Arlo Pro 2-Way Audio Just Does NOT Work!

[Shrick]

Hi

I'm really fedup of waiting for something to happen around the 2-way communication on the Arlo Pro?! This function just does not work - full stop! I've owned my 5-cam Arlo Pro system for around 7 months now, and up to today I could not get it to work on iPhone (all IOS versions), Android (6.0, 7.0 and 8.0) and your web interface.

The biggest issue is with the commnication TO the camera. Its TOTALLY inconsitent and unrealiable. Mostly its broken communication that reaches the cam (less than 50% of the messages reaches the cam) and the rest of the time theres NO communication, just silence. Nowadays I see when you press the Mic button to speak, theres a big delay before the button turns purple - whats that all about?

I'm really fed-up that I had to pay so much for this system and the functionality just does not work. And don't tell me theres an issue with my cams, I have 5 of them and ALL of them does the same thing.

Please fix this function on your system. I paid a lot of money for this system and I expect it to work! Otherwise, please don't advertise that your system can do it!

Regards

Rico

[Shrick]

Sorry Netgear... PUSH TO TALK IS JUST USELESS!! And, it has been useless for a long, long time. Nice, its Awesome paying a premium for a product and you don't get what you paid for 😉 I'm really getting frustrated

[JamesC]

Shrick,

This could be due to an inconsistent data connection on your mobile device. What is your mobile data connection like when you're experiencing this issue? Do you see the same behavior when connected to your home WiFi?

JamesC

[Anthony25]

I will be fair and say I have compared several other products and ARLO still wins. However, that is NOT to say that it is without problems. I am concerned that everyone that replies to someone questioning about the poor sound (if any) someone can hear from the camera the reply is always that there must be something wrong with your settings or your wifi connection.

Plain and simple it seems to be clearly a design flaw since I have spoken with some peolpe that are using this product and they say it is not really loud but can be heard and others (like me) where 2 way talk is NOT possible. That tells me that it is in the manufacturing of the product. I do hope that NETGEAR ( a VERY respectable company) can get it together to resolve this problem. Hopefully, it is something that can be resolved with the firmwar but I am no holding my breath on that idea.

I would love to open up one of these cameras and see if I can connect a speaker to it somehow. Perhaps that is the answer. If they can install a mini plug connector where you can plug in an option speaker to take the place of the existing speaker????

Interesting thought but I do not think I will try to get inside one of these cameras.............or maybe I will??

PLEASE!! If you hear of a solution let it be known and come back here and share it with everyone of us that can not use the 2 way talk feature.

[Linda24]

the arlo update it up to date i cant speak to my cameras (all 5) but i can hear them im sooo lost i have been dealing with this for the past 8 days im frustrated!

[jguerdat]

Have you erified permissions for the app to include access to the mic? Have you tried a computer browser?

[pc2k17]

I don't use the mic that often, but never noticed an issue when I did. My guess is any issue you might have is due to network congestion, high ping time/high latency, and/or weak LTE signal. Time of day can be a factor in network congestion too.

I just did some testing......

First test was while sitting in my living room, one wall between me and outside with lots of windows:

I ran a speed test on my phone (at www.bandwidthplace.com). I got 58Mbps down, 9Mbps up, 65ms ping. I then turned the mic on and spoke into it 10 times. Said short phrases like hey get out of here, don't come any closer, the cops are on the way, etc. Each time it worked flawlessly. I heard the full phrase that I said and it was very clear. The louder I spoke the louder it sounded on the speaker in the camera.

Second test was while standing in an interior bathroom where I don't get a good signal on my phone:

Speed test was 21Mbps down, 2Mbps up, 85ms ping time. I spoke 10 times. 8 times it was perfectly clear, twice it cut out during part of the phrase and I couldn't make out what I said.

Slower speeds and higher ping times will result in inconsistent mic behaivor and playback thru the speaker. That's the nature of cloud based services currently.

[RChobby]

230 mb/s down, 12 mb/up., Verizon and Spectrum cable. 4 bars of signal strength to Arlo Pro cams. Push to talk rarely works, I don’t count on that feature to work, unfortunately.

