Email Picture Preview

[fred7157]

Today 7/13/2020 I notice Arlo is no longer sending a picture in the alerts email. Anyone else experiencing that? I don’t see a pic on my iPhone or iPad.  

[hfang3]

Yes, it's happening to me today too.  It's very frustrating and makes efficient monitoring nearly impossible.  If Arlo does not fix this by the end of tomorrow, I am returning all of my Arlo systems to Costco.

[jjy]

I also stopped getting the picture in my email notification.  This needs to be fixed for quick monitoring of alerts.

[TI994a]

Preview pictures in email have disappeared. I use GMAIL in a variety of ways and browsers. No dice anyplace. Just a link that says  "Click here to see what's happening" instead of a preview picture and a link that says "Tap play to see what's happening". 

Previously when the preview disappeared it's because I wasn't a subscriber. I subscribed, the preview "rich content" came back but now today it's gone. Making the subscription pretty useless. I won't be renewing if this feature was removed "for my security".

I just wish Arlo was more forthcoming if there was a technical issue or a forced "privacy" change. 

[jjy]

I am a current subscriber so I don’t understand why all of a sudden the pictures are gone. They need to come back to make it worth subscribing!

[GR2011]

Same here. Worked well through yesterday. Using my Arlo Pro. This is getting old Arlo!

[JamesC]

This has been escalated and the development team is currently investigating these reports. I will provide an update here when I have more information to share with the community.

JamesC

[Handy300]

Pictures no longer showing up in my email either, just happened.  Very frustrating, it needs to be fixed.

[TI994a]

Any idea why there's still no preview picture in the "rich content" email notification for PAYING subscribers "Arlo Smart Premier Multi Camera"?

Does it really take more than a day to figure this out? And don't tell us to use a different email client. I've used a variety - the email that's coming in simply doesn't have the rich content. It's as if I'm not a subscriber. 

[eswenson]

Recent emails regarding detected motion do not include an image.  This is NOT an email client issue.  I've looked at the underlying email messages and there are no images, nor links to images in the emails. Previously, someone "resolved" an identical issue recommending that other email clients be used.  This is not the situation here.  Seems like an issue with your backend servers. 

[meyerje]

Same, this has happened before a year or so ago and it has now happened again.  I'm attaching a meld showing the comparison of html code for an alert that worked back in June versus one that does not work now.  There are obvious differences.

[CmraLvr2]

Same.  Tried different email clients.  I consider it useless without the preview picture.  I've got 5 cameras and the security lights, plus pay the subscription.  Maybe I should convert it all over to Wyze.  

[JamesC]

At Arlo, we strive to provide peace of mind and a consistent, seamless experience when using your security system. In an effort to maximize privacy and security, shared links and snapshots to your library content automatically expire after 24 hours. This also applies to snapshots within email alerts. We found that this caused confusion and frustration with many Arlo users, resulting in unnecessary troubleshooting in an attempt to restore expired email snapshots. To alleviate this frustration and maintain our existing privacy and security standards, we have removed snapshots from the email alerts feature.

JamesC

[Handy300]

What a terrible decision.  Just because someone is frustrated you stop a key feature for the cameras.  It is useless to get emails that motion is detected on my cameras because I can't see what triggered the motion.  You should also delete email functionality too because I am frustrated that the email is worthless.  

You need to restore this functionality.  I pay for a subscription and I expect to get this with my subscription.

Please restore the snapshot functionality in the email.  If someone goes past 24 hours then they can use the app to see the video.  If they can't do this then tell them to stop the emails.

[TI994a]

You guys are kidding right? Privacy and security? You just shut off the only useful feature of an alert *like that* without saying anything or announcing it? This is ludicrous.

The correct way to handle this for those that are concerned about privacy or security is to add a feature to the interface THAT ALLOWS US TO TURN THE PREVIEW IMAGE ON OR OFF! Let US take the risk of privacy or security by OUR CHOICE - not yours. 

I am discontinuing my subscription. The ONLY reason I switched over to a paying subscription was for the rich content notifications in email. Now it's absolutely useless. 

[meyerje]

I couldn't agree more with Handy300.  Make email preview a configurable option so privacy focused individuals can simply turn it off while the rest of us enjoy the service we purchased originally.  All it is is a difference in the HTML code within the email body.   

[Misscjlee]

Thats bs and they know it. They didn't even give people a heads up that it was going g to happen. Thats a cop out for pure laziness and not willing to improve functionality of your product. What a waste of an investment in my security. The app is way too slow for this to be a reasonable solution for the small number of people complaining. I should have listened to the warnings from reviews. As my cameras die, which I know I they slowly will, they won't be replaced. Moving on to better options and products.

