Water damage

[Ryedany]

Two of my Arlo cameras have had water get inside them. They’re supposed to be made to be outside. This is upsetting!! 

[Blaven]

I have an arlo pro 5 that is about a year old and has apparently gotten a water spot behind the lens.  I've tried polish, window cleaner, everything to get the spot off and it is apparently inside the lens housing somehow.  Has anyone fixed this?  Is there a replacement lens I can buy?  It seems pretty simple to take apart (yes, I know it'll void the warranty but it's pretty useless to me now since everything is really blurry)

[BrookeN]

Can you please dm me a callback number as well as a good time to call. That way I can have support look into this further. You send a dm by clicking on the envelope icon on the top right of the forum page.If you don't see it, then go into your profile settings and select preferences, then "Private Messenger." Then select "Turn on private messages" if it is turned off.

[Blaven]

Hello @BrookeN , I sent the requested DM's a week ago but I haven't heard anything back yet.  I was just checking in on the status of my issue.  Thank you.

[BrookeN]

@Blaven I have passed it onto our development team who is currently investigating this. I will reach out to you soon. 

[quickbrownfox]

Same Issue here.

There appear to be water spots in the lens on two cameras.  Not sure why this happens to some and not others.  I spent 6 months believing it was dew on the outside, but placing another camera next to them proved that not to be the case.  I have have probably purchased 30 or more devices from them over the years, none of the others have had this issue. 

Customer service chat feels intentionally slow and disconnects frequently, like they want you to give up and roll on.   

Anyone successfully removed the lens and cleaned inside?  I am an engineer with the electronics tools at hand, but have not looked into it.   

[BrookeN]

@quickbrownfox Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I have sent you a dm, please respond to that at your earliest convenience. 

[Smithnmore]

I’m posting this to see if other Arlo Pro 5S 2K owners are experiencing the same issue.

I currently have three Arlo Pro 5S 2K cameras installed outdoors. Recently, I noticed blurry spots appearing in the video feed on two of the cameras. At first, I assumed it was dirt, condensation, or water on the outside of the lens, but after several days the spots never cleared.

Upon closer inspection, I discovered that water had made its way inside the camera housing. When I opened one of the cameras, there was visible moisture around the battery compartment and inside the unit itself.

Unfortunately it will not let me upload all of my photos. But…

• Water spotting and moisture visible inside the lens assembly
• Internal moisture intrusion
• Video quality degradation caused by the issue
• Comparison between a normal camera and an affected camera

The affected cameras are mounted outdoors and used exactly as intended. These are marketed as weather-resistant outdoor security cameras, so finding water inside the camera body was surprising.

I contacted Arlo Support and provided photos of both cameras. After reviewing the images, support informed me that:

“Engineering is aware of the issue.”

I was later told that “Arlo is handling multiple cases of this issue and that engineering is actively investigating it.” And “I will receive an email once there is a resolution”

At the moment, I have:

• 3 Arlo Pro 5S 2K cameras
• 2 cameras with water intrusion
• 1 camera currently unaffected

I’m curious:

1. Has anyone else experienced moisture or water inside their Pro 5S camera?
2. If so, how old was the camera when the issue appeared?
3. Did Arlo replace the camera or provide any resolution?
4. Are certain production batches affected?

For anyone experiencing unexplained blurry spots, fogging, or permanent haze in the image, I recommend inspecting the camera closely. In my case, the problem was inside the camera, not on the outside lens.

I’d appreciate hearing from other Pro 5S owners so we can determine how widespread this issue may be.

[BrookeN]

Thank you for reaching out. I sent you a dm , please respond at your earliest convenience. 

[Smithnmore]

Hello BrookeN,

I have no messages in my account… 

[BrookeN]

I sent it again, can you please check again. 

[Todd_eme]

I have to say I have been with Arlo for several years and now that I have had a problem with my pro 5 it has been quite the disappointment.  The technical support representatives have made promises after promises about my cameras and the replacement of my cameras. They are under warranty only six months old. This has been dragging on for 10 days now no resolutions. I'm up-to-date on firmware operating systems and everything is completely up-to-date where it needs to be, the problem has to be with the five Pro cameras bubbles on the interior lens of the cameras by faulty manufacturing after over a half a dozen calls same answer engineering department looking at it probably Phone Callback 28 to 48 hours been told this multiple times no phone calls no emails or no resolutions to my tickets. I have to see if this continues on I will no longer be in our local customer and have been one for over five years now. 

