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!

[Boomer_1]

RSC1 - I agree. You need to use your own account. Otherwise if you get an alert and try to look at it you will just knock each other off.

Ancient Greek - I have noticed as well that it is just with the WIreless base station. I have an Arlo Go celluar camera on my same account (It has its own firmware and geo-fencing). I normally just have it armed all the time since it is monitoring a remote area of my property. I decided to activate geo-fencing on it and run it in tandem since this  problem has gone on so long.. It always arms when I leave and disarms when I return. The wireless base station on the same account does not arm unless as you noted the account owner is the last to leave and the first to return. When we leave together it is a crap shoot whether it works. In most cases it does not.  Both the Arlo Go and the Wireless Base Station are on the same account and in fact you see them on the same screen for monitoring purposes.

[RSC1]

I have the smart hub that comes with the Ultras, which are my only cameras. I wonder if it’s base stations and smart hubs that don’t play nicely together.

[sward6368]

@AncientGeek   Thanks for the advice.  One of the other reasons I looked towards Nest is for my driveway I really wanted continuous video recording (an option I know is available on the Arlo Pro2 and Ultra which would require me to buy new cameras anyway). 

I got my first Nest installed over  the weekend and had time to learn the apps functions.  So far geofencing to control when notifications are sent has worked well with 2 enrolled devices  (for my limited 2 days of use).  I have not used geofencing to turn on or off cameras.  But as you mentioned the capability to combine geofencing and schedule together doesn't exist that I can find in the Nest app or web browser (and does seem confirmed my some Nest community posts I have found).  Nor does  the option to control notifications from a schedule (schedule only controls the cameras being on or off).  I believe I have created a useable balance in nontifications through a combination of using the geofencing to only alert on certain cameras when away and specific defined activity zones for people only.

If it worked like it used to, I would say Arlo has the most comprehensive options on controlling when to record and notify per camera flexing based on complex schedules and geofencing - it worked great for me for over a year until this May.

The Nest notifications so far appear faster than Arlo, the motion is way more sensitive (good and bad) and the per camera fee for 5 days of cloud storage / Nest Aware is reasonable, and goes to 1/2 price for additional cameras.  That includes many of the features like activity zones, continuous cloud recording, etc that you would have to pay for the Arlo smart plans anyway. 

I still am hoping Arlo can get the geofencing fixed (as they did the short battery life issues from last year), I recommended Arlo to several friends and family that then purchased on my recommendation). 

[Shay3047]

I am not sure. I got it working though. I found that my Dad’s cell Phone was in zone even though it was not even close to the in zone.

[85BearsFan]

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@Monkey_501 wrote:

one important thing to ask. 

Are you using a schedule and a custom mode?

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Although I had set up a Custom Mode, I am not using it.  The Geofencing-->Away Mode is set simply to "Disarmed."

[AncientGeek]

@sward6368  your post appears to have been deleted by the automated post screening system.

Part of it....

But as you mentioned the capability to combine geofencing and schedule together doesn't exist that I can find in the Nest app or web browser (and does seem confirmed my some Nest community posts I have found).  Nor does  the option to control notifications from a schedule (schedule only controls the cameras being on or off).  I believe I have created a useable balance in nontifications through a combination of using the geofencing to only alert on certain cameras when away and specific defined activity zones for people only.

If it worked like it used to, I would say Arlo has the most comprehensive options on controlling when to record and notify per camera flexing based on complex schedules and geofencing - it worked great for me for over a year until this May.

=========

I agree.  Arlo has a pretty great functional design.  There are some additions I’d love to see, but if they could get their coding issues resolved, Arlo would be a hands down winner in many areas.

[Shay3047]

All of us have left the house. And the Geofencing still shows in zone on my Dads Cell. I since deleted him and re added him. Another this is The Arlo App is Slow.! Does anyone even do updates anymore.?

[85BearsFan]

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@Boomer_1 wrote:

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.

