record video grayed out

[blbradkins]

My Arlo Pro 3 stopped recording.  Record Video was grayed out, tried several suggestions I read-no luck.  On a hunch, I put a USB stick in the base station and now I can record videos.  Is a subscription required for the Arlo Pro 3?

It worked for the first ~6 months with no subscription.  

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@blbradkins wrote:

Is a subscription required for the Arlo Pro 3?

It worked for the first ~6 months with no subscription.  

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The Pro 3 requires a subscription for cloud storage.  It comes with a 3-month trial, when that expires recording to the cloud will stop.

https://kb.arlo.com/000062312/What-options-will-I-have-when-the-Arlo-trial-ends

[blbradkins]

Okay, we thought local storage was like the other arlo we have where we can only see the last 7 days, which is fine for us. 

From what i have found “local storage” means a usb stick that can’t be accessed from the app which is basically useless. Is this correct?

[StephenB]

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@blbradkins wrote:

Okay, we thought local storage was like the other arlo we have where we can only see the last 7 days, which is fine for us. 

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The 7-day storage you have on the older camera is in the cloud, not local.  Arlo stopped offering that on the newer cameras back in 2018 (starting with the Ultra).

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@blbradkins wrote:

From what i have found “local storage” means a usb stick that can’t be accessed from the app which is basically useless. Is this correct?

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That depends on whether you have a smarthub (VMB4540 or VMB5000) or an ordinary hub (all other models).  The smarthubs will let you see the local storage from the app. https://kb.arlo.com/000062337/What-is-Direct-Storage-Access-and-how-do-I-use-it

Many folks do use direct access instead of a subscription.  But there are quite a few limitations

• not accessible from the browser
• not accessible from friend accounts
• no manual recordings or snapshots
• no thumbnails
• remote access either requires port forwarding or a home VPN, which some find difficult to set up.

[blbradkins]

Thank you for your honesty.  I guess I will return them to Costco and hopefully be able to buy an Arlo Pro2, which I already have one of and it does the job I want it to do.   I will do more homework next time!

Again, many thanks!