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I have seven Arlo cameras (six Arlo Pro 4's and 1 Arlo Q) and two base stations (VMB5000r4 and VMB5000r6). I recently purchased my eighth Arlo camera, an Arlo Pro 5s. I do not subscribe to the monthly Arlo paid plans. Unfortunately, after purchasing the Arlo Pro 5s, this product dismantled the usability of my entire system by forcing an upgrade to the new Arlo Secure 4.0 application in order to onboard it. As part of the onboarding process for the Arlo Pro 5s into my current system, the application prompted me to update the Arlo application to their new and "improved" application—Arlo Secure 4.0.
The notification to upgrade assured me that even though the "Library" functionality to view my recordings under the former application was being removed, it was being replaced with a new and better "Feed" functionality to view my recordings. However, that Feed functionality is non-existent for individuals that do not subscribe to their monthly paid plans (this was not disclosed in their prompts to update the application--the notification stated, without qualification, that the "Feed" functionality was simply replacing the "Library" functionality.) The new application (Arlo Secure 4.0), is even advertised as allowing users (paid and nonpaid) to access their direct storage via the "Feed" for the last 30 days' recordings (see highlighted portion of screenshot below).
What used to be as simple as opening the old Arlo application on my phone and being presented with a list of my security cameras, which I could access my direct storage recordings by simply clicking on the camera notification thumbnails or by clicking on "Library", has now been replaced with a useless interface with no intuitive way to access direct storage recordings.
None of the direct storage recordings from my cameras show up in the "Feed". In order to access any direct storage recordings, the "new and improved" application requires you to go through numerous, non-intuitive steps to get to the same recordings which were easily accessible via 1 button in the prior application (e.g., now you can only access your locally stored camera recordings by going to Devices>>Name of Your Base Station>>Storage Settings>>then a list of recordings shows up here. Essentially, Arlo has taken what used to be as easy as clicking one button upon opening the old app to access your locally recorded videos, and buried it three steps deep into an unintuitive and inconvenient location. Additionally, instead of being able to simply click on the desired camera and access only that camera's recordings (again, accomplished through a one-button process previously), you now are only presented with a list of all of the recordings from every camera in your system and you have to sort and scroll through the entire list of every single camera's recordings to find the desired recording. This makes using this system extremely impractical, onerous, and burdensome.
One cannot help but think the design of this new app is intentional to push customers to subscribe to Arlo’s monthly subscription services. Advertising in the manner below, coupled with forcing an upgrade that dismantles the usability of a system that was previously paid for, while misrepresenting the functionality of the new application is very deceptive. I would hope that Arlo fixes this issue immediately. I have invested thousands of dollars into this system and to have it retroactively impaired and limited in functionality and usability by false claims and advertising is wrong.
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