[BrookeN]

I have sent you a dm @Todd_eme , please respond at your earliest convenience. 

[Todd_eme]

I have four of these cameras with bubbling on the lens inside the camera. Mine were seated in there they did click. The O-ring is good. I’ve been told by Arlo it’s a manufacturing defect that they had but here’s the problem they have. No customer support that will help you out minor under warranty and only six months old. They used to make a decent product and now they’ve gone downhill and will not support their product

[Film]

I experienced the same issue about a month ago with one of my Pro 5S 2k units as well (I have 4 Pro 5S cameras, around 9-10 Ultras, a doorbell and a few essential indoor cameras).  It appeared that condensation/rain got inside the lens and even long after the rain stopped the image was still blurred by condensation.  I dismounted the camera and cleaned it thinking there must be water still on the outside of the lens, but after remounting it and examining the lens closely it appeared the water was inside the unit/lens. The image from my camera looked identical to this customer's camera - https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Pro-5S-2K/Warranty-RMA-Needed-Internal-Seal-Failure-on-Cottage-Ca...

I opened a case with Arlo, but they were very resistant to an RMA for what is obviously (to me anyway) a hardware/seal defect. Rather than an RMA, support wanted to open a ticket with engineering since others were reporting the problem and asked me to take the camera down and bring it inside and leave it open to dry it out.  I have had this particular camera since last summer (so still under warranty) and it has done this multiple times so removing it to dry it out after every rainstorm for a supposedly outdoor camera seems unreasonable (to me anyway) especially since I have a bunch of other data points in my own camera fleet (and previous Arlo generations that I have owned) and none of them has ever had this internal condensation/water behind the lens problem.

I showed support images from all 13 of my other outdoor cameras and only this one has the internal condensation/blurriness.  They suggested using an anti-fog coating on the outside of the lens, keeping it in a warmer area or moving it higher from the ground or to a more open space.  I didn't really see how those suggestions would solve the issue since it's an outdoor camera and the weather/environment/mounting options is/are pretty much the same no matter where I move it on my property.  Additionally, I have another identical camera mounted about 4 inches from this one pointed in the opposite direction that has no issues whatsoever so if mounting location/environment was an issue they should both exhibit the same problem.

When I pushed back on those ideas as not being workable and not even making sense support told me that engineering was working on the issue and would be in touch with a resolution as soon as possible.  Short of sending an engineering team to my house to examine the hardware, it seemed implausible to me that some type of backend software engineering solution could fix this issue.  I finally got support to agree to RMA the unit, but was surprised when I got the RMA confirmation email that states "There is no need to return the defective unit or accessory to Arlo."  If engineering were really interested in finding out the root cause of the issue that multiple people are reporting wouldn't they want my defective camera back so they could examine it and disassemble it in the lab to attempt to determine the cause of the failure?

I picked this thread to respond to since it has the most recent replies and isn't closed/solved yet, but there are now several threads started by people experiencing the same problem including this one (listed below). There are probably others as well, but they are all described by the customers differently (e.g. fogging, water ingress, blurry, etc.) and I don't have time to locate them all.

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Pro-5S-2K/Warranty-RMA-Needed-Internal-Seal-Failure-on-Cottage-Ca...
https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Pro-5S-2K/3-out-of-4-cameras-have-water-ingress/m-p/2477655#M6377
https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Pro-5S-2K/Water-damage/m-p/2480475#M6456
https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Pro-5S-2K/4-Pro-5-are-blurry-and-support-has-done-nothing-since-F...

I think it's time to take responsibility for the fact that there seems to be a legitimate issue with water ingress with these cameras or at least some subset of them and make the process of replacing them less of a headache for customers. For such a widespread issue that even support admitted has been reported multiple times by customers should I really have to threaten to take my case to social media and cancel my monitoring accounts for multiple properties just to get a replacement for one defective camera? I own like 20 Arlo products and have probably owned at least 20 previous products that these replaced (Pro, Pro2, Q, Essential, Ultra and 5S).

