Arlo|Smart Home Security|Wireless HD Security Cameras
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Griff48
Aspirant
Aspirant
Firmware1.060.11.2_10_20a3998
HardwareH9
Serial NumberA0939A73AED53
I keep turning off color in the low light settings section and it keeps getting reset back to color on.
 
I have tried in via web broswer and via the Ipad App, same result, it keeps setting.
 
Also I think it would be great if Arlo offered an Audit function to review the settings and give me a summary of the settings and if there are any potential problems/conflicts. I did not buy this system to spend an inordinate amount of time debugging/testing/verifying the functionally of this software. At this price point, I am really disappointed with the overall software quality. 
 
Also, every time the feedback window pops up and I use it, an error is encountered when I submit it.  Of course my feedback is very negative. 
20 REPLIES 20
jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

Have you tried removing and reconnecting the camera?

Griff48
Aspirant
Aspirant

It isn’t just one camera it is all 7 cameras.  I restarted the hub yesterday and then I turned the low light level color off on all 7 cameras and 24 hours later, they are all still set to color off. I will continue to monitor to see when they reset back to color on.  

Yes I tried what you suggested before.  It’s just trial and error seeing what works and doesn’t. Maybe the restart of the hub will be the answer, I had not tried that before. 

 

These are all wireless. I charge them as needed in place with the magnetic power cord.


So much for now. 

Griff48
Aspirant
Aspirant

I checked all my devices today and they have all reset back to color again in the low light setting.  I have done nothing. The only thing I change is the mute notifications to 24 hours about every 24 hours.

 

The Smart Hub is plugged into a UPS box as is the router and the cable modem.  We have not lost any power. If we had any power hits, the UPS would handle that.  I know it isnt a power issue. Also the UPS is only 6 months old. 

 

And my cameras run off their own individual batteries, not hard wired. They have not been recharged for a couple of weeks. It is summer time and I live in Florida so it isnt due to some cold weather related issue, maybe too hot? But the cameras are around the perimeter of the house and most of them do not get direct sunlight because they are under the soffit. 

 

Oh Well. I just need to bite the bullet and get a different system. 

JamesC
Community Manager
Community Manager

Griff48,

 

Please contact the Arlo Support Team to further investigate this issue. You will find several options for contacting support in the provided link.

 

JamesC

Griff48
Aspirant
Aspirant

Just an update, I contacted support with all the details I posted here and they sent what I perceive to be the typical copy and paste set of instructions jumping through hoops including resetting and resynching all 7 cameras, not a trivial task because these cameras are mounted to the soffit of the house which is 10' high, so I have to use an extension ladder.  This is pretty archaic that there isnt any other way to do this. 

 

To reset the cameras back to factory, you have to pull them out and hit the reset button, then resynch all over again. I found the synching process to be tedious and time consuming and the first time I did it, I did it inside with the cameras sitting on a table to make it "easier". I would have to do the same thing again, pull all the cameras down, take them inside, reset them, resynch them, then re install them. And no guarantee that this will solve the problem. Just shooting in the dark so to speak. 

 

So based upon the response I got, it appears that they have nothing in their database for this issue, so no help as usual.  I sent email back asking if this issue has been reported before and no response. 

Killhippie
Prodigy
Prodigy

If you turn off colour you cant use the spotlight as it would flood the IR sensors, you have to turn off just spotlight and colour is turned off too then the cameras will use night mode (Infrared LED's to illuminate the area, a spotlight and night mode just wont work. as far as I'm aware because it would blind the infrared LED's

StephenB
Guru Guru
Guru

@Killhippie wrote:

a spotlight and night mode just wont work. as far as I'm aware because it would blind the infrared LED's


No, that's not the case.

 

I have a Pro 2 right next to a Pro 3, and the Pro 3 spotlight has no affect on the Pro 2's nightvision.  I can see the reflection of the spotlight, but that isn't a problem.

Griff48
Aspirant
Aspirant

If it won’t work, then the software should be changed to not allow you to set it up that way. Or there should be a warning.   

