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

[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. 

[dcdeforest]

Still dealing with frequent alerts of which when I open the app, there is no recording or even a snapshot at this point to be found. Disappointing. 

[StephenB]

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@dcdeforest wrote:

Still dealing with frequent alerts of which when I open the app, there is no recording or even a snapshot at this point to be found. 

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Did the trial subscription expire for the cameras that aren't recording?

[dcdeforest]

It did yes, last I checked it was under the umbrella though of my subscription of the 6 cameras I have. But this one specifically I bought at the beginning of last January. It’s on the middle of the front of my house. I have one on the north side of the front of my house viewing much of the same area so they should pick up the same things, which they were before fine (car passes on the road or a person is walking on the sidewalk - both cameras would catch these things back to back depending on the direction). Anyways - if this has anything to do with it I’d be glad to know, the subscription ending would line up with early to mid February. That being said, this camera DOES still catch things and record on rare occasion so I can’t seem to deduce what’s going on here. But it’s not catching things like the other camera not that far away from it in somewhat the same direction. If a car or person is going either way on my street, both of these cameras absolutely should catch these things, so it’s odd when one isn’t as much as the other. 

[dcdeforest]

@StephenB sorry not sure I responded to you correctly (above)

[dcdeforest]

On the off chance this helps anyone - I decided to disconnect the device I felt I was having the most trouble and reconnect it to the account. In this process it mentioned placing the camera to where the bottom 3/4 of the screen would capture motion the best (top 4th or so is grayed out, bottom 3/4 is fully visible, I think this has something to do with the widescreen capture of the camera). Low and behold this has helped a bit, I'm definitely picking up more footage now. While I have had two alerts that haven't shown up with footage after the fact, for the most part I'm having better results. I think after last charging these cameras I must have put them back on their mounts facing a little lower than normal towards their intended target of view, thus the upper 4th of the camera view was not catching motion and getting less events than normal.

I will report back with anything else I happen to notice in the coming days.

[StephenB]

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@dcdeforest wrote:

 In this process it mentioned placing the camera to where the bottom 3/4 of the screen would capture motion the best (top 4th or so is grayed out, bottom 3/4 is fully visible, I think this has something to do with the widescreen capture of the camera).

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The cameras detect motion using passive infrared (PIR) sensors - the video isn't being analyzed at all.  This limitation is due to the sensor they are using (and the placement on the camera face), not the field of view.

How far away is the camera from the motion?  The spec is about 20-25 feet.  Although larger objects (like vehicles) can often be picked up from farther away,  it's not consistent.  Also, the sensor is most sensitive to motion across the field of view.  An object moving directly towards the camera lens down the center of the field of view won't be detected as reliably.

Have you tried swapping the camera with one in another location?  Then see if the problem moves with the camera (or not)?

Note you can cross-trigger the cameras (telling camera X to record when camera Y detects motion).  If the goal is to get video from multiple angles, that trick might be useful.

[chicane]

these cameras have a known issue that is intermittent in nature. Sometimes work but not reliably. 

[chicane]

Latest reply from Arlo Support. Apparently a trial firmware is available that they want me to test.
Currently camera has 1.040.28.13_152_2450fc8. 

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Good day!

I hope this message finds you well, and I sincerely apologize for the frustration and inconvenience you've experienced with your Pro 5s cameras. Your feedback is invaluable to us, and I understand how important it is to have a reliable and efficient security solution for your home.

Please be informed that we added one of your Pro 5s cameras, named Driveway Pro 5 (SN: <omitted>), to a field trial firmware. This is to test if the experimental firmware will resolve the issue of taking snapshots instead of recordings. May you check if there are improvements on this camera?

If yes, we will do the same with your other affected Pro 5s cameras.

I am looking forward to your response. Stay safe and well!

Kind regards,

Gen
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[Siutin]

how's the test going? when will arlo release the firmware upgrade?? this issue is annoying. 

[RBBuscher]

I too have been frustrated with the Pro 5 cameras.  These are suppose to be the top of the line Arlo cameras. My old Arlo's that I replaces with the Pro 5's were better at connecting when needed. 

I really struggle with the times I want to see what is going on in the driveway and it take 2 to 3 minutes to connect, or sometimes not at all.  I have a top of the line G4 and G5 internet system with a extenders 20 feet away from the driveway camera. I have gotten to the point that this is the way it is. Very disappointed in the Pro 5 system. I have a lot of money invested in the 5 Pro 5 camera system. Very frustrating. 

BBJR

[chicane]

Hi @Siutin, despite what Support has told me, I have not got any new firmware on my Pro 5S camera. I responded to the case with Arlo Support however they have not replied yet. 

[Pro5s]

Hi @chicane. That firmware version in your previous comment (1.040.28.13_152_2450fc8) is newer than ours (1.040.28.7_93_caa9491).

Are you sure your firmware is not the trial firmware?

We’re having so many issues with our Arlo Pro 5S at multiple locations. Flashing IR, missing obvious detections, snapshots instead of videos and alerts, geofencing not working reliably (used to work fine with previous version (library) of iOS app) etc.

We have bought 4 of these Pro 5s. We have 8 more Pro 2s to replace with new Arlo cameras. By mid April if these problems aren’t resolved we’ll be demanding the retailer refund us and look at a different system for both locations. Eufy seems to get good reviews.

