Geofencing Not Working

[Aaron323]

For some time now our geofencing has not been working. Before when my wife and I both left the house with our phones our “away” mode would arm and everything worked fine. Then when one of us got home our “home” mode would arm. 

Now, the “away” mode stays disabled (unarmed) when we both leave. The cameras stay in “home” mode and the app shows “away” mode “disabled”. 

The kicker is when one of us gets back home we get a notification that “home” mode was activated!

it’s so confusing. I’ve tried all the troubleshooting things except for deleting accounts and starting over. 

In home mode everything  records the way we want. But geofencing is clearly not working. 

Any help would be great! 

[StephenB]

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@Aaron323 wrote:

For some time now our geofencing has not been working. Before when my wife and I both left the house with our phones our “away” mode would arm and everything worked fine. Then when one of us got home our “home” mode would arm. 

Now, the “away” mode stays disabled (unarmed) when we both leave. The cameras stay in “home” mode and the app shows “away” mode “disabled”. 

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You might be mixing up modes and automations in your vocabulary here.

Anyway, the first thing I would check is that the geofencing devices only includes your two phones.  Sometimes other devices (tablets) will end up in the list, or even "ghost" devices (duplicate phones).  Delete anything that shouldn't be there, and also name the devices so you can detect "extras" easily in the future.  You can see the list by pressing the profile icon in the top left of the screen, then privacy center.  Select "Available geofencing devices".  The phone you are using will be subtitled "Your Device".

After your've checked that, then also make sure your "leave" automation is enabled in both "Arm Home" and "Standby" modes.

[Aaron323]

So now I have tried all the troubleshooting things except deleting accounts and starting from scratch. 

When we leave home and get out of our geofencing area our “away” automation does nothing. And same for when we come home, it does nothing change anything. 

All of this use to work perfectly until about 3 months ago. Since then it all just stopped working. 

Any advice or tips would be great. 

Adding some screenshots of how everything is setup to see if that helps. 

[Aaron323]

 

 

 

[Aaron323]

 

 

[StephenB]

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@Aaron323 wrote:

 

  

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These are enabled backwards.

"Leaving" switches to Arm Away, so it needs to be enabled in "Arm Home" (and "Standby").  Otherwise it only runs when the system is already in "Arm Away", so it has no effect.

Similarly, "Arriving" needs to be enabled in "Arm Away", and should not be enabled in either "Arm Home" or "Standby".

[Aaron323]

Okay I set them up according to your advice. Does this look right now? It seems confusing the wording for that part. 

 

 

 

[Aaron323]

Update. 

It kind of worked and then stopped. 

My wife took both our phones as she dropped off our son. On the phones no notification was sent but she did see that the “leaving/arm away” mode switched and all the correct cameras were recording when she checked the app. 

However when she got home it did not switch back to “arriving/arm home”. We had to manually do that. 

I waited a bit then took both phones away from the house and nothing happened. No modes were changed once the phones left the area. Which is the problem we’ve been having. 

At this point I’m not sure what I’ve set up wrong or if there is a bigger issue. 

[StephenB]

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@Aaron323 wrote:

However when she got home it did not switch back to “arriving/arm home”. We had to manually do that. 

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First, the automations are enabled correctly.

Two things to check - one is to see if the app is allowed to run in the background.  Note that if you force-close it, geofencing stops working (since the app is no longer running).

The other is to look at the available geofencing devices (press the profile icon in the upper left, then privacy center).  Sometimes extra devices get added there - notably tablets.  Since those generally remain at home, it can prevent "leaving" from working properly.

[Aaron323]

I really appreciate your help so far. 

Background refresh is toggled on for both our phones. 

The available geofencing devices only shows my phone and my wife’s phone. They are the only devices we’ve ever used for our Arlo set up all these years. 

Now, I left the house for most of the day and then at some point my wife left and “arm away/leaving” turned on! However, when she came home before me it did not switch to “arm home/arriving” and it stayed like that when I got home after her. It is currently still in “arm away” as I type. 

Could it be “standby” mode messing things up? We don’t use standby anymore. We want our cameras to be in either “arm home” when we are home or “arm away” when we are not home. 

Again, appreciate your help! 

[StephenB]

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@Aaron323 wrote:

Could it be “standby” mode messing things up? We don’t use standby anymore. We want our cameras to be in either “arm home” when we are home or “arm away” when we are not home. 

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If you don't use the mode, then you can try disabling the automations in it.  Post back if it seems to help.

FWIW, there have always been some posts here from folks who don't find geofencing works reliably for them.  That was true with the old interface, as well as the current one.   "Arrive" doesn't always trigger for me on my iPhone mini ("Leave" does seem to always trigger).   So there is still something not quite right in their solution. 

Note this doesn't seem to be universal - others using both iPhone and Android phones say it works reliably for them.

You could contact Arlo support - that might not fix it, but it would at least give them more stats on the problem.

[Aaron323]

This morning “arm away/leaving” turned on when i left to drop off my son. But my wife’s phone was at home. 

At this point it seems geofencing is broken for us (for lack of a better word) and we might just need to have things armed 24/7. 

It’s annoying since now we have to pay for Arlo services. Everything worked well when it was free. 

Thanks for the help. Hopefully someone else will see this thread and have some other suggestions. 

[ShayneS]

@Aaron323 

Can you double check your Arm home mode for geofencing, I see it's disabled on the backend. Can you tap the icon to the left of your "My Geofence". You named it "Leaving" and make sure it's bold color when tapped.

[Aaron323]

@ShayneS 

Here is what I see. 

 

 

[Aaron323]

@ShayneS 

I also misread your message and now have double checked and this is what I see now. 

 I have noticed that lately this will switch to “disabled” for either “arriving” or “leaving” randomly without me doing anything to it. When you saw it disabled I had done nothing to it. 

[ShayneS]

Thanks for the feedback, I am inquiring with the appropriate team and I will check in as soon as possible.

[ShayneS]

@Aaron323 

Can you test this for me again with the latest version of the arlo app on the devices and make sure every thing is enabled as we discussed.

[Aaron323]

It looks like we have the latest version of the app. 

Today, our “away/leaving” mode continues to arm when my phone leaves the house even though my wife’s phone is at home. And when I return it does not switch to our “home/arriving” mode. 

It also disabled the “arriving” again randomly. 

[StephenB]

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@Aaron323 wrote:

It also disabled the “arriving” again randomly. 

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Is this happening when the system is in "Arm Away" mode.  Normally the automation should be disabled if the system is in "Arm Home" or "Standby".

[Aaron323]

Yes. This happens in the “arm away” mode. I get home, it stays in “arm away” and when i check on the settings the “arriving” is disabled for some reason.