Arlo Pro base station renders my 2.4Ghz wifi useless

[spaparizos]

Very recently I bought from my local best buy an Arlo Pro Smart Security System with 4 Cameras (VMS4430). It has a base station and 4 wireless cameras. I synced the cameras and tested them and things worked reasonably well at first.

However, I then realized that all my other wireless devices that were connected to the 2.4GHz frequency have issues. The base station is causing huge interference with my existing wifi router. The base station is designed to replicate the wifi router settings on the 2.4GHz frequency. The result for me is that my wifi router has been rendered useless. Everything connected to the the 5GHz, still works as normal, but all devices connected to the 2.4GHz frequency either stopped working or came to a complete crawl. The problem goes away when I power down the base station. And it appears again when I power up the base station.

My router is a linksys ea6300. I changed the settings to channels 1,6,11 and the channel width to auto or 20MHz only. I also did all combinations and rebooted both router and base station. The base station seems to mimick the behavior of the router after a while. So when I change the router, the base station also changes itselt after a while. I used wifi scanning to verify that.

Anyone has any suggestions on how I could possibly resolve this?

At the moment I am very frustrated. I have to either return my arlo system back or buy a new router (although I am not even sure that would work either). And it makes no sense to me that a new product added into a network would render it useless. So a solution would be appreciated.

[steve_t]

It also annoys me that we can't choose what channel the Arlo uses. I'm lucky that the vast majority of my devices now use 5GHz.

My only suggestion might be to set your router channel to Auto and hope it changes away from from the Arlo channel to a clear channel. The Arlo will probably change to follow it after a while but hopefully the router will then change again to get away from it.

According to Netgear, there are less interference problems when the Arlo and router are on the same channel, especially if positioned close to each other. I'd prefer to put them far away (channel-wise) without any overlap

[TomMac]

The only solution to the Base jumping on the router channel is by putting the base at least 20ft away from the router ( if not more ).

Tho, I have used two differnt routers ( now on a third ) and they sit 8 ft apart and never a problem.

[spaparizos]

I found that the auto channel does not work that well on a router. Instead of sticking with the 1,6,11 choices, it pickes channels in between which has collisions with other networks and then stays with them. So I would not trust it much. Also, I don't think the auto channel will switch channels that often. So the base station will catch up and then I would manually have to reboot the channel to force an auto channel. Which is the same as manually changing the channel and hoping the base station does not move that fast.

And of course you don't realize there is a problem with the reception until you actually need to use the wifi with say a printer or watch something on TV.

It seems to me that not giving options to the users of the Arlo base station is a very limiting design decision.

[spaparizos]

Thanks for the suggestion. But to have the base station 20 ft or more away it means I should have ethernet running to the next room. If I would have ethernet running around the house like that then I would not really need wireless, would I? 🙂

I find it hard to believe that there is no common solution to this problem (or that it is not mentioned on the box before one buys it). The instructions clearly state to plug the base station to the existing router without any comment about distance or other issues. Wireless interference should be expected in this case. A new product should either have it worked out or allow a resolution with either configuration choices or adding the cameras directly to an existing network. Very frustrating situation right now 😞

[TomMac]

I would if I were u, def reach out to Netgear....let them know. it's possible it's specific to that router.

You could also located the base further away using a wifi extender with an Ethernet port....

Sorry but don't have any better answer.   All I can say is this isn't common, like mentioned, my base is about 8 ft away from my current router- wifi ( Ethernet cord length ) and no problems with any 2.4 ghz equipment.

[Hula_Rock]

I had that issue.  I resolved it by using a TPLink Power line Nano, moving the base station and its ethernet connection to another room.

[spaparizos]

Answering my own question in case other folks find this useful.

For a while I was using a tp-link wifi extender. I had it setup so it talks on the 5GHz with the router and uses the 2.4 GHz to talk to devices. Then I configured it to use different channels than the router. So router + arlo was on channel 11 and the extender on channel 1. The extender was on the upper floor and router on the ground floor.

An alternate solution that I applied more recently, bought a netgear X4S router. Now I don't need the extender and everything works fine. The router and the arlo are still on the same channel, but for whatever reason this does not seem to be a problem any more. There is a speed drop on 2.4GHz because of the collisions I assume, but it works overall. I don't have the new router for a long time to comment on long term issues, but so far so good.

Of course, one should not have to spent $200 on a new router or $60 on a wifi extender to get the arlo cameras to work. 🙂