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This morning, my son and I stood next to each other.  Initially, neither one of us had the Arlo app open (we both had force quit it).  I opened the Arlo app on my iPhone.  It used facial recognition to log me into Arlo.  While I was still logged into Arlo and had the Arlo app on my iPhone screen, my son opened the Arlo app on his iPhone.  As facial recognition on his iPhone logged him into Arlo, I watched on my iPhone as I was booted off of Arlo (I received some message about being logged in from another device).  I then force quit the Arlo app on my iPhone, after which he force quit the Arlo app on his iPhone.  I then opened the Arlo app on my iPhone, logged into Arlo, and then force quit again.  In other words, my iPhone was the last iPhone in the family to be logged into Arlo.  I left the house.  As soon as I left the radius, I received a notification on my iPhone that said "You have left the Home Geofencing Zone."  My older son left the house 15-20 minutes later.  When he did, he received the same notification on his iPhone (I did NOT receive a notice on my iPhone when he left; only he received the notification when he left).    Right now, when I open the Arlo app on my iPhone and go to Mode-->Geofencing-->Enabled Devices, it shows my older son and me as both being "Out of zone" and shows my wife and younger son as being "In zone," which are all accurate readings.  Currently, the Base Station is Disarmed, which also is correct.  

Later today, my younger son and wife will be leaving the house while my older son and I are at work.  I asked her to let me know when they leave so I can report back on what happens.  Stay tuned....

[85BearsFan]

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@RSC1 wrote:
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.

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I'm trying to troubleshoot by taking one step at a time.  Having everyone use the master account is not an ultimate solution (at least as far as I am concerned); however, having everyone temporarily use the master account is a way to start eliminating some variables to pin down the problem.  My plan had been that if everyone using the same master account worked, I would start slowly switching everyone back to their own accounts to see whether I could recreate the geofencing problem.  If a few of you who have been having geofencing problems and have multiple devices/users would try setting all devices to use the same settings I am using (including having all of your devices use the master account), it might help us find a common thread.

[themixguy]

Yes: using Geofencing and also have a schedule set. At night, schedule is set-up to activate outdoor cameras only, not indoors. When my wife’s and my phones are away, system is set to Geofence and arm all cameras.
I’ve found that when I’m gone but wife is at home during the day, she sets off the cameras moving around the house, indoors and out.

[Boomer_1]

Yes, having to use the Master account to get any functionalty at all is like having a 4 door car and requireing everyone to exit thru the drivers door. Not practical at all. The problem seems very much to do with the granted user. I removed mine for a week and ran without it and worked fine everytime. Once I granted my qifes account back, it immediately broke again. In addition if I leave last and return first it works. So the master account is the only one that can trigger the geo-fence state change. I also have a Arlo Go celluar camera on this same account. I typically keep it armed all the time since it is monitoring my some fringe areas of my property. However I decided to activate geo-fencing on it to see what behavior I got. It has its own firmware and geo-fence function. I set it with the same options as the base station. It has not failed yet since I set it almot a week ago. So this seems to point to the Wireless Base Station firmware.

[85BearsFan]

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@AncientGeek wrote:

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!

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I am sorry that the Location In/Out Notifications setting did not work for you and caused you more problems (excess notifications) than it was worth.  It's so odd that things seem to be working now for me but not others.  The only thing I can think of at this point is that my whole family is using the same Arlo account, but that's still just a guess.

[85BearsFan]

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@Boomer_1 wrote:

Yes, having to use the Master account to get any functionalty at all is like having a 4 door car and requireing everyone to exit thru the drivers door. Not practical at all. The problem seems very much to do with the granted user. I removed mine for a week and ran without it and worked fine everytime. Once I granted my qifes account back, it immediately broke again. In addition if I leave last and return first it works. So the master account is the only one that can trigger the geo-fence state change. I also have a Arlo Go celluar camera on this same account. I typically keep it armed all the time since it is monitoring my some fringe areas of my property. However I decided to activate geo-fencing on it to see what behavior I got. It has its own firmware and geo-fence function. I set it with the same options as the base station. It has not failed yet since I set it almot a week ago. So this seems to point to the Wireless Base Station firmware.

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As it turns out, my wife and younger son never the left the house today so I never was able to verify that everything is working properly now that I've added my younger son's iPhone X to the mix (still logged in using the master account).  When they leave the house tomorrow, I'll see if the system recognizes them as being Out of Zone and arms the system (and, if so, whether it disarms when they return home).  I'll probably wait another couple of days before I start having family members log out of the master account and log in using their own accounts.

In the meantime, ironically, one of my Nest cameras had geofencing issues today.  Even though my wife and younger son were home, our family room Nest cam kept picking them up and sending me notifications.  This is the first geofencing issue I can recall having with my Nest cams in the few years that I've had them.  

