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baumbachaflocka · ‎2023-12-04

The old app worked great with geofencing, it would not arm unless every device left the area. Now it always arms if just 1 person leaves. My system is configuration is the following: anyone arrives> standby, everyone leaves> arm away

They are both set to always enabled and I have made sure that both my devices are setup correctly with always allowing precise location, notifications and do not have battery saver on. Its so frustrating because the old app worked great and the new one is so bad and we were forced to switch when we added the new cameras.

More info there is 1 iphone and 1 android phone used for geofencing, I have it set to the largest area and no other automations except for the geofencing ones.

ShayneS · 2024-09-03

Hi,

Can you try utilizing this setup for your schedules with the Arrive/Leave feature and let me know the results?

1. Select Routines > Automations > Select the (+) to create the desired schedules (When created, schedules will be listed under the Schedules section)

2. Create and enable the Arrive automation under > Select Automations > Select the (+) > Add Action > Change Mode > Select Standby > Next > Add an Action > Enable/Disable an Automation > Select the desired schedule > Next > Select Enable > Next

3. Create and enable the Leave automation under > Select Automations > Select the (+) > Add Action > Change Mode > Select Arm Away > Next > Add an Action > Enable/Disable an Automation > Select the desired schedule > Next > Select Disable > Next > Save

When completed you should see your options listed under the Arrive/Leave section under Automations

Thank you

Jeffi · ‎2024-08-22

I can upload others for the modes etc if my workflow above isn't clear to you.

jguerdat · ‎2024-08-23

@Jeffi - Thanks for this - I hadn't thought of trying this approach. Time will tell if it works for me but if it works for you...

alex_loo · ‎2024-08-25

@Jeffi wrote:
I can confirm that leaving home and the geofence zone during Standby mode does now go into Arm Away mode and on return home its reverts back to Standby mode if my return is within its set time period.

What was required for this fix: All three 3 Modes should have all automations selected. In my case this is the two schedules for daytime and night time periods, and the arrive and leave automation.

The logic to prevent conflicts and switch mode correctly is set in the automations tab for the leave and arrive, see screen shots.

hi @Jeffi ,

May I know:

1. how many user(s) do you have? Do you have any second user who gets "shared"?

2. how many devices do you see in the geofencing for your "leave home" and "arrive home"? Are they all android/iPhones, or mix of them?

3. How is your switch going so far, after these days?

Alex

Jeffi · ‎2024-08-25

Hi Alex,

1. how many user(s) do you have? Do you have any second user who gets "shared"?

Two users in total including myself. The other user is shared and has restricted access to some cameras and the doorbell. I limited it to simply prevent too much stuff being sent to the other person's phone. So essential cameras only.

2. how many devices do you see in the geofencing for your "leave home" and "arrive home"? Are they all android/iPhones, or mix of them?

Both our devices which are iPhone 12 and 15. The other shows as "iPhone" which is not very helpful, so I need to update their device name in iOS and remove/add from Arlo Privacy settings to refresh it. I did have the iPad showing that I run Arlo from but this confused the geo and I disabled location services on the iPad for Arlo and deleted the iPad form the Arlo settings.

3. How is your switch going so far, after these days?

It's going great - I haven't come across a leaving/arrival scenario that has flummoxed it so far. I have noticed that sometimes I don't get a notification when I have left the geofence but the Arlo Feed shows it has switched into Arm Away. Or the notification is delayed 5 mins or so. I think the polling of location data is slow and the geofence radius is somewhat vague - I can see the radius on the map in the app and sometimes I have to walk about 100m plus outside before it triggers and likewise when I return. I wish they could make the radius much smaller and rely more on the wifi SSID as a detection factor.

I've attached a screen shot from the weekend. Here's what's happening:

5:17 neighbour's cat triggers a camera while in Standby mode (outside cameras armed).

7:02 notification that Arm Home activates - it came out of overnight Standby mode at 7am

11:25 me checking the mailbox - doorbell is always armed

2:50 I leave the home and Arm Away activates

3:23 the dog walks about triggering the internal camera 🙂

3:38 I arrive back and Arm Home activates

5:44 I walk the dog and Arm Away activates

5:45 I return - note the short time between notifications (due to delays in the notification process) - the walk was about 20mins but it was on the edge of the geofence and 15mins if that walk was still within the geofence

8:00 Standby modes activates for over night coverage - outside cameras only inc doorbell.

