Operational Differences between Pro 2 and above (Pro 3/4, Ultra 1/2)

[ohv]

Hello Everyone,

I decided to post here as I was not getting my answers from the docs and even support struggled to get me answers. 

This post is about helping anyone who's upgrading from legacy Pros (1/2) to recent Pros (3+).

When using legacy Pros, you had three operational design possible:

1: Camera with a battery + no external power supply

2: Camera without a battery + external power supply (5V required)

3: Camera with a battery + external power supply (9V required, 5V is not sufficient)

Running scenario 2, I have 10 x Pro 2s that I am feeding with PoE (using splitters to get the 5V in the attic without the need of 110V sockets).

The battery is optional on the Pro 1/2s. That's changing with the new Pro 3+ cameras. The battery presence is now mandatory. That's right, THE BATTERY IS MANDATORY in the Pro 3+ cameras. You cannot run the Pro 3+ cameras without it. If you try to power up the Pro 3+ without a battery, it will cycle blinking the IR and blue LEDs with a weird clicking forever.

That simplifies the deployment scenarios now reduced to scenario 1 or 3 (scenario 2 not supported anymore).

What is also simplified is the power required to feed the Pro 3+ cameras. Just a 5V/2A feed is enough to operate the camera AND charging the battery at the same time (9V was required on the legacy Pro 1/2s to do the same... observe the power supply shipped with the legacy Pro 1/2s... it has a dual voltage support and voltage is negotiated at the camera startup time). All that logic is gone with the Pro 3+ cameras... GREAT! It makes deployments easier. The Pro 3+ power supply is back to a "boring" 10W 5V USB cube (same size as the old one).

It also makes the Arlo camera system more redundant as well. If the Pro 3+ cameras are not fed with external power anymore, in the case of a power outage for instance, they can still operate (assuming your hub/base is still powered on).

Just a quick note to remember the battery differences between the legacy Pros and recent ones... (yes they are different):

- legacy battery specs are 7.2V/17.57Wh/2440mAh, charging at 8.4V, part number 308-10048-01

- pro 3+ battery specs are 3.85V/18.48Wh/4800mAh, charging at 4.4V, part number 308-50012-01

That's explains why 5V is required now as opposed to 9V before for charging.

Now what's the difference between the base (WMB4500 and older) and the smart hubs (WMB4540/WMB5000). When you look at the WMB4000, base shipped with the Pro 2s... it can operate in 4K supporting the latest Ultra 2... and has a 100db siren. And the WMB4540 looks the same without the siren. So what's the point of upgrading?

The answer is... local storage. With the Smart Hub, you can use the local storage (USB 2.0 on the WMB4540 and MicroSD on the WMB5000) to store the videos. The app will retrieve the videos from the local storage (locally if you access the hub from your local LAN, remotely through port forwarding when you access from the Internet). The legacy base have local storage but the integration is not as tight as with the Smart Hub making the experience more seamless. As a result, you can rely on the Smart Hub to keep your videos and not have to pay for the subscription. I think this is the killer feature. You can store all your videos in 4K in the local storage and no need to pay for the Arlo plan. Having said that, the Arlo Smart brings some value where you can store locally and use the cloud to use the Arlo AI engine that will give you more granular notifications like person/animal/package detection. I find very elegant that Arlo is making the subscription an option as opposed to mandatory. Reminds me of Tile trackers that have an optional subscription for more features but you can operate them for free (even the battery is now serviceable).

Just a difference between the WMB4540 and the WMB5000. The WMB4540 ships with the Pro 3+ cameras as opposed to the WMB5000 that ships with the Ultra 2 cameras. The difference is the WMB4540 still relies on a USB 2.0 (why not 3.x ??) and the WMB5000 has support for MicroSD instead (up to XC and its 2TB support). About the 2TB support, Arlo support team confirmed that. I don't have a 1TB microSD card handy to test that.

Last but not least... I am running a legacy Premier plan ($99 a year, up to 10 cameras). That plan has been replaced with the 2K Premier plan (5 cameras for $9.99 a month and $1.49 each additional camera). That's a whooping increase from $99 a year to $210 a year... Ouch... I've been told twice by Arlo support that the legacy plan supports up to 2K and the price will not change at renewal time. Thank you Arlo (nice reward for being an early adopter). My renewal is in June 2021 so I can't confirm. But if that is the case, it is certainly appreciated.

Like I explained earlier, if I want to operate at 4K, rather than switching to the Elite 4K plan (would be a hefty $330 a year)... you can keep the legacy plan... and rely on the local storage/Smart Hub to store the videos in 4K and still have the Arlo Smart notifications. That last part I will have to confirm myself. I had the verbal confirmation by the Arlo Support team. Stay tuned. I will update this post as I test.

I wanted to share my experience. It was not straight forward to switch from Pro 2s to Pro 3s/U2s. Hopefully this will help as this is the kind of info I was looking for before buying and I could only find my answers after purchasing and trying out.

[Koulie]

Thanks for the information, very helpful.

Would you happen to know what type of local recordings you can do with a subscription i.e. motion detected recordings? 24/7 recordings?