Update on My Troubleshooting

[hallinmas]

I have Arlo Pro cameras and just today my geofencing is not working. I am home and the app says that I am "In Zone", yet it is saying that the system is armed. I also noticed that Arlo Smart is not filtering, and it is allowing all motion for one of my cameras to come through when it should only be People. Is there a bug? Any help would be appreciated. I already tried unplugging the base station and restarting. Thanks!

[AncientGeek]

What I'm suggesting is that the Geofencing Location In/Out Notifications setting might be affecting whether Arlo's geofencing is working properly.  Since I enabled that feature/setting, all aspects of geofencing have been working fine for me.  Consequently, those of you who currently have that setting disabled ("off" position) might want to try enabling it (turning it on) just to see whether, by chance, it fixes geofencing for you.  I completely realize that, in theory, that setting (which supposedly relates only to notifications), should have nothing to do with the geofencing operation, but a programmer could have screwed something up so that the setting somehow impacts more than just notifications.  Besides, what do you have to lose by trying this experiment?

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I have set this setting to “On” (for both of our iPhones) also to see if it has any effect.  If it does, the wording for the setting would appear to be incorrect and unhelpful.  We shall see!

Earlier today, I thought my wife’s return to one location did disarm the system, but when she left, the system did not rearm...so I’m not certain.

[rays13]

Thanks,

In/out notification are set to on,  in previous thread it suggested removing other phones.

 I have removed my wife phone and that appears to have resolved the problem with my phone working with geofencing correctly. Will re-invite her phone in a couple of days once i ensure mine is working ok.

Will update then, but why do we have to go through this following updates, they supposed to make things better !

[Boomer_1]

I can confirm changing that setting had no impact on geo-fencing on my system. It just generates the message that your phone "Has left the geo-fencing zone". The second one and most important one is that "Site name is now in away mode" or if you are returning "Site name is now in home mode" which indicates that either all devices have left the geo-fence (away mode), or one device has returned (home mode). If you do not get this message it did not arm.

[GastonJR]

Yup, they fixed the issue from a few weeks ago but this same issue cropped up again this week.  I certainly hope we don't have to go months waiting for a fix again.

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[Lonybrown]

My geofencing has not worked for 4 months. I have contacted support got a case # and a reply saying they are working on the issue. I wish they would get this resolved. the worst thing is it was working awesome. so now it is so frusterating that it is down.

[sward6368]

I have given up on Arlo - and will be moving to Nest gradually as budget allows starting tonight - taking the hit for the prior spend on 4 Arlo Pro cameras....  Arlo will no longer receive my suscroption fees for Arlo smart. 

While geofencing alone not functioning in itself is not a major issue, Arlo's continued lack of response on the issue, and worse -  statements that geofencing is working again and any users who it is not working for either a) need to refer to the how to guide or b) those users must have some complex setup and should wait several months for a survey for Arlo engineering to learn more about our useage.  I have changed nothing in my configuration since geofencing worked perfectly fine then stopped working the same time as the hundred of other posts in this community.

That coupled with the several outages in the last year (the first was literally 30 minutes after I purchased and set up my system and should have been a sign to return it while I could have), random issues with video not playing from the app, and the newest camera version (Ultra) not being backwards compatible to everyones in use bases.

[wsscott]

I had thought about changing to Nest also, particularly since I have their thermostat and smoke detectors which I like.  But I read some reviews on some forums, and got the impression, maybe mistakenly, that Nest also has issues with Geofencing.  That surprises me, if true, since their products are really good.  Any comment on that issue, or any research you found?

[RSC1]

As I understand it, most developers do. It’s not as easy as one might expect. Then keep introducing new hardware and the brew gets messy, I guess.

[sward6368]

I didn't see much traffic on the topic on the Nest camera community forum (seemed to be less complaints in that forum overall but of course that may not be a true indicator).  I ran across a couple other non Nest forum type posts (Reddit for example) with issues from some time ago.

Planning to get my first Nest IQ set up tonight so will gain some first hand experience in the coming days.  I know no technology is perfect and defects happen - the response from Arlo of you customer is doing something wrong is what is more frustrating on this one.