Also, for what it is worth, three of the four devices we are using have apostrophes in the names, and all of them have spaces.

It's a bit late now, but Woot! had refurbished Arlo Pro 2 systems today.  I ended up picking up two add-on Pro 2 cameras for $119.99 each.  I guess that means I'm betting on Arlo fixing this geofencing issue.

[AncientGeek]

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@85BearsFan wrote:

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I am sorry that the Location In/Out Notifications setting did not work for you and caused you more problems (excess notifications) than it was worth.  It's so odd that things seem to be working now for me but not others.  The only thing I can think of at this point is that my whole family is using the same Arlo account, but that's still just a guess.

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No problem.  It was worth a test.  Now I really wonder what the purpose and value of that setting are intended to be.  You also have confirmed the removal of apostrophes was likely just a stab in the dark by Arlo support.

I do think there is a connection between Granted Access and the geofencing problem on Arlo Wireless (meaning battery operated) cameras.   However, that same setup works just fine for me with my Arlo Q family cameras.  Another member posted he has the same experience with Arlo Go Geofencing working just fine.  So this appears largely related to cameras that use a base station.  Although, one member posted that he has a problem with geofencing using a Q family camera, so who knows.

[RSC1]

I think (guessing) it’s the base stations not playing nicely with the smart hubs.

[Boomer_1]

Yes if you don't have granted access user it will work fine. I removed my wife's granted access account and ran and mine worked flawlessly for a week. I told Arlo about the specifics, 5 weeks ago.

The only way to delete those extra devices is to do a factory reset on the base station.  They need to come up with a better way to do that and just allow you to delete them. Or at least allow you to save your config and restore it after a restore similar to a router.

[AncientGeek]

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@Boomer_1 wrote:

Yes if you don't have granted access user it will work fine. I removed my wife's granted access account and ran and mine worked flawlessly for a week. I told Arlo about the specifics, 5 weeks ago.

The only way to delete those extra devices is to do a factory reset on the base station.  They need to come up with a better way to do that and just allow you to delete them. Or at least allow you to save your config and restore it after a restore similar to a router.

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A better way is most certainly needed.  I’m not going to rest my base station (and perhaps re-sync all of the cameras?) every time I or one of the people to whom I have granted access, buys a new mobile device and retires an old one.  As I said, 14 of my own devices show up there and 6 or 7 of them are now bogus and taking up screen space for no reason.

[85BearsFan]

Today, geofencing failed to work for me.  When I left the house this morning, it correctly recognized me as being Out of Zone.  When my older son left the house a little later, Arlo correctly recognized him as also being Out of Zone.  However, when my wife and younger son left the house (together) later that morning, Arlo recognized my younger son as being Out of Zone  but still showed my wife as being In Zone.  As a result, the Arlo remained in Home (Disarmed) mode when no one was home.  After I discovered this, my wife opened up the Arlo app on her phone and went to Mode-->Base Station-->Geofencing-->Enabled Devises to see whether that would force an update to her status.  It did not.  As I type this, it still shows her as being "In Zone" and the rest of us as being "Out of Zone."   This is particularly perplexing because, in the past week or so, Arlo was correctly recognizing her location so I'm not sure what changed today.   What I'm wondering is this:  There's only one road that leads from our house to the closest main road (although I live in an urban area, our house is in subdivision with one road out).  There is one area that is on the cusp of the geofencing radius that has mariginal cell service.  Could it be that Arlo does not constantly (or regularly) poll a device's location and, instead, the Arlo's servers are notified in a change of location only when one exits or enters the geofencing area (such that if there is poor/no cell service or WiFi, the change-of-location signal from the device is never received by Arlo's servers)?  Right now I am using the smallest geofencing radius.  I suppose I could try enlarging it in the radius to see whether that helps resolve the issue. 

Thoughts/suggestions?

[85BearsFan]

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@RSC1 wrote:
I think (guessing) it’s the base stations not playing nicely with the smart hubs.

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What do you mean by "smart hubs"?  I only have one Arlo system (Pro 2) with only one Arlo base station.  I do have a Wink hub--is that what you mean by "smart hub"?

[85BearsFan]

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@Boomer_1 wrote:

Yes if you don't have granted access user it will work fine. I removed my wife's granted access account and ran and mine worked flawlessly for a week. I told Arlo about the specifics, 5 weeks ago.

