Arlo|Smart Home Security|Wireless HD Security Cameras
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halfmoon83
Tutor
Tutor
‎2024-08-16 05:08 PM

Hi,

Can anyone help with how to use this App. It is so confusing.

 

For instance, 

1. How do you set up to disarm a specific amera that is active? For instance, when there is a lot of motion and you want to stop the camera sending notifications but you still want the camera on. From what I see, it is either no cameras active or all cameras active!

 

2. When setting up a mode, what is "always enabled" . You can select this and then later in the menu you can elect to put the cameras into standby mode.  If so, what is the "always enabled" selection for?

 

3. Is there a way of keeping one set of cameras active 24/ 7 and the other cameras only active at certain times.

 

Finally is there any other software app that is not provided by ARLO that we can use. The arlo one is really bad and not very intuitive

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StephenB
Guru Guru
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‎2024-08-17 06:41 AM
@halfmoon83 wrote:

 

1. How do you set up to disarm a specific amera that is active? For instance, when there is a lot of motion and you want to stop the camera sending notifications but you still want the camera on. From what I see, it is either no cameras active or all cameras active!

 

When you say you "still want the camera on", are you meaning that you still want it to record?  Or do you want something else?

 

Pausing the notifications for a single camera temporarily (while keeping it recording) is not as easy as it should be, but it can be done.  One way is to temporarily edit the rule for that camera in the mode you are using, and turn off the notification there.  Then remember to add the notification back later.  

 

@halfmoon83 wrote:

 

2. When setting up a mode, what is "always enabled" . You can select this and then later in the menu you can elect to put the cameras into standby mode.  If so, what is the "always enabled" selection for?

 

The three modes don't have this option.  You must be talking about an automation (which is not a mode).

 

The idea here is that the automation would only be turned on when the system is in that mode.  Some users have reported that this particular option doesn't work reliably, so there might be bugs here that Arlo still needs to address.

 

Note that there are certainly bugs in the combination of geofencing+scheduling, so if you are trying to set that up, I suggest waiting until they are fixed.  Today, you can automate either scheduling or geofencing, but not both.

 

@halfmoon83 wrote:

 

3. Is there a way of keeping one set of cameras active 24/ 7 and the other cameras only active at certain times.

 

Yes, but it isn't as flexible as it should be.

 

You have three modes to work with, and you can modify all of them.  You can (for example) 

  1. set up Armed Away, Armed Home, and Standby to have rules for the cameras you want active 24/7.  Then no matter what mode the system is in, those cameras will be active.
  2. set up Armed Away to arm all cameras
  3. set up Armed Home to arm the 24/7 cameras plus some others (not necessarily all)

Or

  • Leave Standby as it is, so you can manually disarm everything if you want to
  • set up Armed Home and Armed Away to arm the 24/7 cameras
  • set up Armed Away to arm all cameras

Then use scheduling (or geofencing) automations to automatically change the system to a different mode then the automation triggers.

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halfmoon83
Tutor
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‎2024-08-17 09:19 AM

Hi Stephen, thanks for taking the time to answer.

 

Perhaps to explain. With the old software, I was able to leave the road side camera active, or armed, all the time and only the house cameras armed at night. If there is a lot of motion / activity on the road side camera. For instance, if someone is working there I was able to "disarm" the camera so that it no longer recorded activity every few seconds, but I was still able to view the area. Once the activity stops, I could re-arm the camera.

 

With the new App software, I set "standby" to leave the roadside camera on all the time, and "home-armed" to activate the other cameras at night.

 

To answer your questions

 

1.  "still want the camera on",  I mean I want to be able to view activity. I just want it disarmed so it does not record or send notifications. So when someone was working roadside, I could not find a method to disarm the roadside camera and keep on viewing. The only solution I could find was to switch the camera off, not able to view.

 

I looked at the options and studied the programming and it is very unclear how to solve this problem. The new app software is very poor and unclear.

 

2. "always enabled" . Thanks for explaining that. This is the explanation written in the APP.. not clear

Always Enabled

By default Automations will be Always be enabled when you any Mode. All other automations will be disabled when entering this mode.

 

3. keeping one set of cameras active 24/ 7. Thanks for the explanation. So it seems that the only way to overcome this problem is to use "Armed Away" when at Home. Does not seem logical!  

 

So the question is, when "Away" how do you overcome the schedule so that ALL cameras remain armed all the time. Using geolocation does not seem to be the solution as this links to one person being away. So If I go shopping and someone is at home the cameras all arm!

 

Very dissatisfied with the quality of the new App and it's lack of flexibility. 

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StephenB
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‎2024-08-17 11:55 AM
@halfmoon83 wrote:

 

1.  "still want the camera on",  I mean I want to be able to view activity. I just want it disarmed so it does not record or send notifications. So when someone was working roadside, I could not find a method to disarm the roadside camera and keep on viewing. The only solution I could find was to switch the camera off, not able to view.

There is no good way to do this right now.  FWIW, if you were using a base station, there was no good way to do it with "Library" either.

 

But there is a need for better controls.

 

@halfmoon83 wrote:

So it seems that the only way to overcome this problem is to use "Armed Away" when at Home. Does not seem logical!  

 

Well, you can repurpose any of the modes you like by changing the rules in it.

 

@halfmoon83 wrote:

 

So the question is, when "Away" how do you overcome the schedule so that ALL cameras remain armed all the time. Using geolocation does not seem to be the solution as this links to one person being away. So If I go shopping and someone is at home the cameras all arm!

 

As I said above, the combination of geofencing+scheduling doesn't work right now.  

 

You can schedule mode changes at various times, and you can switch modes when people arrive and leave.  But right now you cannot get both to work.  

 

But "leave" can be set to trigger when everyone leaves, and "Arrive" can be set to trigger when anyone arrives.

 

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