Local storage sharing limited to primary user - when will Arlo resolve this?

[Jamonsk8]

There have been a few posts on this topic explaining the seriousness of this limitation.  One post had a response from an Arlo representative saying they'd take the suggestion to the developers for consideration.

Simply put this is a huge issue.  How can Arlo in good faith limit ability to view locally stored videos to the primary user.

I specifically purchased the cameras knowing that they supported local storage and never planned on purchasing the subscription once the trial was over.

Setting up VPN access was complicated and painful but I managed to figure it out, lack of thumbnails and all, no big deal but now that my subscription ran out, I go to setup my wife's phone and I discover this new limitation and am completely at a loss for words on Arlo's shortsightedness on this gap unless of course it's intentional to persuade users to purchase subscription programs which we should not have to do in order to use your products with basic features such as this.

Someone from Arlo needs to look into where this solution stands currently and confirm back when a fix will be delivered to allow for this basic functionality of authorized users being able to access locally stored videos.  

Saying it's only available to the primary user at this time and that we'll run it by the developers are not acceptable answers.

Thank you.

[Arbuthnott]

Sadly I would summarise this as quite a good product marred by a greedy revenue model. My selection of cameras plus base station cost me $1,000 self-installed. In my view it is abusive to artificially limit the capabilities of the system. However, the current situation is that

• Arlo will not allow you to use your own Cloud storage (you must use theirs if you want secure off-site files)
• Although local storage is permitted, it is set up in such a way that only the primary user can have access to it. No other user in your household will have access
• The various AI capability that allows the system to distinguish between a potential threat and merely leaves blowing in the breeze (presumably running on your own hardware rather than remote processing) is not available unless you rent the required software from Arlo

I would suggest that, at the very least, the restriction of access to one’s own internal storage should be removed. Given that it is possible to share this information by other means, this restriction is merely the addition of nuisance value rather than barring the functionality entirely.

I must admit to have been waiting for Arlo to sort themselves out in the aftermath of their apparent departure from Netgear. This doesn’t seem to be happening, and perhaps now is the time to start publishing honest and objective reviews of what is on offer for the price. This is a competitive market, and successful competitors are going to have to give more thought to the cost/functionality trade off than Arlo have done so far.

[Jamonsk8]

Sadly. It doesn’t appear that Arlo cares in the least about their customers who are not paying a subscription. Zero response from Arlo and even if they did respond they wouldn’t actually do anything to solve the issue. They’d just say “at this time only the primary user can access locally stored videos”. Pathetic.