Arlo Pro 4 started out fine until I added a family member, now it won’t go online no matter what!

[JBern]

Hello-

I’m about ready to send everything back after spending 2 hours troubleshooting and two chats with support staff. My camera set up went just fine. I had it on for a day, disarmed, and armed again. I added my husband as an ‘invite.’  The email told him to create an account. He did, and the prompts walked him through setting up a camera which is odd because it was set up. We thought you had to do it to get connected.

When he went to look at the camera, it was offline. I looked on my account, offline as well (as expected). I did *all* of the troubleshooting steps multiple times, that is—Battery out and back; rest for 15 seconds; forget the network.  Removed the camera. Logged everyone out. Turned wireless and Bluetooth off and on. Logged back in. I always get to the chime, and then when it searches, it can’t find the device. I removed the app altogether. Reinstalled. Same thing happened. Of note, after the flashing amber, I get the blue blink, scan the code, the device search starts, and a few seconds later, it goes flickering amber and then out. I have to press the sync to start the blue light blinking again.  I am practically sitting on my router. I have full bars. No other device is dropping the signal. I tried my ipad, my iPhone, my husband’s iPhone, and one other ipad.  Two chats with support were very unproductive. Especially when the person sent me an article on everything I’d already done and we had discussed. The only thing I haven’t done is to create some kind of hotspot… but if I have to go to that kind of trouble, when the initial setup took no more than 5 minutes, it’s just not worth it. 

Is there some trick I’m missing? ARLO has gotten great reviews, the picture quality was great, but my experience so far has been pretty poor. 

Hope there’s something obvious I’ve missed.

[JamesC]

JBern,

When sharing cameras with another account, click the link provided in the grant access email and follow the instructions. You do not need to set up the cameras again. Follow the instructions listed here to get started: How do I add friends to my Arlo account?

If you've removed the camera from the account, you'll need to factory reset before adding it back. Be sure to charge the camera first if you're having issues with the reset. To factory reset, follow these steps: How do I factory reset and re-sync my Arlo camera?

After the reset is completed, add the camera back to your account as if it were new, then try sharing again after the camera is back online.

JamesC

[JBern]

James C,

I truly appreciate your taking the time to reply. However, my original post, you’ll see that I mentioned I removed the camera. I did making a typing mistake, and meant « reset » and not « rest »  (holding for 15 seconds). I did that following the articles online (including the one you sent). I also had two different ARLO technical support staff try to help me, and they gave me those same steps. The second person, after exhausting everything said « let me send you an article that might help » and the article was exactly what I said I’d done, and what I did again with the tech. (You can sense my frustration, I’m sure.) All that happened yesterday. I even tried again today. The battery was at 98% when I started to have troubles, so I don’t think that was an issue as it was at 48% when I received it, and the camera installed perfectly.) You may have seen I also tried four different devices, to add it back. (Yes, I removed it and uninstalled the app from each before trying again.)

I really do think something is wrong with the camera. On the 15-second reset, after the amber, and blue blink starts and I do the code/chime, the blue blink stops and I have to press the sync button again. I don’t know if that small lapse of time is enough to make detection stop, but I know it’s not right. It didn’t do that the first time out of the box. If the techs, and you, and two of my ARLO-using friends can’t get it to be discovered, I don’t think in this case it’s user error!

Again, my thanks, but I think I reached my patience limit.

JB