A warranty extension for this particular issue once it is properly classified as a known defect would also be a nice gesture since it sounds like some people are outside the warranty period.

Since Arlo didn't want my defective camera back I decided to mount it in another test location that is under a covered porch.  Since doing that the lens has not clouded so my suspicion is that the 5S cameras have a defect that allows water in when directly exposed to rain.  The previous location I had the camera was mounted to a deck post about 6-7 feet off the ground where it was not shielded from rain.

[Smithnmore]

Great write up! I’m waiting for “engineering” to make a decision on my cameras. 

[Film]

I'd be willing to own up to it being user error on my part if the 5S cameras are not rated for direct rainfall.  It has been like a month since I looked into this issue and I forgot most of what I researched back then.  In an attempt to keep it from happening to my other 5S cameras I did move them slightly so they are somewhat shielded from direct rainfall vs. just sticking out into midair from a deck post.  So, I guess my question would be - do these cameras need to be mounted under an eave, covered porch, etc. in order to protect them from direct rainfall?  Is mounting in direct rainfall contraindicated?

[BrookeN]

I sent you a dm Film if you could respond to that at your earliest convenience. 

[Film]

You really don't need to DM me.  I am happy with the resolution I received when I dealt with Arlo support on the issue other than I felt that I had to get somewhat more heavy handed than I am comfortable doing in order to get them to agree to an RMA (and I was under warranty at the time).  My new camera is working great and my defective camera seems happy under a covered porch and it has rained a ton since then and no new water ingress.

[Beeman]

Great write-up.

I’ve pretty much lost faith and given up on both the product and the support. I’ve received inconsistent responses for the same issue, when I first experienced the condensation problem, Arlo didn’t hesitate to RMA the camera. The second time, however, I was told this was "normal" behavior and that nothing could be done, aside from offering a small discount toward purchasing a new unit, which I declined.

Overall, it’s been a frustrating experience, with long delays and having to repeatedly explain the issue with no meaningful resolution, response, or explanation from support.

[Todd_eme]

Just to give an update on my five Pro S cameras they are going to replace my cameras, which I am not happy about because they are replacing him with the same camera after talking to several technicians. This is an ongoing issue and why they do not sell the five pro cameras anymore, but they’re replacing them like for like which a representative promised me that they would not do that under the warranty program, they would upgrade me to the six pro which they are not doing. I have literally spent over five hours on the phone with them to get them to replace my cameras which they admitted were under warranty, but if I wanted to go with the Pro six another technician or representative offered a 40% discount so they were trying to sell me something that I already had paid for you have to stay very vigilant with them to get replacements, but I have been very polite and very honest. I have not been rude in any fashion or any form what I can say. If these cameras fail, I will have to take it to the next level which Arlo does not want to see I am a very polite and has a lot of people and friends would tell me that I am very entertaining, but that being said I’ve owned a business. I treat people how I wanna be treated and that’s with kindness, courtesy, and stand by your word so if they send me back five pro and they fail again. I will take it to the next level which should be my Attorney General‘s office for my state who I happen to know personally and I know what the handle the case and the consumer protection office. It’s sad to see that Arlo is treating people this way cause there’s a lot of people that I had referred to Arlo and they are current users today. They are very happy to take your money for subscriptions, but when it comes to supporting their product, they have not been so friendly sorry to drag on about the issue, but I have to tell it like it is thanks to all.

[Smithnmore]

Hello! I am also getting my two Pro 5S replaced. That thought did cross my mind, that I will be receiving two probably refurbished Pro 5S cameras that will eventually have the same issue. The 40% off of the Pro 6 is kinda rude also. Prime days are going on right now on Amazon and the Pro 6 is so so cheap. 

[Film]

I think that's the route I would go if my choices were between spending 40% off on refurbished Pro 5S cameras vs. a 4 pack of new Pro 6 cameras @ Prime Day prices.  We already know the 5S has a defect so even if it cost a little more I'd rather roll the dice with the new design and brand new cameras vs. a product we know is flawed that is also refurbished.  Just another data point - the 5S they sent me to replace my waterlogged one was refurbished so unless they ran out of refurbs that's probably what you will get as well.