activity zones and toggled smart alerts. I then pulled forward and back and got a "vehicle" notification.

Then curious, I turned motion detection up to 100% to see what'd happen. This did trigger a "motion" notification to my phone when a vehicle went by far outside the activity zone and with "motion" notifications off in smart alerts. Curious if the fix entailed weakening motion detection as the cam had a hard time seeing my truck/trailer as a moving object when it's always seen it at the same settings. Seems if activity zones worked properly, anything outside of the purple area would be ignored no matter the other settings whether detection is at 100% or not. Also, the "motion" alert was odd considering those aren't supposed to come through.

Maybe a hiccup.

Either way, it does seem better ....so far.... A few Cars have gone by at my previous settings and they've all stayed completely under the radar at these settings but I've only had it working since I got home. We'll see if it sees my truck leave/return tomorrow at normal settings.

Thank you for the heads up! I'll keep an eye on it.

[TerribleCams]

Hi James,

A 12 hour day, two of us have left and returned. All notifications were as they should be and there were zero unwanted notifications. The front cam saw a cat in the driveway and gave the appropriate "animal" notification while I was at work.

All seems very well and the cams seem to be functioning as they are expected to.

More time and testing will tell. For now I clicked "accept as solution in both my posts.

Thank you. This looks very promising.