Killhippie
Prodigy
Prodigy

That not I meant and I should have been clearer is I read another user with a Pro 3 had this issue too. If you set spotlight on and turn colour off when you go back into the settings colour is always re-enabled. I think the two are meant to work hand in hand and if you just have night vision on and spotlight the camera wont work that way. Using other spotlights is a great way to illuminate the night vision but not from the camera itself, I believe, its never worked for me on the Essential XL or the Pro 4 (bothof them) so maybe a limitation of the software perhaps? I assume which is always a mistake that people consider if you are disarming colour why would you want the spotlight on as its got night vision. I may well be wrong but that's how mine work, so possibly a user would get a separate night light and use nightvision only if that is the case.

StephenB
Guru Guru
Guru

@Killhippie wrote:

If you set spotlight on and turn colour off when you go back into the settings colour is always re-enabled. 


I'm not seeing that with my Ultras.

Killhippie
Prodigy
Prodigy

Maybe a firmware difference between pro 4 and Ultra or a glitch, or maybe it needs a hub I'm not sure, I'll reset mine to spotlight and no colour and try tonight to see if that works, but normally it resets to colour when you go back into the settings. Its just past midnight here so I can soon find out. I may well be wrong as I have only has the pro 4 a few days in which case I apologise in advance.

Killhippie
Prodigy
Prodigy
I found this from James C about the Pro 3
"The one camera showing the image in black and white has engaged the night vision filter because there is not enough ambient light in the image. If the environment is well lit, like the surroundings for your other cameras, the night vision filter will not engage resulting in a colour image "

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Pro-3/Night-Vision-on-Arlo-Pro-3-camera/td-p/1741870
Killhippie
Prodigy
Prodigy

That seems to imply that having the spotlight on and night vision on from one camera using may not always function as desired with a well illuminated IR landscape and give colour based images instead. Anyway time will tell in the small hours.

StephenB
Guru Guru
Guru

@Killhippie wrote:

That seems to imply that having the spotlight on and night vision on from one camera using may not always function as desired with a well illuminated IR landscape and give colour based images instead. 


"If the environment is well lit, like the surroundings for your other cameras, the night vision filter will not engage resulting in a colour image "

 

He is pointing out that nightvision is engaged only when the system thinks it's dark enough to need it.  Even if low-light color and the spotlight are both disabled, there are situations where the camera might still try to capture color.

 

It is true that the spotlight might raise the illumination enough to give you color video even with low-light color turned off.  I think that would depend on how much light there is overall.  I haven't checked this, as I generally do either turn both settings on or turn both off..

 

But the low light setting shouldn't re-enable itself after you'd turned it off.

 

Griff48
Aspirant
Aspirant

I apologize, these are Pro 3 cameras.

 

meanwhile, I live at the end of a cul de sac and we have very little ambient light at night, it is very dark. Using low light setting with spot light on and color on, the image is too grainy to make out anything.  IR black and white the image is better, but still not very good. 

If my choice of low light settings is wrong ( spotlight on color off) then the software shouldn’t allow it. Also I still don’t understand why the color is being reset to on and Arlo support doesn’t know why either. For now they told me to turn off the spot light and in so doing, the color on or off setting isn’t an option. They want to see if the spot light off toggles back to on I guess, which so far spotlight setting remains off, it doesn’t reset. They are still looking into the issue of why when I set color to off, within 48 hours it is reset back to color on. I have sent several log files.

 

I would like to use the spot light with black and white and it appears the software/hardware is not setup to handle this situation. I read all the previous comments about perhaps the spot light turning on will trigger the camera to record in color regardless of the settings. I didn’t test that.  

It will be interesting to see if support can get the spot light to work with black and white. That is my preference. 

StephenB
Guru Guru
Guru

@Griff48 wrote:


If my choice of low light settings is wrong ( spotlight on color off) then the software shouldn’t allow it.


As I tried to say, it's not wrong for everyone - though it might not be the right combination for all.

 


@Griff48 wrote:

Also I still don’t understand why the color is being reset to on and Arlo support doesn’t know why either.


Arlo is thinking that is a bug.


@Griff48 wrote:

 

I would like to use the spot light with black and white 


That is reasonable, but it might be useful to understand why you want that.

 

I can think of two reasons:

  • you want to use the spotlight to illuminate your way
  • you want the spotlight to alert intruders that they've been spotted

The spotlight will not improve the nightvision picture quality much, as the nightvision is using infrared (IR).

