Arlo Pro 5S - (missing events, taking snapshots). Pro 4 in same location works fine.

[chicane]

I've had ongoing headaches with my Pro 5S cameras not detecting events or taking snapshots instead.

Today I did a side by side test with a Pro 4 camera in the same location. Both devices are on 2.4GHz and connected to an outdoor Ubiquiti AP (great signal strength for both). I did try the device on 5GHz and found it to be similarly flaky so reverted to a hopefully more stable 2.4GHz connection. Unfortunately not.

Since I have done this side by side test, the Pro 4 is detecting every event (and recording a video). 

The pro 5 recorded video once, completely missed one event and recorded a snapshot instead for the third event. With the video was choppy and audio partially missing at the start, while the Pro4 was smooth and had audio for the full clip.

Both devices are active under my subscription, set identical under the routine (to record video), and smart notifications set the same.

I've had this replaced with a new sealed unit by support for the second time with the same outcome.

Are these devices inherently faulty? anyone else experiencing similar?

[BrookeN]

The firmware has started rolling out. It should be completed within the next week. As soon as that is fully rolled out the behavior you are seeing will be resolved. 

[BrookeN]

I have this escalated to the engineering team. I will update the community as soon as possible. 

[Edinburgh_lad1]

@BrookeN isn't JamesC on here actually Director of Development Team at Arlo? 

[roundball]

I see that arlo is now advertising Pro5s for sale:

$179...with "Buy One, Get One Free"

[Edinburgh_lad1]

Are you sure? I can see buy one, get a second one with 50% off, so it's not but one get one free.

They run promos on a regular basis, as they move away from the camera model to the subscription model as their main source of income. 

[roundball]

Yes...ran across it looking for something on the Internet this morning.

It literally said "Buy One, Get One Free"...didn't confuse it with anything.

[roundball]

Ref my earlier post of Arlo selling 5s at "buy one get one free"...probably wasn't Arlo per se...probably was an Arlo 5s seller somewhere.

Just noticed that Best Buy has dropped their price down to $142...

[chicane]

Hi @BrookeN 

I appreciate your ongoing promises of escalation and reassurances of getting back to us as soon as possible.. however this is fast becoming simple lip service. I do appreciate the attempt to help though.

Even though the snapshot issue that I initially reported does seem resolved, I can confirm the Pro 5S that I have in service is indeed missing events.

This thread was started 3rd March 2024.

318 DAYS AGO! AND WE ARE STILL MISSING EVENTS!

Can you ask the pointed question with Jeff and find out the stance of Arlo Support?

PRO 5 / PRO 5S CAMERAS ARE UNRELIABLE AT DETECTION, MISSING EVENTS THAT AFFECTS THE LATEST DEPLOYED PRODUCTION FIRMWARE RELEASE AS OF 19th JAN 2025.

Also, are they formally aware of it, working on a fix, or pretending users don't notice?

FWIW, the pro 4 models I have elsewhere do not have this issue.

I ask you - what is it going to take for you to properly escalate this to someone senior? 

I appreciate Jeff's attempts. However, he is powerless to comment on much - he admitted this to me. 

Also, he provided me with a 6 month subscription code however it does not work. 

At a minimum, for the amount of grief your company (Arlo) has and continues to put me and others through, bordering on dishonesty at not disclosing a very serious bug (missing events), I request at least a 12 month code for my subscription and a Zoom/phone meeting THIS WEEK with your management.

You (Arlo) are charging me for a service that is not being delivered reliably due to defects in your product and this is NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.

Please facilitate this ASAP. Or if you can't do that, let me know. Thank you. 

[chicane]

@biggy82 my sincere condolences. This is the only location on the internet that I can publicly see any acknowledgement of issues. Arlo Support's strategy is blame the customer and their equipment (wifi/etc) at all costs, being dishonest about known defects. Eventually wearing them down so they return the item, however it is not easy me to do that, especially if it is something that can be fixed. 

I also have a number of pro 5s that I can't use due to their unreliability. I have burned 10's of hours pursuing a resolution, however 10 months later they STILL are unresolved. 

If I knew Pro 5 (or 5S as they are known in other countries) were buggy I would have avoided them. The Pro 4 don't have this issue though. Also seeing same issue with my new 2K doorbell - I suspect the bug affects them too).

@BrookeN is the only contact we have who works for Arlo. She's trying to escalate it but we are all still waiting with bated breath. 