[pc2k17]

@RChobby

I'm guessing that 230 Mbps is your ISP (spectrum) not your mobile carrier (verizon). So your phone was connected to wifi and you're still having issues with that feature. Hmmm.... I never connect my phone to wifi because my mobile carrier is faster, I have spectrum but they don't offer those speeds you get here. But anyway, what about your ping times / latency, how do those look? My speed and pings were when my phone was connected to AT&T 4G LTE and I'm way out in the country so speed is a bit slower than say in a city.

If your ping times are same or better than mine than the only difference is that I have 5 bars of signal strength on all my cameras (btw - they're inside, farthest one from the base is about 20-25 feet). The push to talk feature seems to work good for me, but I admit I don't use it at all really since my cameras are inside. Maybe if I used it more I'd notice more issues.

[RChobby]

Right, at home my iPhone is hooked to WiFi and push to talk is Nada for the most part. Ping typically 20ms.

[pc2k17]

Hmmm... Now I'm curious as to why it doesn't work for some. I'm going to try and use it a bunch more this weekend and see what kind of results I get with more use.

[Jeffoz]

I have the same. Haven't used the camera for a while. Did firmware update today as I also had this since the beginning. Bought camera straight after it came out and I suppose it's still not fixed which is disappointing. Will nog buy a new extra once until this gets fixed. I'm on good wifi at home sitting next to the camera and 1 out of 10 it returns sounds or something. All options are on in the app and the iPhone itself and sometimes it returns sounds so that's not it.

[LiCi]

This is not working for me also. It has been working in the past. Man Arlo you update something, broke geofencing but now you broke 2 way audio talking. Seriously WTF

[JamesC]

I have escalated this topic to engineering and it is currently being investigated. I will post an update when I have more information.

JamesC

[Linda24]

thank you so much James. i am very frustrated at this point and it does not help that im a week away from surgery and this issue being resolved would make a huge difference for me during my recovery .

[ArloProSystem]

talked to my iphoneX microphone trying to warning my kids. no response. therefore I found the speaker's not working. my iphone firmwire is up to date, and arlo pro 2 firmwire up to date with full access including mic. tried talkin with computer ,working. 

thanks to this community, found that I am not the only having this problem.

I guess the arlo software is not compatible with iphone firmware ? 

please solve this quickly. 

[JamesC]

The engineering team is currently investigating an issue with using push to talk with the Arlo mobile app using iOS 11.3.

I will post an update when I have more information.

JamesC

[ArloProSystem]

Thanks for your quick reply, James. Hope they are working hard on this.

I found the motion zone could only be set up with square shape which is not convenient. Could you have the engineer make them more flexable like Ring ? It should be easy. 

[Joshuajava]

I have 3 Arlo pro camera. Once I downloaded the app to my iOS 11.3 iphone 7plus 128GB of which I have 68gB free storage on my iPhone left. The system worked fine before I upgraded to the latest update of your app which was last week. April 4th, 2018. App version: 2.4.9

Now I can no longer talk thru the camera from my iPhone using the Arlo app. I have tried turning the cameras off and on using the app controls, Turing the video and and audio off and back on and still doesn’t help.

My next step is to uninstall this app from my iPhone.

Can you please help me here.

[Adrian97c]

Help! This feature stopped working!
Latest FW on Arlo Base & Pro 2 cameras
Latest iPh FW..

[pc2k17]

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@Adrian97c wrote:
Help! This feature stopped working!
Latest FW on Arlo Base & Pro 2 cameras
Latest iPh FW..

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From the forum moderator......

NETGEAR Moderator

‎04-11-2018 12:01 PM

Re: Arlo Pro 2-Way Audio Just Does NOT Work!

The engineering team is currently investigating an issue with using push to talk with the Arlo mobile app using iOS 11.3.

I will post an update when I have more information.

JamesC

[pc2k17]

The engineering team is currently investigating an issue with using push to talk with the Arlo mobile app using iOS 11.3.

I will post an update when I have more information.

JamesC

[RChobby]

Honestly, is it really just Apple iOS? I’ve had problems with push to talk from the PC, as well.

[Adrian97c]

I just updated to iOS Beta 11.4 (b2), now my push to talk works again... I could hear my voice coming from the camera speaker!

[jguerdat]

So it seems that Apple broke it, not Netgear?

[Adrian97c]

Hey Guru, too early to tell.