 

One thing you could look into using an IR floodlight to illuminate the area at night.  Arlo doesn't sell them, but they can significantly improve the nightvision picture quality.  They do need AC power though.

Killhippie
Prodigy
Prodigy

Well I tried spotlight and B/W only and it turned to colour as soon as movement was detected. Also I had my carer move the camera into the back garden, screwed to a piece of wood hammered into the ground, clear 360 view. Night Vision was appalling still and the IR LEDS still did not fire up to full brightness in live mode until a stick was moved pass the camera it to mimic movement (so its not exposure sadly but thanks for trying to help) Then low and behold full brightness vanished followed by almost total blackness again after the movement stopped, live mode was virtually useless visibility wise. Colour gives the best option for clarity and also if someone was coming to my door I could describe to the police what they were wearing and maybe the colour of their car, using IR only I could only say they looked like ghosts blinking in and out of this dimension thanks to the out of  sequence nightmode brightness behaviour. Since this behaviour was seen on the another Pro 4 I would say its a bug or just a bad design possibly although I hope it isn't. Although if the essential XL works well why this Pro 4 does not is a mystery.

 Arlo likes bugs it seems, their cameras are at odds with my Netgear AX router, like not telling you if the battery percentage is going up or down or if its on charge, that's been tested on a XL and another pro 4 and both don't communicate battery power properly unless you reboot them, it may happen with other routers too possibly but with my RAX120 it does not work well, you have to reboot the cameras to show charging and percentage changes and I'm not buying a new router for a camera to tell me its battery life and this is with 100% signal on the cameras positioning setting. All in all I would be better off with a fixed wired swann 4k system which costs less and has a dedicated hard drive recording facility. These cameras are not worth the money in my view sadly, well the Essential models may be until the battery dies of course and the old GO worked for years perfectly, new isn't always better it seems.

 Lets hope they can fix at least some of these bugs but if its the same company making the firmware as  Netgear uses I may as well just yell "Boo" and wave a torch around if I think I hear movement and since I cannot hear a thing the person is saying on any of the current gen of cameras I have tried (once again the Go worked well here) I cant even have a two way conversation on an iPhone 12-Pro but I can on an iPad both running iOS 14.7.1 which makes no sense, all in all not I am not impressed with Arlo at all. As to tying to talk to support its like being taken for a ride on a Mobius strip where you just end up after a laborious journey back where you started, which is being frustrated it seems.

StephenB
Guru Guru
Guru

@Killhippie wrote:

if its the same company making the firmware as  Netgear uses


Arlo split off from Netgear in 2018, and both organizations have their own development teams.

 

FWIW, my various cameras did go into nightvision mode when they livestream, but I haven't tested that recently.  There could be a bug related to livestreaming.

 

I am wondering what results you are getting  with livestreaming if you leave the spotlight off.  

Killhippie
Prodigy
Prodigy

I wasn't linking Arlo to Netgear but I imagine there are few big firmware writing companies in Taiwan and I'm sure the firmware may come from the same company, more of a statement of the sad state of firmware in general these days and its been going downhill for years before COVID took its sad toll.

 If I leave the spotlight off with colour on it would be worth testing, day time images are great with HDR and night time ones with the spotlight are good. I'll turn off the spotlight tonight and and see what happens, and report back. The colour makes it all the better and its not grainy at all IR is great for animal watching but the foxes and other wildlife around me seem to not be bothered by the spotlight bothered at all. I don't use a hub, maybe less hardware connections help with image quality and latency, who knows. Not sure if any changes to the back end have been done with the new 'secure' packages, I  doubt it tbh.

 So as I mentioned I'll have a go with colour on spotlight off and report back tomorrow as its 1pm here, the more settings can be limited it may help to point to environment or bugs, also if another user with a Pro 3 or Pro 4 (same camera in many ways) tries it as well we can at least do a sort of sanity check to see if the problem is related to conditions or settings if other people have similar maybe this could be pushed though to James C if that's the case.

dcfox1
Master
Master

@Killhippie  I have the Pro3 and I have all low light settings on. It usually looks good. Here is a screen shot of one. It is on the cement so if it was higher the light would go farther and a screen shot doesn't really show it well.  I noticed just the spotlight off is darker but not bad. 

 

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