[AncientGeek]

I have nine installed NestCams and I don’t believe I’ve ever had much of any trouble with Geofencing on those.  At one time, I could not use Geofencing and Schedules at the same time.  I’m not 100% sure that is still true.  I haven’t played with it recently.

The Nest Outdoor IQ has the best two way audio I have seen anywhere.   Nest plans are fairly expensive however.  $100 for the first camera at each location and $50 for each additional camera.

Also, to manage “clips” on Nest, you need to use a computer and a browser rather than just the mobile app.  That is a bit of a pain, but Arlo has issues like this as well.

No camera system is flawless.  They all have problems.

I just installed a Ring Spotlight Camera about 50’ from one of my Arlo Pro or Pro2 cameras to test them side by side.  Ring does not appear to have geofencing at all.  The Ring Camera does appear to notify me about a second sooner than the Arlo Camera even though the Arlo “sees” the vehicles first as they come down my driveway.  Ring annual plans are $100 per “location”, so they are much cheaper than Nest plans....not much different than some Arlo plans, but there is no “free” Ring plan that includes recording.  Like Nest, Ring video playback allows me to scroll through quickly with my finger...sort of a finger driven fast forward and fast reverse.

[Boomer_1]

I was finally able to talk to someone in Arlo backline support on Monday. They gave me several troubleshooting steps to try this week in my travels (Some which I had already tried).   I think they were trying to weed out other problems from this existing problem.  After all of the steps failed on day one I called back and they gave me additional steps, which also failed on day 2. On Wednesday they had me try a couple of other things. These seemed to be to mainly confirm some thinking. So yesterday they told me that this is the existing problem they have been working on since early June. They did say that they are able to recreate it so that should give them a path to resolving this problem (I hope). 

I did point out some specific items that occur on my problem consistently that would either help them to test or confirm the behavior which are:

1) I do not have the problem if I delete any granted users and just run as the account owner. Geo-fencing work everytime in standalone mode for me. Of course, the majority of the customers likely have multiple people using this feature. That is one of its biggest benefits.

2) I am running my geo-fence with the following settings (Home - Schedule ; Away Armed)

3) I get the message that says You have left the geo-fencing area BUT DO NOT GET THE MESSAGE that says 

"Site NAME" is now in Away mode.

4) When I get to a destination and geo-fencing did not work, i can activate it by toggling under the Mode settings from Geo-fencing to something else and back. I will get the message the I am now in Away mode and the system will arm. In this case, when I return home it will properly disarm the system.  

5) In all cases our iPhones show the correct status as "In-Zone" when we are home and "Out-of-Zone" when we re away.

I think they are probably doing a larege amount of extra testing on this now. They probably have "land-mine" syndrome since they caused this major outage and don't want to "step on another one".

I just think their response time is terrible to even get the facts they need to solve the problem. Anytime we have a system problem caused by an update it seems to take forever to resolve it. This should have been treated as a severity one problem the enter time.

In any case, I hope they get it fixed soon. Mine had worked flawlessly for the past  18 months until this update.

[rays13]

Hi Boomer_1

We have exactly the same issues, thanks for the info. Obviously up to Arlo to make some rapid changes, but at least I can stop playing with setting and reset system etc with your update

Thanks

[jse1982]

So I contacted support via chat to see if they could provide an update to the issue. I couldn't get any info out of them and they wanted me to work through some "work-arounds" to make it work. This is agravating because work arounds should not be where we go. I pay annually for my system (have 9 cameras at 2 different locations). I pay for a service and the service is not being provided as sold (class-action suit possible?). I entertained the work-arounds by deselcting phones from the device list, moving the geofence radius, reselecting the phones and turning on the geofence mode. Didn't work as it should. Only works for the primary account as others have mentioned. I vented a little to them in a Support Case follow up email. The reply was commical. 

"As we have previously shared, Arlo’s geofencing feature is working as expected for most customers. We understand that there is a limited subset of users who have more unique user environments for which the geofencing feature may not readily meet their needs. "

My guess is most customers are using the geofence with a single user/phone. Apparently wanting to use more than one phone puts me in the limited subset of users. I don't see this as a unique enviroment when it worked great from almost a year prior to the April changes. Arlo YOU broke it! Please admit that and fix it!!