Cheers

Jeff

alex_loo · ‎2024-08-25

Hi @Jeffi , thanks for your detailed answers! I appreciate that very much. some follow-up questions below.

@Jeffi wrote:
Hi Alex,

1. how many user(s) do you have? Do you have any second user who gets "shared"?
Two users in total including myself. The other user is shared and has restricted access to some cameras and the doorbell. I limited it to simply prevent too much stuff being sent to the other person's phone. So essential cameras only.

are you on subscription? If not, then I understand that "shared" users are considered not primary, and do NOT have permission to access videos with local storage (ie not the cloud storage that comes with a subscription)

So how does this "shared" user get access to captured videos? (via subscription cloud, or local storage via port forwarding, or local storage via VPN)

@Jeffi wrote:
2. how many devices do you see in the geofencing for your "leave home" and "arrive home"? Are they all android/iPhones, or mix of them?
Both our devices which are iPhone 12 and 15. The other shows as "iPhone" which is not very helpful, so I need to update their device name in iOS and remove/add from Arlo Privacy settings to refresh it. I did have the iPad showing that I run Arlo from but this confused the geo and I disabled location services on the iPad for Arlo and deleted the iPad form the Arlo settings.

so are you saying you do NOT have the issue of "duplicate iPhones as geofencing device"? As for your iPad, was it NOT installed with the app, but then showing "Arlo running"? If so, it doesn't sound like the duplicate issue, but anyhow --- disabling GPS for that iPad was a good move (at least to avoid any issue 👍)

@Jeffi wrote:
3. How is your switch going so far, after these days?

It's going great - I haven't come across a leaving/arrival scenario that has flummoxed it so far.

Thanks again with your weekend sample. For these successful "leave home" and "return home" geofencing rules, did you have a chance to see the same successes, with BOTH devices leaving and returning together?

Many thanks.

Alex

StephenB · ‎2024-08-26

@alex_loo wrote:

are you on subscription? If not, then I understand that "shared" users are considered not primary, and do NOT have permission to access videos with local storage (ie not the cloud storage that comes with a subscription)

So how does this "shared" user get access to captured videos? (via subscription cloud, or local storage via port forwarding, or local storage via VPN)

When we say "primary" here, we are talking about the account to which the cameras were installed. That is the case whether there is a subscription or not. Either way, when you share cameras, the "friend" account does not have full control over the system.

Locally stored videos can only be accessed from the primary account (they cannot be shared), and they can only be viewed from the app, not the web browser. If you have no subscription and are seeing videos in the browser, then you must have the legacy cameras that were sold with 7-day cloud storage.

As far as remote access to local recordings goes, if you are using an iPhone then the only option is a home VPN server (perhaps built into your router). Port forwarding currently does not work on iPhones - it does work on Android. But as noted above, it is only possible when using the primary account.

If you have no subscription, then one thing you could try is to use the same account credentials on both phones. Arlo just began allowing this. I don't know how well that will work with geofencing (there could still be some bugs with multiple logins), but it does let you see locally stored recordings on both devices.

alex_loo · ‎2024-08-26

@StephenB wrote:
When we say "primary" here, we are talking about the account to which the cameras were installed. That is the case whether there is a subscription or not. Either way, when you share cameras, the "friend" account does not have full control over the system.

I understand this but must say this "sharable but not the same" feature is super unsatisfactory. Especially when the whole set up assumes a home/family with multiple devices/users. It's ridiculous only 1 family member can view videos, while sharing is "supported".

Alex

StephenB · ‎2024-08-26

@alex_loo wrote:
I understand this but must say this "sharable but not the same" feature is super unsatisfactory. Especially when the whole set up assumes a home/family with multiple devices/users. It's ridiculous only 1 family member can view videos, while sharing is "supported".

FWIW, I agree that Arlo should improve the direct access to local storage feature. But I doubt they will - the restrictions haven't changed since they rolled it out in 2019. Also, any bugs in the feature take a long time for them to fix. Port forwarding on iPhones has been broken for about 3 months now.

Ideally the videos would be accessed the same way whether they are locally stored or not

both in the browser and the app
both the primary account and shared accounts
without requiring port forwarding or a VPN connection.

But unfortunately Arlo has decided to restrict the feature in an attempt to increase subscriptions. IMO a short-sighted strategy.

As I said, one thing you could try is using the same account credentials on both phones. That gives full control (and full access) to both phones. But you would need to test geofencing. It should be detecting device locations, not user locations.

