Arlo Pro 5S Cameras and Orbi Router

[rdgallo]

I just received the five Pro 5S cameras I ordered and am having trouble setting them up.  I also purchased the smart hub.  I plan to mount these cameras on the outside of my home.  Today I connected one to the smart hub and one to my Orbi Wi-Fi system.  Both cameras worked well while inside the house, but both were terrible outside.  They would connect, but were very slow in relaying what they saw.  I could turn the camera 90 degrees and it would take minutes for the view to change on my iPhone.  I even took the Orbi satellite out to within 30 feet of the area the cameras didn't work well and it made no difference.  One thing that is causing this is I cannot get the camera to connect to the orbi satellite...it keeps connecting to the Orbit router that's in my basement a long ways from where I want to put the camera.  The directions for these cameras tell you to connect to the 2.4Ghz of the router to set them up.  There is no way  (as far as I know) to disable the 5Ghz in the Orbi router. Do any of you have information of how to use these cameras with an Orbi router mesh wi-fi system?  Is there a better router set up I should be using?  Thanks for any help.  

[TomMac]

While you can't disable the 5ghz side, you can lower it on the Orbi to about 25% (IIRC )...

I had to do this to make it easier for a couple cameras during setup.

[StephenB]

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@rdgallo wrote:

The directions for these cameras tell you to connect to the 2.4Ghz of the router to set them up.  There is no way  (as far as I know) to disable the 5Ghz in the Orbi router. Do any of you have information of how to use these cameras with an Orbi router mesh wi-fi system?

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Annoying instructions, since many routers (particularly mesh) simply don't let you do that. Orbi is one of those. But those instructions are only for onboarding cameras - 5 ghz is turned on after that succeeds.  And onboarding isn't your problem, it's getting a good connection.

My own Pro 5s is connected to my Orbi system, and I'm not having your problem.  Though of course our coverage will be quite different.  My Pro 5s is on the opposite side of the house from the router (along the long axis of the house), and the camera connects at 5 ghz to the closest satellite.  Though I am somewhat skeptical of the connection info in the Orbi's web ui - I have run into some cases over the years were devices aren't actually connected the way the UI says they are.

Have you tried running a speedtest (Ookla app on your phone) at the camera location?  That will give you some idea on the quality of the connection.

[Carioca88]

I’m too, an Orbi user. And I just  purchased the 5s, because it should be an easier set-up and more stable on a dual network. I really hope it is. 

I was having the same issue you are having with your 5s, with my Arlo video doorbell. The camera was working fine for months, and one day, it just disconnected from the app.  I spent literally months, trying to make it work Hours changing Orbi to suggested configurations, disabled 5ghz, connected the phone to the 2.5ghz for set up, and nothing worked. I was ready to toss that in the garbage. Then I finally tried a suggestion from a guy in London.  
“do a hard factory reset” of the camera, and it will connect/fix

the problem.  And that was it! It not only fixed the issue with the camera, but I started hard resetting everything in the house that was 2.5 (Nest protect, Amazon plugs…) that were not longer working as after working for a year

So after several months, a simple paper clip solved all my problems. I would suggest trying that, before reconfiguring your Orbi.  

Ps: I was a beta tester for the Arlo cameras, as early as when they were those little Netgear cameras. They dropped me from the list a few years ago, when they became a big company. So I do know how to configure a camera. 

[rdgallo]

Thanks to those that responded.  I got tired of trying to make these work and sent them back to Arlo.  I really wanted them to work like my three very old Arlo cameras do.  Arlo needs to fix the range of the base stations and fix their really lousy customer care.