[rays13]

If geofencing working ok for most users how come so many people complaining about the same issue. Should be simple if that is the case to offer a fix !

[Dannybear]

Geofencing has stopped working for me since last April as a single user, single device configuration.

I suggest that if arlo were to admit they broke it then they would have to fix it.
Ignorance is bliss.

[Boomer_1]

Yes. There is no point in me wasting any more time trying to see what they broke. They need a better method for triaging these type of problems. If they get as many details as possible from a subset of customers immediately, they could fix the problem quicker. I will just use the only work around I have which is manually toggling geo-fencing to schedule and bac once I am outside the geo-fence and am able to do so. This arms the system and at least when one of us returns it will automatically disarm the system.

[themixguy]

Geofencing has been unreliable for the last year and a half...
Latest iPhone IOS and updated firmware on cameras and base station has not resolved.

My phone inconsistently registers as “Away” when returning home, tripping cameras until I toggle mode from “Geofencing” to “Disabled” and back.

Also, when I leave and my wife is at home, Arlo says status is “Away” and my wife’s movement trips cameras and alerts.

I see a multitude of reports here on flaky geofencing and would expect there’s a reliable fix by now. I have a lot of HomeKit-enabled devices at home and enjoy my smart home with these exceptions. I’m reluctant to upgrade to Arlo Pro 2 (which is HomeKit compatible), given the company’s past performance. I’d like to return to being a fan and advocate for Arlo as I once was when it first came out.

[Shay3047]

I am very Disappointed in how the Geofencing is right now. You guys need to do a huge update with the App! When I am away it says Geofencing is in home mode.!

[85BearsFan]

I don't know what has happened for me that hasn't happened for the rest of you who are having problems, but for the past week, geofencing has been working just fine.  Once again, here's what I did:

• We have four users, including me, in our family. I my wife and both sons out of Arlo on their devices.  Because my younger son was going to summer camp for a couple of weeks, I decided to disable his iPhone X in Mode-->Geofencing-->Enabled Devices.
• I then logged my wife and older son back into Arlo but using the master account rather than their individual accounts.
• Initially, my wife, older son, and I left the Arlo app running in the background on our iPhones.  We each enabled Location In/Out Notifications under Geofencing in iOS's Settings-->Arlo.  Of course, under Allow Arlo to Access, we also made sure that Location access was set to Always and that Background App Refresh and Cellular Data were both turned on.  In addition, for some reason, my iPhone had  a setting for Home Data.  It was enabled to I disabled it.  At this point, with these settings, geofencing started working for us.
• After a few days, I force quit the Arlo app on my iPhone to see whether it had to be running in the background.  Force quitting did NOT break geofencing.  After a couple more days, I had my wife force quit Arlo on her iPhone (I still had Arlo force quit on mine).  Geofencing continued to work fine.  Last, after another couple of days, I had my older son force quit Arlo on his iPhone (so that none of us was running the Arlo app in the background).  Geofencing still worked.
• Yesterday, now that he's back from camp, I re-enabled my younger son's iPhone in the Arlo app (Mode-->Geofencing-->Enabled Devices).  I also made certaint that he too is logged in using the master account.  We haven't had an opportunity since then to see whether geofencing works.  I'll see how it goes this week.  If geofencing continues to work, I might have my wife try logging into the Arlo app using her Arlo account rather than the master account just to see if that "breaks" geofencing.

In the meantime, we all continue to run version 2.7.10(91) of the Arlo app.  Our Arlo Pro 2 base station is running firmware version 1.12.2.4_2772.  Our base station hardware is VMB4000r3.  Also, my Geofencing mode is set so Away Mode is Armed and Home Mode is Scheduled.  My Schedule is set so the system is armed from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. every day of the week (all cameras).  In Mode-->Geofencing-->Push Notifications-->I have checked the box for only my iPhone (NOT my wife's iPhone or either of my sons' iPhones).

I hope this information helps the rest of you (and the folks at Arlo) find a solution to this vexing problem.  

