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

[Evan_Aggie]

JamesC, have you heard back from the engineering department/team?  This was brought up 2 months ago and there hasn't been any significant follow-up that explains how to work around this issue or perhaps test x y z to root-cause.

Netgear is advertising and selling a feature on a product that clearly has issues based on the feedback.  People who have 4-5 cameras are confirming half of them aren't working.  Can you give the community an ETA?  I'm pretty sure if most of the development team owns/uses an Arlo Pro, they'll experience these problems 1st hand.

-Evan

[brh]

Apple bricked this feature with the 11.3 IOS upgrade. You should be complaining to Apple.

Brian

[ArloProSystem]

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@brh wrote:

Apple bricked this feature with the 11.3 IOS upgrade. You should be complaining to Apple.

Brian

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you means the 2-way talk will never work in the future, right? because the Apple iOS will keep updating. LOL 

If Arlo could not keep up with the iOS, then back out of the bussiness. NO EXCUSE. 

[Evan_Aggie]

1) I had IOS 11.3 installed before I bought the Arlo Pro kit.  It worked fine after I installed the camera and was able to use it numerous times.  It was only after a week or so that the 2-way audio stopped working.

2) If it truly is related to iOS, then it should be even easier for Netgear to respond and say, "Our engineering department had determined that there is some incompatibility with iOS 11.3 and we are working on the issue."  They haven't said that at all.

3) Multiple people have confirmed that this is broken using Android-based phones.

So whining about Apple or to their tech support seems a little off the mark at this point.

[brh]

@Evan_Aggie

I completely agree that Arlo needs to make a statement one way or the other, but, unfortunately, that is not their style. They are losing a lot of sales over this issue and many people are returning their systems. Mine were working fine on my iPhone 6, my wife's iPhone 6 Plus and my iPad on 11.2, but broke the day I upgraded to 11.3. I have been reading about 11.3 and it appears that they are having microphone issues with other apps. I have also read that people using the 11.4 beta are not experiencing this problem. 

But, in any case, if Arlo wishes to continue to lose sales by not informing us about what is going on, that is their problem

Brian

[JamesC]

We apologize for the frustration/inconvenience this has caused. The engineering team is working hard toward a resolution for this issue. I do not currently have an ETA for a fix but will provide any new information I receive as soon as possible.  

JamesC

[Joshuajava]

That’s fine. Netgear being the parent company for Arlo. I believe this problem is wide spread. I do have the Beta IOS 11.4 and I cannot speak thru my camera.

Only way I am able to speak thru my camera is using Windows 10.

[brh]

@Joshuajava

Thanks for the info. I guess you can't believe everything you read. So, I guess that now I don't know who to blame, so we probably won't have a speedy fix.

Brian

[brh]

I have been with Arlo for several years and now I am up to 8 Arlo cameras. I have been very happy with them and they have worked flawlessly for me. I will admit, though, these latest problems have me a little discouraged, especially since Arlo is keeping quiet about the problems. I was hoping to purchase a couple of Q Plus cameras, but I won't until I see that all the problems have been resolved. I'm in way too deep with Arlo to go somewhere else, plus I think they are the only cameras that have an official integration with Smartthings which I also use as a backup security system.

Brian

[pc2k17]

I'm with you @brh (Brian). I've had 4 cameras for a year now and they just work. Only once did one of the cameras freeze up and pulling the battery fixed the issue in less than one minute. Other than that no issues. I only experienced one outage in that year and I was out for about 2 hours. Not a big deal. I didn't experience any of the other issue some experienced.

I too have them integrated with smartthings, using them as motion sensors and on/off switches and they work fine, again no issues. The push to talk feature also works fine for me on android 8.0.0 on a Samsung S8. No it's not perfect, but it's fine. In my testing of the feature I always do 10 tests and always get 1 or 2 times where part of my voice gets cut off. So 80-90% of the time it works perfect, loud and clear. I'm fine with that success rate.

