not hooked to AV power

[Nanlee]

my pro 3 spotlight camera says it is not hooked to AC power, thus it will not record anything. I have had it for months and it has always worked without being hooked to AC. Why now? Has Arlo changed something? The camera is USELESS to me if it has to be plugged in to AC.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@Nanlee wrote:

my pro 3 spotlight camera says it is not hooked to AC power, thus it will not record anything. I have had it for months and it has always worked without being hooked to AC. Why now?

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It sounds like your trial subscription expired.

A subscription is required cloud recording.  It is also required for activity zones when on battery power (because those are applied in the Arlo cloud). 

Hooking the camera up the AC power would allow you to use activity zones again (running them in the camera), but wouldn't give you cloud recording.

Options are to get a subscription for the camera ($2.99/month is current US pricing), or get a smarthub (VMB4540 or VMB5000) and use direct access to local storage.  There are some limitations in direct access to local storage, and the payback period for the smarthub would be about 3 years  - could be more at the moment, since they are in short supply, and the ones out there are often being sold for a lot more than the $99 MSRP.