[Boomer_1]

Can you tell us what the state of each of your phones are in Mode>geo-fence>Enabled Devices wit this setup. The reason I ask is I don't think it is possible for more than one of you to login to the same account. If one person is logged into the account and another logs in, it will log the first person out. Try it out yourself to see. So that would mean that only one person was actually logged into tracking for geo-fencing. Even if you force quit the app it is still running in the background.

Just curious what state Enabled devices thinks with this configuration. In any case you can test trying to see what happens when the second or 3rd person logs in. I believe - last one wins.

[85BearsFan]

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@Boomer_1 wrote:

Can you tell us what the state of each of your phones are in Mode>geo-fence>Enabled Devices wit this setup. The reason I ask is I don't think it is possible for more than one of you to login to the same account. If one person is logged into the account and another logs in, it will log the first person out. Try it out yourself to see. So that would mean that only one person was actually logged into tracking for geo-fencing. Even if you force quit the app it is still running in the background.

Just curious what state Enabled devices thinks with this configuration. In any case you can test trying to see what happens when the second or 3rd person logs in. I believe - last one wins.

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When I go to Mode-->Geofencing-->Enabled Devices on my iPhone, the checkbox for each of the four iPhones is checked and each device currently shows "In zone" because all four of us are currently home.  If one of the devices leaves the house, that device will show "Out of Zone."

In terms of logging in, I think you are correct that only one of us can view the Arlo app at a time.  However, that does not seem to affect our geofencing.  I'm going to double-check to make sure that only one of is actually logged into Arlo at a time by having two of us try to view the Arlo app the same time.  I'll report back later.

[Monkey_501]

one important thing to ask. 

Are you using a schedule and a custom mode?

[Boomer_1]

85BearsFan - It would be interesting to know how the status of the phones look when for example one person leaves without being the one logged in. In order to replicate that just have another person log into the account to kick them out before they leave. See if they are recognized as leaving. The other one to check would be if 2 of you are together and one is logged in and the other not when you leave. See if it recognizes the geo-fence state changes of the phones.  If it works, I think at best it is a workaround, but considering how long they have had us down, any relief would be helpful. I just would not want to add more confusion in my case.

Monkey_501 - I am using schedule, but I actually tested without the schedule and it still did not work. I am not using custom. All of my cameras follow the same flow.

[RSC1]

I believe everyone should be logged into their own account to troubleshoot, as that’s the way it should be. So my wife is logged into her own account.

It works when I leave last and when I return. It works when we return together.

It does not work when I leave first, when we leave together, or when she returns first.

[AncientGeek]

I have been monitoring mine a bit this week also.  I use schedules and custom modes at my three locations where I use Geofencing, but I’ve tried it with the basic Arm and Disarm and it didn’t make a lasting difference.  

I removed the apostrophe from the name of my wife’s phone (I had already done that on mine).  I turned on the “Location In/Out Notifications” setting for the Arlo app on iOS.  This was useless.  I always received notifications when I entered and departed my Geofencing zones while I had this setting set to “off”.  Now, I still do, but when I open the app, I receive eight notifications telling me I’ve entered or left Geofencing zones that I haven’t entered or left in days or weeks.   I see two at a time at the bottom of me screen.  They display for a few seconds, then go away and are replaced with a second set of notifications.  This repeats until the last pair goes away.  I have no clue what this is supposed to mean.  It certainly does NOT track my location activity in Richmond earl life.  Also, it did not improve my Geofencing behavior.   Yesterday, I entered a zone alone and I immediately started receiving camera notifications from my wireless cameras.  The Arlo Q Plus had recognized me as In Zone and placed me in Home Mode, but the Arlo wireless Base which also correctly recognized me as being In Zone, never switched to Home Mode.  This is the experience I have at each of my homes where I have Arlo Q family cameras.  The Q family geofencing works properly.   The wireless family Geofencing does not. 

iPhone X, iPhone XS, iOS 12.3.1, App Version 2.7.10(91), Base Station firmware 1.12.2.4_2772, one device owner account and one with Granted Access.

I also see a bunch of old devices on my list of devices that are eligible to be tracked by Geofencing.  Many of these have been retired a year or more ago and still show up as ghosts in my Geofencing device selection.  I wish we could delete these and choose which devices we wanted to display here.  I have a list of 14 devices!