I am also an engineer and reading all about this issue, it's seems to me that it is an iOS issue. Anyone on android who may have an issue is probably a "one off" (as we call it). Apple has bugs and/or occasionally introduces bugs by accident same as google does and same as microsoft does. This is just a reality of the software dominated world we live in. Remember, software and operating systems are only as good as the people who create them and since humans are far from perfect, so is the software they create.

Anyway, just my 2 cents and hopefully netgear and/or apple will get this issue resolved quickly for those of you that are having the issue.

[brh]

@pc2k17

One of the things I like about Smartthings is that they are very honest and open whenever a problem occurs and usually let their customers what has happened, who might be affected, they acknowledge the problem and often say when they anticipate the bug to be fixed. They also notify their customers when their hubs go offline.

It would be nice if Arlo would follow their lead.

I really like my Arlo cameras and I have recommended them to many of my friends and neighbors. I truly want Arlo to continue to provide us with great products. It pains me greatly to see so many people returning their cameras or deciding to go elsewhere because Arlo won't communicate with their customer base. Sad indeed.

Brian

[pc2k17]

@brh

I agree. I've said on this board many times that Arlo needs a system status page. That's the easiest way to keep customers informed of what's going on. Of the products I use for home automation.......

SmartThings has one: https://status.smartthings.com/

LIFX has one: http://status.lifx.com/

Amazon has one: https://status.aws.amazon.com/

Each of these allows you to subscribe to email alerts so you can be notified via email whenever there is an issue and a possible ETA time for a fix, or when maintenance is going to be done and the system will be down, or when there's going to be a planned or unplanned upgrade.

@JamesC

If you have any way to communicate to Arlo/Netgear, please send them the links I provided above so they can see how a system status page is done and how it helps keeps customers informed and ultimately happier with the product.

[Aniraf]

I just bought Arlo Pros for this feature, no dice. I’ve been very happy with the original Arlo cameras, but it is clear that Netgear is kind of losing quality in the pro and pro 2 models. Complete bummer. 

[pc2k17]

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@Aniraf wrote:

I just bought Arlo Pros for this feature, no dice. I’ve been very happy with the original Arlo cameras, but it is clear that Netgear is kind of losing quality in the pro and pro 2 models. Complete bummer. 

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Android 7/8 or iOS 11.3?

Phone connected to WIFI or 4G LTE?

[ArloProSystem]

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@Aniraf wrote:

I just bought Arlo Pros for this feature, no dice. I’ve been very happy with the original Arlo cameras, but it is clear that Netgear is kind of losing quality in the pro and pro 2 models. Complete bummer. 

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to enjoy all atractive feature of Pro 2, the cameras have to be pluged in, which loose the advantage of REAL wireless. plus this 2-way talk issue, I highly doubt their ability of solving techinical problems. I though I should have more cameras and some smart security lights from Arlo. but now i am looking around for other solutions. 

[RChobby]

I’ve given up on the two way talk feature. Even when it did connect the lag was so severe (eg 40-60 seconds) that meaningful conversation was impossible. A criminal would have been long gone. . The cameras still work well in most other ways.

[pc2k17]

Conversation? It's not an intercom made to have conversations back and forth over. "Two way audio" as many call it isn't accurate. It's a push to talk system meant for short warning messages, like "Hey get away from that car".

I have done much testing on this feature and it works fine for me. I again just did some testing to see what the delay is that I get. I used a stopwatch and it took 5 seconds for the mic to become active and 1-2 seconds from the time I started speaking until I heard it thru the camera speaker. This was done over 4g LTE not wifi.

[RChobby]

When it worked for me (trying to remember, I guess in Feb.) if I spoke to my wife through the Arlo, the video feed would freeze. At the same time, we talked over our land line phone to measure the lag. My network seems plenty speedy for other devices and software, 230 mb/s down, 16 mb/s up, 20 ms avg ping. I agree it cannot be used for two way talk as it is now. Perhaps I misread their representation in their description, I thought it mentioned two way.