[CmraLvr2]

Agree.  I pay the subscription yearly.  If this isn't reversed before my year is up (which is soon), I'm done with Arlo.  Plenty of competition in this space.  Unbelievable they would just decide to do this.  Where I work, this would be a resume generating event for whatever product manager made this call.  Shows a complete lack of customer concern or commitment.  In my opinion, "Privacy and security standards" means they decided to cover their a** at the lowest cost.  I could be wrong.  The decision maker could just be so out of touch with customer needs that he just pulled this trigger without an awareness it was a boneheaded move.

[dcfox1]

I never used e-mail notifications but I use the phone and still get the picture with the notification.  Were people here not getting a picture without a subscription?  I never saw that was part of a subscription in e-mail since you still get notifications without one. Just not  smart notifications labels.  I could be wrong as I always had a subscription. 

[Handy300]

I agree about cancelling my subscription and moving onto another camera once my Arlos die.  I have 21 cameras spread among 4 houses.  While I have a considerable investment, I need a system that is easy to manage but give me alerts that I can manage.  I currently route the emails from the different houses into different mailbox folders and periodically each day scan the folder to look for any issues that I need to take action about. I put animal alerts into a higher priority folder so that I know when animals are eating my flowers.   I find that I focus on less than 5% of the alerts.  If I had to goto the app everytime and review new videos this would be a lot more time consuming.  

I was hoping for better control of texts / emails in the future, not less.  I was hoping to allow a text for a package in the camera but no other alert trigger, all other alert triggers would go to email.  I was hoping for an animal alert trigger too. If you want to stay competitive in this very crowded field you need to give us more alert options and help us sort through all of the data we are getting more efficiently. 

I am appalled that you rolled this change out with no notification to users and I was left in the dark for a couple of days until I decided to search the web to find out why this was happening.

You need to change this back or lose a lot of business !

[eswenson]

This is an absolutely terrible solution and I request you reconsider.  For those of us who get a lot of these notifications (deer, turkeys, delivery trucks coming nearby), a bunch of emails with no images is utterly useless.  Before, I could glance at my phone and see the image and decide whether I needed to use the Arlo app to investigate the motion.  Now, I have no choice -- for each email I receive, I have to use the app.  This makes the email feature next-to-useless. 

I agree with those who have stated that Arlo should have made this an account setting.  For those of us who want the image, we can enable the feature. Most of us understand that the images do not live forever and that if we look at the email a week later, that the image will not render.  Please don't take the majority of customers as fools.  But for those emails that arrive and are looked at before the images expire, the images are VERY useful. 

I also agree with those who have written that when you decide to lobotomize your product in this way, you should send out a notification email to customers alerting them to this (drastic) change in functionality ahead of time. You would have received negative feedback from us and possibly reconsidered this action.

Very disappointed.  -- Eric

[Britterz8826]

This "solution" is ridiculous.  Had I wanted to have to launch the application to check my cameras I wouldn't have turned on my notifications.  Hopefully Arlo reconsiders or the next time my camera breaks I will be replacing with something else.  I know that I cannot be the only person affected and clearly reading the comments I know that this is the case.

[riazg]

Removing the picture preview in the emails is the worst decision this company has made up to date. You are risking your loyal customer base. The email preview allows me at quick glance to determine if I need to investigate the event further. Your solution to privacy is not acceptable. Please give us an option to decide if we want the preview or not.  I see there are many customers also in the same boat as me and would like this feature restored. 

[GR2011]

Turned off my email notifications since Arlo's decision to remove the imbedded preview picture within the email notication. Have found a couple of alternatives to Arlo. Read a recent review on YouTube which stated that Arlo cameras aren't that good compared to others. They're not even in the middle of the pack. Too many false positives and inability to distinguish the difference between humans and shadows. Now they made it even worse by taking out the picture thumbnail from the email notification. May have a couple of cameras and hub for sale soon.

[eswenson]

Yeah -- I, too, am going to look at alternatives to Arlo now. I think this move on their part shows that they don't prioritize getting customer feedback before rolling out disruptive changes.  And I agree that their cameras have lots of false positives. That is PRECISELY why I depend on the email images.  I don't want to have have to bring up the app to check on all the false positives.  If I see an image of a bird's wing in the email image, I know I can safely delete the email notification and ignore the notification.  Same with deer, cats, dogs, and, in my case, turkeys.  The image was effectively the most critical part of the notification and without it, I'll need another solution.  Arlo, you really blew it with this one.