[chicane]

Hi @Pro5s , yeah I gather this firmware may in fact be the trial firmware after all.

I did ask support to deploy the trial firmware to another Pro 5S that I have (In a lower priority location - still buggy with same issues) but it looks like they didn't. This camera with 2450fc8 deployed is on a shelf inside my house (and not in use). Until I had confirmation from Arlo I didn't want to remove the working Pro 4 from this location. 

I did ask for something in writing about firmware version release notes however they haven't (unwilling or unable to do so) but we can deduce it ourselves. My other Pro 5S is on caa9491 as well so I gather this is the latest public version.

I'll swap the trial firmware version camera back in place tomorrow during the day and see how it goes.

I had much the same faults as you are experiencing. They finger pointed at my setup and I upgraded to a Ubiquiti WiFi setup to rule out this aspect. Only then did they take it a bit more seriously (and also a public post about my frustrations - on here and on reddit). 

I just wish Arlo would be a bit more respectful of their customers who have spent their hard earned money on their products to at least acknowledge a fault even if a fix is not publicly ready yet.

Hopefully someone from Arlo reads this and takes it on board sooner than later. Maybe they don't care about customer satisfaction (or dissatisfaction and losing customers). 

[chicane]

Hi all,

Good news - the trial firmware so far looks good -  videos not snapshots being recorded and events not being missed from what I see.

hopefully they can hurry up and release it more broadly soon.

[chicane]

Hi all,

While the event detection and snapshot instead of video issue looks to be fixed, I do notice the frame rate of the Pro 5S to be somewhat choppy/jerky compared to the Pro 4. It's somewhat unpleasant to view. I do recall this on the older firmware as well though. Hopefully this can get some attention and be fixed (and not a physical fault). 

[chicane]

While I was optimistic that the missed event issue was resolved, twice today the camera has stopped detecting events (first around 7-7:30am) and today around 11:30am. Around the latter time, I walked past the camera and drove out of my driveway with no events captured. 

Connecting to the camera by live view seems to wake it up and then it records again, however eventually it stops again.

My Ubiquiti Unifi App shows Excellent Wifi Experience and no dropouts at all for this camera.

I have reported this under the same Arlo Support ticket. let's see what they come back with.. 

[Siutin]

thanks for sharing all the update. while waiting for the fixes, i read from Reddit and the suggestion is to disable the Activity zone which I did and improved the event capture significantly but still not satisfactory. 

I am quite disappointed as a new customer and now I would think twice for another set of CCTV solutions in my another house. I don't want to pay such expensive price to get a product with such poor quality and bad support. 

[chicane]

Hi @Siutin, they (Engineering) are aware of the issue and can see bad entries in the logs for these cameras (a side effect of whatever the root of the problem is).

I hope they can get this firmware released publicly sooner than later for the sake of all of their customers sanity. I've wasted months of my time on this issue personally. 

The worst part is customers expect them to work reliably. When events are missed it undermines the confidence in the system. I suspect most are blissfully unaware of this and are lulled into a false sense of security. 

Arlo Employees - please implore your company to do better. 

[Siutin]

this is exactly what I meant. I buy this expensive product is for security and then found that it is not that secure. Anyway, yes it is the staff/company attitude issue which make the customer lost confidence. I hope they did learn a lesson and they know they need to do much better. 

[chicane]

Again, the same thing happened today - did not detect events from around 11-11:30am. I rebooted it hoping it would help, however it missed an event 1 minute ago. I am not sure what is going on however it appears unreliable still. 

(tagging @BrookeN for visibility).

[dcdeforest]

Chiming back in to get some eyes on this, still experiencing the same issues with my cameras on the front deck an driveway. It seems at times it does catch events and records and at other times it doesn't. It also seems like here and there I only get snapshots being taken. Many of the issues listed in this thread I am still experiencing, even after re-adding these cameras to my arlo account, checking firmware (it's gotta be the firmware at this point based on all that I'm reading), verifying my internet settings / moving the modem closer to see if potentially better wifi connectivity helps.

Really disappointing that this has been ongoing for what seems like over two months now on my end, especially for a paid subscription service. The least the team could do is be transparent about having eyes on the issue via firmware (if that's what I'm understanding from the other users here via one on one support conversations) rather than be publicly quiet about it.

[JulianP777]

I am having the same issues with the Pro 5S camera at the front of our house.

It intermittently misses recording activity and reverts to taking snapshots before the battery is run down to the power save mode percentage. 

I have observed the spotlight operate on the camera, indicating that it has detected motion, but there is so resulting recording uploaded to the cloud. 

From reviewing the recorded videos,  I can also see an intermittently occurring lag or delay between when the activity starts and when the camera starts recording to the cloud. This lag means that rapid activity (someone opening the front door and quickly walking off the property) does not get recorded. 

[chicane]

Today I've started to see snapshots occurring again instead of video, even with the field trial firmware. 

[dcdeforest]

It sure would be nice to be able to roll back the firmware as I definitely wasn’t having these issues prior. 

[Trish16]

I charged my battery yesterday and when I put it back up it worked ok at first even though it missed some activity. Now it is just taking snapshots which is annoying. I had to take the battery out because I wasn’t able to turn it back on using the app until I did so. I just paid for a yearly subscription as my free trial is ending on 21 April. Can someone please help me to fix this issue. Thanks