[pc2k17]

The Arlo website does say two way audio, but it means that is has the capability of listening and the capability of talking thru it. I don't think the intension was to use it as a intercom type of device.

Here is the description:

2-Way Audio

Listen in and talk back through the built-in speaker and mic, straight from your smartphone.

Your internet speeds are fine, much faster than mine. One thing I will mention is that, IMHO, using wifi with android is very slow. I have my S8 set to never put the wifi to sleep, but no matter what if the phone has been sitting idle for several minutes android appears to stop communicating with my router and it always takes 30-60 seconds for the wifi to actually start working like it should. For example, after phone sitting idle, I'll open my smartthings or arlo app while on 4g LTE (att) and smartthings displays my cloud dashboard in a few seconds and arlo shows camera status in a few seconds as well. On wifi, both those take 30-60 seconds to come up. This is one reaosn why I never use wifi on my phone. So for a test, try the push to talk feature while on 4g LTE. See if you get better results.

Another thing I'll mention, when I did my test earlier I actually did it with a camera that was turned on with motion detection active. I walked into the room and it detected me and started recording (I do one minute recordings), I then opened the arlo app and started live viewing, then started testing the push to talk feature. When I was done I had a recorded video of me viewing live view and doing the test. So it was recording for one minute, doing live view, and push to talk all at the same time, with no problem. I thought switching to live view would stop the recording, but it didn't.

Since you mentioned your video would freeze, I'm now wondering if phone hardware is a factor for people on android who have an issue with this feature. My S8 has high end hardware. Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chip, Adreno 540 GPU, and 4GB of RAM. Having the high end hardware might be why I can record, live view, and push to talk all at the same time with no issues, while others with lower spec hardware can't. IDK, just throwing out some theories here.

[RChobby]

Actually when we last did the two way talk test, it was from my PC at work (university fiber, ultra fast connection). Low end PC but new (last years Lenovo desktop, can’t remember the model, windows 10, no vid card). Tried Firefox, Chrome, and MS browsers. Lots of lag (60s) choppy video stream. The iPhone is a total bust, no talk feature at all on WiFi or LTE. (since Feb).

[JulieLober]

Same here.  I have an iphone 7 and I can not speak to any of my cameras.  I can only do this if I use my laptop.  Not super handy when I'm out and about.  I need to be able to use the hold and talk on my phone.  I have tried all of the recommended troubleshooting ideas.  Nothing works.

[pc2k17]

@RChobby

Yes iOS 11.3 doesn't work. That's a given and most likely it's an apple change/bug that broke it. 11.4 seems to fix the issue, but hopefully arlo can do something to fix it before 11.4 comes out.

As for the test you did, most likely the university throttles streaming media services. Video and voice would be affected. At my company we don't even allow any streaming media services (like you tube for example) unless you get an exception granted and even if you get an exception the bandwidth for streaming media is throttled. Most all major companies, I assume universities, do this so that the overall network bandwidth/speed isn't impacted.

If you have an iphone you can't do a 4g LTE test right now, but if you have android give it a try.

[JulieLober]

I already tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app.  Doesn't work.  

[pc2k17]

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@JulieLober wrote:

I already tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app.  Doesn't work.  

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The issue with iPhones is iOS 11.3. Apple changed something or introduced a bug that broke the festure. The festure does work on iOS 11.4 beta 2. So you can upgrade to the beta or wait until apple offcially releases 11.4 in May or June.

It's also possible that Arlo comes up with a solution before 11.4 comes out.

[sgauger1]

Just hooked up my new cameras and push to talk does not work on either camera. I can hear sound from the camera on the iphone app but when i I try push to talk my voice doesn't come over the speaker on the camera. HELP!!! Tried Chat help but no one answered my question. WTH?!