[Edinburgh_lad1]

https://theorg.com/org/arlo

[chicane]

I've also posted on the Arlo sub-Reddit for additional exposure. 

Please upvote and comment if you can. 

Arlo Pro 5 / Pro 5S - Missing events, unreliable detection. DO NOT BUY.

Patience is collectively wearing thin. Maybe if it starts costing them sales they'll take notice.

[chicane]

I have sent an email to the following employees at Arlo with a summary and link to this thread and also the Reddit one. @Edinburgh_lad1 thanks for the link to https://theorg.com/org/arlo

Hopefully I worked out the correct alias using the same format as an existing address I had there. 

Matthew McRae
CEO

Samir Kapoor
CTO

Scott McManigal
SVP of Design and Experience

Let's see if they reply.. 

[roundball]

@BrookeN  and all

For what it's worth, my experience continues to be that arlo's constant 'production' firmware changes to 5s cams still doesn't fix the problems.  Reminds me of the old saying:

"They keep doing the same thing expecting different results".

A year's frustration of that has made me decide to try something different to see if it has any positive effects.

Since arlo's constant effort seems specifically oriented towards direct connected WIFI related operations, I've decided to reconfigure all my cams off of from direct WIFI to Base Stations.

No idea if it'll make any difference but arlo support is definitely not getting it done their way...decided I have to try something different. 

[chicane]

@roundball report back with your results with the base station, however I doubt it will make much difference.

This is not a wifi issue (no matter how much support will try to tell you that) but on the camera/detection side (or possibly cloud storage platform) - all under Arlo's responsibility to resolve.

Also the base station isn't very good. In my experience is it changes to the same channel as my primary wifi causing a conflict/interference with no way to change it.

Not to mention I've got external access points in addition to the UDR (Unifi Dream Router) access point. The Arlo base station does not scale well for the necessary coverage. 

[GW1a]

@BrookeN can you please provide an update on the latest proposals by Arlo to resolve the ongoing performance issues with the Pro 5S camera.

I have recently tried to return mine via Amazon UK but they are not wiling to accept the return, so it looks like I am stuck with the camera for the time being; and with the forthcoming price hike I would like confirmation a fix is in the pipeline. 

And If no fix is planned, will Arlo be honest about this please, and directly facilitate a product swap for a camera with no known faults?

[chicane]

Hi @roundball and all, 

While I got zero reply to the CEO / other email yesterday, Jeff from L3 support replied. He kindly made a 12 month code available to me for the inconveniences - ping me a DM if you need help getting support to do the same (or I can provide his email directly to you - maybe he can do the same).

--

Message from Jeff (today, 22/01)

The issues being reported below ideally have all been addressed with the previous Production version. But Dev team didn't release a 100% firmware deployment with these versions the reason your Pro 5s are still pointed to a Field Trial firmware since it's not guaranteed that your Pro 5s will get the Production firmware if it's not fully released yet.

1. Getting snapshots instead of recordings 
2. Missing events and unreliable motion detection
3. Sluggish response

Then, at some point around Sep-Oct of last year, this certain Field Trial version 1.050.33.6_71_393f539 had improved the overall performance of the Pro 5 cameras based on the comments from the thread, I believe it was from you or from Roundball user. But the Field Trial version was changed to something else to fix other issues then your Pro 5s were updated to the new Field Trial version 1.050.33.10_105_3a163f7. All the fixes from the previous version have been consolidated to the new Field Trial version so ideally there shouldn't be any issues at all. But your Pro 5s were starting to go nuts again using this version and based on the comments from the thread to get back to the previous version where it improved the overall performance. 

The current Production firmware of the Pro 5 is 1.050.33.10_106_3a163f7 which is now released at 100% to Production and I already pointed just one of your Pro 5s(which is the only one that is online) to this version. Roundball's Pro 5s are all pointed to this version as well and all his Pro 5s are online and I believe so far didn't have any issues at all.

These are two of the internal release notes for the Pro 5 firmware probably out of a hundred and all of the fixes from the previous version will be consolidated with the current version.

CMFW-22400] - [Pro5] arlogw misses events from ispCM on cold boot
[CMFW-21639] - Investigate potential improvements in Reconnection

[chicane]

My reply to Jeff (22/01):

Hi Jeff, 

Thanks for your prompt reply. 

What issues are fixed in the FTF that I had deployed (my understanding is #1 only) that is now production? 

