Schedule and Geofencing help

[sasquatch55]

I need help with scheduling and geofencing. I've posted about this before and tried everything and can't get it to work. I have 2 Arlo Pro 4 cameras. It seems like the geofencing and schedule 

What I would like

1. When everyone leaves arm both cameras.

2. When anyone returns home revert to schedule

3. Schedule 7 days a week:

7am Cameras off unless we leave

8pm Cameras on

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@sasquatch55 wrote:

I need help with scheduling and geofencing. I've posted about this before and tried everything and can't get it to work. I have 2 Arlo Pro 4 cameras. It seems like the geofencing and schedule 

What I would like

1. When everyone leaves arm both cameras.

2. When anyone returns home revert to schedule

3. Schedule 7 days a week:

7am Cameras off unless we leave

8pm Cameras on

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There are bugs with geofencing, and you can't tell the system to revert to schedule when you return - unfortunately you have to pick a fixed mode.   Arlo is working on bringing back custom modes and I think the old schedule interface, but they haven't said when.

Starting with scheduling, I recommend setting up "Arm Away" and "Arm Home" to arm all your cameras (with "Standby" disarming them all).  If you have outdoor cameras, the default setup should already be that way.

Then set up the two automations - one to switch to "Arm Home" at 8 pm, and one to switch to "Standby" at 7 am.  The enable list (right under the automation name" should be set to "Arm Home, Standby" - not including Arm Away.  You can use these screenshoots as a guide (though the times are sunrise/sunset):

Put the system in either "Standby" (day) or "Arm Home" (night), and let these run for a day or two, just to confirm the schedule is working properly.  During this phase, you can manually switch to "Arm Away" when you leave, and manually switch back to when you return.  Note that the schedule will not run when the system is in "Arm Away".

If you want to then add geofencing, you need two more automations - one for Arrive, and one for Leave.  Leave can be enabled in all modes (though "Arm Home, Standby" is enough).  Arrive is only enabled in "Arm Away".  On "Arrive", you will need to choose whether you want to switch to "Standby" or "Arm Home".  Either way the schedule will kick in at the next trigger time (morning or night), and you can manually switch if you want.  It's a bit more conservative to choose "Arm Home" - if you forget to switch manually, you'll get recordings during the day, and won't miss any at night.

Also press on the profile icon in the upper left, select "Privacy Center", and then "Available Geofencing Devices"  Your phone will be identified with a "Your Device" tag.  Make sure the name is unique.  Do this on both phones.  Once you have two unique names for the real phones, delete any "ghost" devices that you see.

A caution here - many folks here (including me) have found that geofencing isn't that reliable yet.  So you do have to keep checking it - which IMO defeats the purpose.  So you might want to hold off on geofencing for a while, and switch manually.