Animated preview missing from notification

[a102768]

I stopped receiving animated previews/thumbnail in notifications a week or so ago so wondered if it was just me or is a service broken?

If it is just me, any clues on how to get them back? I have reinstalled the app on my phone and the animated notification toggle is definitely on.

I have upgrade to IO 8.1 and then 8.2 recently but I don't know if the time line matches or not.

I have 5 devices, a hub, a Pro 5, 2 doorbells and an essential. Only the Pro 5 is on a plan but one of the doorbells is on a trial so I also wondered if something is getting confused and only sending text notifications thinking none of my devices are on a plan.

The Pro 5 is wifi attached, the others are all on the hub. I found things too laggy with the Pro 5 on the hub so moved it back to wifi.

[Somervre]

100% wrong.  I have not gotten animated previews ever since you guys messed up something on the cloud.  I now get a single frame preview, with a "person" (or whatever) in a green box, and a red "play" triangle at the bottom right.  The preview is not animated.  If I click the "play" triangle, it takes me to a live stream of that camera.  This has been broken for awhile and I have already spoken with multiple supervisors in the support department.  They know the issue is being looked at by their programmers and they even told me it was scheduled to be fixed (I forget when exactly).  The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing between this forum, the support folks, and the developers.  Worst IT management I have ever seen (and I work in IT so I can say that).  I made them give me a full month of my subscription for free.  I recommend everyone do the same as it seems there isn't enough financial incentive for Arlo to fix this yet

[NoMotion]

Until recently  I did get animated notifications for non-generic motion. But now persons, vehicles and animals result in a notification with a still picture - weirdly there was one animated notifications for a (falsely) detected package a couple of days ago.

[a102768]

@BrookeN , can you please clarify if alerts I receive from my one camera that is on a plan, which is the Basic Single plan, should look like the first one in my previous picture or the second?

At the moment I am currently only ever getting ones like the second, so no picture of any sort on any alerts.

[BrookeN]

Correct, I let the development team know you are seeing this behavior. They are currently investigating it, I will up date you as soon as possible.

[gtippett]

@BrookeN, I am having the same issue... please review my open case 44469734.  It is frustrating as the escalation team has asked for a call back time, but no one is able to help me with this.  I want to talk to them and they want to talk to me.  

[BrookeN]

The development team does have a fix in the works for this. I will update the community as soon as it is available. 

[gtippett]

@BrookeN, please ensure the development team understands it is sporadic.  Majority of the notifications are simple static, but once in a while I get one that is animated.  It appears when the camera captures a short interaction , the chance there is an animated notice is slim to none.  

[a102768]

@gtippett , feel free to start your own thread but my issue is different to yours. I lost all images on notifications, static or animated , when I changed plans.

They came back immediately when I switched to an all camera plan and I lost them again when I switched back to a single camera plan. 

@BrookeN , I presume the fix we be on the back end so I won’t need to update my app or wait for camera firmware?

[gtippett]

@a102768, The issue that I am having (I believe) all started when Arlo brought out the new AI feature.  Which is linked to the subscriptions and the new "plus" version.  The fix they are working on is addressing that I hope, which should address the missing animated notifications that we are both experiencing.  

[a102768]

@gtippett, I am missing an image totally, I just get text in my notification whereas it sounds like you at least get a still image, or do you only get text too?

[gtippett]

@a102768, most of the time I get just the static, but sometimes it is just a text.  Curious, did your issue begin when they added the AI function?

[a102768]

Nope. I am not sure why I lost them but once all my devices dropped off the initial free trail period I just paid for a single camera plan as that is all I really need to get alerts from.

That worked initially but then I realised I wasn't getting images anymore. I put up with it for a week or so then started this thread.

I did briefly start getting them again without me doing anything, but not for long, and as I was effectively just paying for cloud storage and have a hub there didn't seem any point in continuing so I went to cancel the plan.

I was offered a reduced rate trial for the Plus plan for all devices for not much more than I was paying for one camera on the Basic plan so thought I would try that. I instantly got images back on alerts for all devices. When that trial period finished I dropped back to a single camera plan and immediately lost the images again so I suspect my issue is due to having multiple devices but a single camera plan.

I may try a Basic Unlimited plan to see of that brings them back as I didn't see any benefit with the AI stuff, especially with what it cost, and if that doesn't bring them back I will just cancel my plan and run everything off the hub with no images in alerts.

[Mavr88]

Don't waste your time trying to figure it out. I have 3 cameras and a basic unlimited plan. The animated notifications simply don't work because they no longer include them on the basic tier plan. Before they updated the plans I always had persons, animals, vehicles and packages recognized without the excuse of needing "AI" to recognize all these types of motion. They locked basic features like this behind paywall, a super scummy move on their end. Hopefully I'll be done with Arlo after this year plan ends. Horrible service, horrible company and horrible predatory pricing models.

[a102768]

For me, the animated images are nice to have but not worth paying the extra money for. I find the still image to be just as useful as I can tell at a glance whether to investigate further or carry on with my day.

Having no image at all though is a pain so I hope it is fixed quickly.

Like you, I do find it frustrating though that the basic single camera plan I was on when I first bought a camera had pretty much all of the features of what is now the Plus plan and for a lot less than what is now being charged for the basic plan.

[gtippett]

@Mavr88 that is exactly what I think is happening.... @BrookeN I really hope this is not the case.  But I am losing hope.  

[BrookeN]

I have updated the development team with the information that all of you have provided. I do not have any updates as of today. But the development team is currently investigating this. 

[Mavr88]

A customer service rep back in December 2024 confirmed that the basic unlimited plan DOES NOT include animated previews. I literally contacted them for this same exact problem. That obviously sucks, but the bare minimum you would expect from this service is that the motion notifications would still have some kind of image or a static preview of the motion, but nope, not even that. Even cheap cameras from Wyze show images on motion notifications on their FREE tier and local storage via SD cards. Arlo has gone downhill this past year and I'm tired of it.

[a102768]

@Mavr88 , are you saying that the basic plan doesn’t include an image of any sort so the text alert is all I can ever expect to see?

I did ask for clarification from Brooke above but I got a yes for an either/or question so I am still non sure. 

[Mavr88]

What I'm saying is that having at least an image when getting a motion notification with a basic tier plan is what you would expect, however that is not happening and I'm getting only text notifications since November. I had a legacy plan before and it expired on November 2024, then I resubscribed to a new "basic unlimited" plan and that's when this same issue of only getting text notifications started happening. So I would assume it that is the culprit. Can't say for sure if this is the intended behavior or if it's a technical problem on their end.

[a102768]

Sounds like we are experiencing the same thing so the question is, does anyone on the basic plan get images or is a text notification all we can expect?