Roundball has actually posted on the thread that he is missing events,  It is not all fine and dandy unfortunately. So please update your notes and make sure this is communicated to the dev team.

As for My Pro 5S, I have taken the offline due to the unreliability and am using Pro 4 in their place. I can confirm this deployed latest production firmware DOES in fact miss events.  

With this in mind, what is the situation for fixes for #2 - this is the main deal breaker for users. 

Those CMFW-22400/CMFW-21639 don’t appear related to what I (and others) are observing. 

Are the dev team acknowledging this as an issue? Is there a fix being worked on currently? If so, is there a CMFW reference for it? 

[GW1a]

@chicane could you please share the email address for Jeff?

[StephenB]

---

@GW1a wrote:

@chicane could you please share the email address for Jeff?

---

Please do not post email addresses publicly - especially email addresses that are not yours.

[chicane]

@StephenB no email is being shared publicly, thanks. 

[Edinburgh_lad1]

@chicane @roundball 

1. It's rude and cowardly of them not to answer you, but to send Jeff to respond to a CEO complaint. 

2. Reading Jeff's response, which is chaotic in itself, I conclude that there is chaos in the Dev Team. From his response, it sounds like they have no clue what happens and when, and clearly don't keep a record of what got fixed and when.

3. You deserve that 12 month code - so it isn't about 'kind gestures' - as you clearly went through hell with their camera that isn't fit for purpose. That's the least they can do, and if I were them, I'd offer to swap cameras or give you a two year code.

Effectively a one year code just covers the poor service, but there's nothing on top to cover the inconvenience and hassle, is there?

I'd still contact Amazon to get a refund, and if you don't get it, contact Jeff Bezos - he has a team resolving issues for customers. 

As a side remark, I tested a pro 2 and ultra in exactly the same location. The former doesn't miss events, recording them continuously, too, whereas the latter does, stopping as soon as the motion stops, breaking the recording of the motion up into several recordings. 

[roundball]

@chicane @BrookeN 

REFERENCE JEFF's EMAIL CONTENT:

It indicates he doesn't have the full, real picture of my experience.

I'll repost here what I've made multiple posts about the outstanding FTF back in the September / October time frame.

..............................................................................

ONE OF MY REPOSTS:

For a few weeks during September / October, when a new

Field Trial Firmware # 1.050.33.6_71_393f539 was installed on my 5s cams.

Everything suddenly worked as the 5s cams were advertised they would.

Everything was fast, clear, catching all motions, immediate notifications, quick postings to Feed in 10 seconds, etc.  Excellent quality operation for a few weeks.

The bad news is that after those few weeks from September into October…thinking arlo had finally fixed the 5s cam problems…arlo suddenly changed the firmware again and the 5s cams haven’t worked properly any time since that excellent Field Trial Firmware was removed from my 5s cams.

I’ve repeatedly asked to please reinstall Field Trial Firmware # 1.050.33.6_71_393f539 on my 5s cams.

But amazingly, no arlo willingness to work with me in an obvious perfectly working situation they should be able to learn from…instead, they just keep changing firmware and my 5s cams just keep failing.

Please feel free to share this with "Jeff"...

[Wolfpretzel]

Hey guys, I’ve been more of a lurker on this thread than a contributor seeing as though you guys have been hitting all the right notes. Like others I’ve had issues with the 5S’ that honestly have gotten better than before but still not fantastic. My subscription is up for renewal in a couple of days and I was shocked at the increase and when looking at Arlo’s new plans they try to force you to upgrade to the top tier subscription or lose most of the features that sold us on these cameras in the first place. Pretty abhorrent behaviour so it deserved a post written in my extremely limited free time. Wonder if anyone at Arlo actually cares anymore. 

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Secure/New-plans-2025/m-p/2437526

If anyone would like to add to the post, that should be the link to it. 

[Edinburgh_lad1]

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Secure/EU-Subscription-Increase/td-p/2433602

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Secure/Subscription-Price-Increase-2025/m-p/2433887#M11133

[Wolfpretzel]

Yeah, I had seen some of these posts, Edinburgh_lad. It seems Arlo are going to lose a lot of customers who were previously loyal. An increase in price will only work (for Arlo) if customers stay on. Having just a handful of customers paying the new, exorbitant price won’t bring in more money for them. This increase in price will effectively be a loss in revenue for them than if they kept prices reasonable.