Arlo Pro and SmartThings/Alexa

[Walied]

I got two Arlo Pro with Base connected and overall I'm very pleased with them. I can control the camra with Google Home with no problem, Hey Google Arm/DisArm Arlo, and all good. Unforteantly I'm unable to do the same with Amazon Echo/Alexa. I got the SmarThings hub to connect Arlo to Alexa and they got connected, but it is useless kind of integration, I'm unable to ask Alexa (or even just through SmartThings app) to arm/disarm Arlo, when I try to control Arlo with SmartThings or Alexa they just set off the Alro siren, I could only activate the cameras by name which does nothing, it doe snot switch on the mition detector or anyting, just on/off the camera, pretty useless.

[steve_t]

Amazon just bought the Blink camera company. I wouldn't count on them making Alexa compatible with Arlo from here. We're all worried about whether smartthings and alexa will continue to work together going forward

[Walied]

Interesting! But unless Google stops working with Arlo I don’t think Amazon will go down that road, this will simply reduce Alexa’s sales since all those ppl with Arlo cameras will just buy Google Home. Anyway, will see what happens thanks for the note.

That aside, even using SmartThings app when I try to switch on Arlo that only serves to set off the siren, is that normal or did I mess up the installation!

[steve_t]

The device in your Smartthings list is the base station siren. Only use that for siren triggering, which you can do in SHM. The cameras are all separate devices

[Walied]

That makes sense, thanks. But I’m unable to use the SmartThings app to automate the Arlo cameras to arm and disarm, the automation can only switches the cameras on and off, I wonder if I’m able to keep the cameras on and use the app to arm and disarm. I guess Arlo does that easily with Wink, could be just a way to put off ppl buying SmartThings and make them buy a Wink since Arlo and Wink are teaming together as I understand.

[steve_t]

I looked at Wink before I got smartthings and smartthings is or at least was superior in so many ways. Not sure if this is still the case because a number of people have told me I'm wrong, but my understanding was that the designed integration of Arlo into smartthings was that smartthings controlled the cameras completely through SHM and the videos get stored in the SHM cloud. If you go into your Arlo app after doing smartthings integration, Arlo gets put into a Smartthings mode. The rules within that mode are all jumbled and say things like Camera 1 motion detection causes camera 2 to do nothing. This makes sense to me since you really only want one system to control the cameras and one place to store the videos. If this is correct, smartthings integration as designed, means you never have to open the Arlo app