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Well, maybe not.  See my post from about five minutes ago.  Even though I still have everyone in my family logged in using the master Arlo account, today Arlo did not recognize when my wife left the house.

[RSC1]

The “base station” that comes with Ultras is called a smart hub. I believe it’s different hardware.

[michaelkenward]

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@RSC1 wrote:
The “base station” that comes with Ultras is called a smart hub. I believe it’s different hardware.

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Correct.

The Pro 2 hub has its own alarm, unlike the Ultra base station.

The Ultra "hub" uses 5 GHz to talk to cameras where appropriate.

[AncientGeek]

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@85BearsFan wrote:

...

Could it be that Arlo does not constantly (or regularly) poll a device's location and, instead, the Arlo's servers are notified in a change of location only when one exits or enters the geofencing area (such that if there is poor/no cell service or WiFi, the change-of-location signal from the device is never received by Arlo's servers)?  Right now I am using the smallest geofencing radius.  I suppose I could try enlarging it in the radius to see whether that helps resolve the issue. 

Thoughts/suggestions?

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I have previously posted some technical notes for developers from Apple regarding iOS location services.  From what I’ve learned, iOS offers a location service which detects a “significant change” in location and reports that to any application that has correctly subscribed to the service...even if that means iOS has to awaken the app so that it can handle the reported event.  So if Arlo’s developers have coded this properly, Arlo’s app doesn’t have to check the location status at all.  The app gets some sort of event notification which is an external event which then the Arlo app just needs to properly handle.

I do think it is reasonable to assume that lack of signal (if bad enough) or having a device turned off or in Airplane mode, would defeat the ability of iOS location services to determine and the location of the device.

Today, I arrived at a location to which I have not visited for a week or two.  All of my Q family cameras correctly Disarmed and showed that status in the app.  My Arlo Pro Base showed the icons for geofencing and schedule, but did not show the current mode, like it normally does...even if it is a custom mode.  I powercycled the base station and brought it back online, but the mode remained the same...just the icons with no confirmation of the current mode.  However, I believe it was behaving correctly in terms of camera recording.

[Seanevans67]

I have had the Arlo pro 2 setup for over a month now. My geofencing is not working. The app is acknowledging that we are out of the zone, (it shows us in the app and we get a notification saying we have left the zone). But the system does not arm itself automatically. Anyone had same issue. What is Arlo’s track record for fixing issues.

[85BearsFan]

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@AncientGeek wrote:

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@85BearsFan wrote:

...

Could it be that Arlo does not constantly (or regularly) poll a device's location and, instead, the Arlo's servers are notified in a change of location only when one exits or enters the geofencing area (such that if there is poor/no cell service or WiFi, the change-of-location signal from the device is never received by Arlo's servers)?  Right now I am using the smallest geofencing radius.  I suppose I could try enlarging it in the radius to see whether that helps resolve the issue. 

Thoughts/suggestions?

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I have previously posted some technical notes for developers from Apple regarding iOS location services.  From what I’ve learned, iOS offers a location service which detects a “significant change” in location and reports that to any application that has correctly subscribed to the service...even if that means iOS has to awaken the app so that it can handle the reported event.  So if Arlo’s developers have coded this properly, Arlo’s app doesn’t have to check the location status at all.  The app gets some sort of event notification which is an external event which then the Arlo app just needs to properly handle.

I do think it is reasonable to assume that lack of signal (if bad enough) or having a device turned off or in Airplane mode, would defeat the ability of iOS location services to determine and the location of the device.

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So, let me try this theory:  When leaving the geofencing radius, the iOS sends a signal to the Arlo app on the iPhone.  Because the iOS relies on a GPS sensor and does not require a data connection (WiFi or cellular) to determine the location, that signal is sent to the Arlo app regardless of WiFi or cellular signal.  The Arlo app then tries to relay the signal (the change in location) to Arlo's servers (which in turn would relay the information to the Arlo station); however, due to poor data connectity (no WiFi and no/poor cellular connection, the signal never reaches Arlo's servers so, in turn, the base station is never notified of the change in location.  Now, what I'm really wondering is whether the Arlo app only attempts the hand-off/relay to Arlo's servers once and if that one hand-off is missed, the Arlo app doesn't reattempt the hand-off at a later time.  In fact, I'm wondering whether the Arlo app is unaware that Arlo's servers haven't received the signal about the location change.

What do you think of that theory?  Is it plausible?