Jeffi · ‎2024-08-26

Hi Alex

I am on subscription. I think my partner's streaming of footage is via the cloud. However I have the base station which allows me to choose between cloud or locally stored from the app. I could do this off network due to port forwarding but I notice the new app defaulted back to disabled for this setting. I'll have a play as the base station needs a static IP and my new router setup needs some firewall/forwarding sittings to make this work. I'm not that fussed about accessing local footage from off network if the Cloud is available. It's only for local archiving purposes. I've just checked and I can stream local stored footage but on network, with the old feature with the base station of there being no thumbnails, so it's guess work finding footage from greyed out thumbnails.

When both iPhones had their default names of "iPhone" there were not apparent clashes with geofencing - it was just confusing as to which was which. Hence me changing their names but this broke the geofencing until I removed them and re added in privacy settings, and toggled location services on the phones to kick into life. I just disabled location services at the Arlo app level in the iPad settings. It's enabled for other apps and find my etc. otherwise the leave home would never work unless I took the iPad with me.

Re testing with both phones... one is away on holiday at the moment so it's seen as away with only mine doing the triggering. It will be interesting to see if we get any issues with two at home and then one or both leaving. I did have a few issues here in the old app but only with the other phone - the other person retuned while I was still out and the cameras were all still armed and clocking loads of footage. It was always being funny with location services for some apps not just Arlo and needed regular rebooting to fix. I never found the root cause. However those issues seemed to resolve through iOS updates.

alex_loo · ‎2024-08-27

@Jeffi wrote:

When both iPhones had their default names of "iPhone" there were not apparent clashes with geofencing - it was just confusing as to which was which. Hence me changing their names but this broke the geofencing

hi @Jeffi , this is new to me. Are you saying purely changing the devices names can mess up the geofencing?

Also, do you experience any "duplicate iPhone" issue?

Alex

Jeffi · ‎2024-08-27

Hi Alex

Initially with just the arrive/leave automation setup before I managed to get it working with a schedule, both our iPhones were using this default device name. Geofencing worked with the app not fussed they were called the same, but it was confusing to me not the app as to which phone was which. I changed my phone’s name but the app wouldn’t pick it up and then geofencing stopped working. I had to delete the iPhone entries, toggle my phone’s location settings for good measure and the add to the app. Then it picked up the new device names and worked again.

BTW port forwarding doesn’t work for me in the new app. I’m sure it did before. It shows status not available and refreshing the port and setting the new port in my router doesn’t resolve. Nor does a reset of the app or the router resolve it. My router is Orbi and the port forwarding rule is a custom one TCP/UDP for the port and IP shown in the app. The base station is on a static IP.

alex_loo · ‎2024-08-28

@Jeffi have you encountered the "duplicated iPhone" issue with any of you iPhones, ie seeing multiple (and more what you have got) iPhone devices for geofencing.

Alex

alex_loo · ‎2024-08-28

@Jeffi ,

It's been reported port forwarding does NOT work for iPhone app. With my android app here, it works fine.

Alex

Jeffi · ‎2024-08-28

No I’ve not seen more than one entry per legitimate iPhone so far. Could this be related to different iOS updates? Have you tried deleting them all and adding just your current phone?

Geofencing stopped working today. Turned out to be my iPhone’s location services. I toggled it on my phone for the Arlo app while I was outside the geofence and Arlo then recognised me being out of the Zone. I don’t know of other apps were impacted or just Arlo. I’ve had this before on the old app and with my partner’s phone but never on mine.

alex_loo · ‎2024-08-28

@Jeffi wrote:
No I’ve not seen more than one entry per legitimate iPhone so far. Could this be related to different iOS updates? Have you tried deleting them all and adding just your current phone?

Interesting, so YOU DON'T HAVE THE ISSUE OF DUPLICATE IPHONE FOR GEOFENCING --- while many of us like me are continuously witnessing it, and not sure if it also causes the geofencing failure we are suffering.

Any chance any user here could share what the issue looks like, on the app? I have stopped the approach of "sharing" with a 2nd user already, so can't here.

Alex

wenklaw · ‎2024-08-29

FWIW my geofencing failed to arm the cameras today. On the old app you could tell what device was home or away, new app that functionality has been removed

Arlo is a shower of 💩

Simk1n · ‎2024-08-29

Geofencing also stopped working for me and my wife.

Now there seems to two more iPhones added suddenly, duplicated, and it does not say which is which.'

For crying out loud, what a mess! and what a load of sh't his new app is.

alex_loo · ‎2024-08-29

this is interesting. while @Simk1n your geofencing is not working, mine seems to be getting nice --- after both my android and wife's iPhone are logging in my same (admin owner) account.

So far after some 2 days, geofencing is so good.

1. triggers correctly when both of us are away together

2. triggers correctly when both us us are returning home together

3. correctly NOT triggering when I am away but wife still at home

4. correctly NOT triggering when wife already at home and then I return home.

The only untested scenario is when I leave home first (and it should not trigger) and then my wife leaves home later (and then it should trigger). Fingers crossed with this test tmr.

Alex

wenklaw · ‎2024-08-29

After my automations and schedules had been working fine together for several weeks (after much messing about) geofencing appears to have completely broken today. Got home and cameras didn’t change mode so had to arm standby manually and then went out and again they didn’t change mode.

Just noticed a duplicate of my partners iPhone in the settings profile which cannot be deleted, I imagine that is the cause as it wasn’t there before

christs sake Arlo

wenklaw · ‎2024-08-29

Stop spamming mate it’s not doing any favours

StephenB · ‎2024-08-29

@SteveAfendoulis wrote:

What I had working (with flaws) for 2-3 years was:

1- Anytime we all leave: it arms everything

2- When anyone arrives it disarms completely

3- IF SOMEONE IS HOME it will change to our outside cameras only (a mode I was able to create) between 06:00 & 22:00

Now the redesign precludes this functionality, because of this problem relating modes with automations.

This only requires three modes. You can use

Arm Away to arm everything (which it does already)
Arm Home to enable only outdoor cameras (you will need to modify it)
Standby to disarm everything (which it does already).

https://kb.arlo.com/000062777/About-Arlo-Routines-Modes-Rules-and-Automations

@SteveAfendoulis wrote:

Has any other PAYING CUSTOMER of Arlo worked out the work around to get back what Arlo BROKE?!

See @Jeffi's posts

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Pro-4/Geofencing-is-completely-broken-in-the-new-APP/m-p/2414832#...

Note that if you are currently sharing the cameras using the "Friend" feature: You can now share the same account credentials (with simultaneous logins on different phones). That appears to work better with geofencing than using the "Friend" accounts.

wenklaw · ‎2024-08-30

Right, I seem to have sorted the duplicate geofencing device issue which AT THE MOMENT has resolved the geofencing issue and is now working along with schedule automations.

1) I deleted my partners arlo account as a 'guest' account and logged out of the app on her iphone

2) Logged my partners iPhone arlo app into the admin account (same account details as mine)

3) This has deleted all 'rogue' devices in the geofencing settings that i couldnt delete manually

4) Added her iphone to geofencing devices

By using the same admin account for both iPhones i can now access USB storage remotely on both iPhones which is a bonus BUT how long before Arlo break this!!!! Port forwarding on iPhones as already stated has been broken for months. I use a VPN sitting on my NAS nox.

Bingo all working BUT for how long

Arlo need to resolve all these issues ASAP as its rendering an expensive system useless and unreliable.

Simk1n · ‎2024-08-30

Now only my S23 does trigger the geofencing, but it takes several minutes for it to activate/deactive.

Both my iPhone and my wife's iPhone does not. But i have no idea which iPhone is which anymore, and how to activate in devices as there has popped up two more, and i have tried all of them with no luck.

wenklaw · ‎2024-09-01

My schedule automation to set the mode to ‘standby’ failed this morning at 0500am. This automation worked yesterday and had been working before for several weeks and the trigger to change mode yesterday at 2359 to ‘arm home’ worked, i can almost guarantee the automation will trigger fine tonight at 2359 and then at 0500am tomorrow. This proves that Arlo have well and truly *** this up on so many levels

This is absolutely dire!

ShayneS · ‎2024-09-03

Hi,

Can you try utilizing this setup for your schedules with the Arrive/Leave feature and let me know the results?

1. Select Routines > Automations > Select the (+) to create the desired schedules (When created, schedules will be listed under the Schedules section)

2. Create and enable the Arrive automation under > Select Automations > Select the (+) > Add Action > Change Mode > Select Standby > Next > Add an Action > Enable/Disable an Automation > Select the desired schedule > Next > Select Enable > Next

3. Create and enable the Leave automation under > Select Automations > Select the (+) > Add Action > Change Mode > Select Arm Away > Next > Add an Action > Enable/Disable an Automation > Select the desired schedule > Next > Select Disable > Next > Save

When completed you should see your options listed under the Arrive/Leave section under Automations

Thank you

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