Geofencing says unavailable on 2nd phone

[JasonP911]

Hello everyone, need help. I've got a S8+, wife has the Pixel 2. When we leave the house, I am out of zone in geofencing mode, but she never changes from "in zone" to "out of zone". Tried resetting to factory settings, tried new accounts, tried name changes, tried switching, then saving then backing out, then switching back, then saving, it all reverts back to staying "in zone". We need to manually change it everytime we leave. Please help. I know someone has the solution here somewhere.

[bplunkett]

The Geofencing on our Arlo Pro 2 works some days and not others.  It is very frustrating.  My girlfriend and I are both registered with the account and we each have a phone registered (iPhone X and Galaxy S9+). It will work as expected for a week, and then one day it won't register that one or both of the phones are out of the area.  Other times it will work for my girlfriend's phone but won't acknowledge that my phone is in the house no matter what I do.  I can even go to the devices list in the geofencing settings and it shows the dot for my phone smack dab in the middle of the fence area, but still says it is "Out of Zone".  Both phones have location settings enabled of course.  How can it know the location of the phone well enough to pinpoint it on a map but still not recognize that it is in the circle?

I'm past the return time on the system unfortunately.  It worked just well enough to string me along.  But it is unusable for days at a time then it will magically start working again.  I really want to get this fixed but if I can't I'm going to have to leave a bunch of negative reviews for this thing.  I wouldn't buy it again know how poorly the geofencing works.

[chocdb]

I noticed this week that Netgear have updated the Arlo app for my iphone. Good news is that at least the app recognises when my phone is in the home zone or out (Oh Netgear, wow, that only took 12 months!) but it still shows my wife's phone as "unavailable". Further to this, even when I disable the second account so that it is only my phone that controls the arming of the system, when I go out of the geofencing zone, the system still shows as "disarmed" but records motion anyway.

Netgear, this is an epic failure on your behalf, you should be ashamed of the product that you have sold here, it is absolute highway robbery!!!....... #netgearepicfail

[ShayneS]

JasonP911,

Does your wife have any battery optimization features running on her phone?

[ShayneS]

chocdb,

Which phone and OS does your wife have?

[ShayneS]

bplunkett,

What firmware version is your base station running?

[ShayneS]

chocdb,

Have you tried to reboot your base station and devices? you can also try and remove and re-install your Arlo Mobile App

[chocdb]

I tried that based on this suggestion.... no change. Phone still shows as "unavailable"....

[ShayneS]

chocdb,

Are there any special characters in the phone's name? ("  '  . .etc)

[chocdb]

No, one is A7P001 and the other is J7P001....

[JasonP911]

No she doesn't.

[ShayneS]

chocdb,

Have you tried to download Apple's new IOS on your devices & test again?

[bplunkett]

Hello Shayne,

I'm running 1.12.0.0_27099 on my hub.  It says there are no updates available.

Sorry for the late reply, I wasn't notified anyone had replied to my questions.

[bplunkett]

Hi Shayne,

I have a + in my phone's name.  Does that matter?  I would imagine many people do, e.g. "Frank's iPhone".

[ShayneS]

bplunkett,

What device are you using? You can try and remove any special characters/symbols from the device name and test again to see if this helps with the issue you are experiencing.

[JasonP911]

Anybody have any luck yet? Wife doesn't have battery op apps running, rebooted phone. Hard reboot on Arlo systems, even created new signons. No special characters. Whats next?

[awearlo]

Same here. Have two IPHONES one of them is just ignored. If I leave with my phone it GF switches to away mode although my wifes phone is still shown "in zone". If my wife leaves (and I am at home) it shows home mode which would be correct. In other word the systems reacts the same as if there would not be a secound phone. Cameras + Phones + App at latest versions. Tried reinstall APPS, restart cameras. 

This is very annoying as this problem was already fixed some time in June and reappeard with the new app. I think it is inacceptable that new versions are released badly tested with basic functionalities not working properly. It also seems that known problems are just ignored. A security system that is not reliable is just not worth the money, its useless. 

[DocBN]

We have recently installed an Arlo System and have tried using the Geofencing Mode, but it doesn't really work. Mine is the only phone that it really tracks, even though the other registered members of my household have mimicked my phone's settings. It registers all of our phones "In zone" and "Out of zone" but it does not react accordingly, and the system remains armed unless I am home or arms whenever I leave without regard to the rest of the phones. I have done all the troubleshooting recommended on this community that I can find to no avail.  Anyone else have this problem, and has anyone found a way to make Geofencing work?  Thanks.

[AncientGeek]

I finally had a chance to test Geofencing when my wife and I were in different locations.  I was at our vacation home and my wife was at our other home.  Cameras that should have been disarmed under those circumstances were armed in both locations and the geofencing settings showed one of us in zone and one of us out of zone for both locations.  It apears the device that was "in zone" was being ignored by the geofencing logic.

We are both using iOS 12.1 and V2.6.3 of the App.  She has an iPhone X and I have an iPhone XS.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

[ElizabethE26]

Same exact problem here. Hopefully it gets fixed soon.

[ElizabethE26]

My spouses phone shows as unavailable. I’ve already tried lots of troubleshooting including verifying location services are turned on. Any suggestions?

[RChobby]

Geofencing does not work reliably with two cell phones, with the Arlo iOS app. Somehow it fails to track who is in and out of zone.

Try Ifttt combined with life360, that combo works perfectly for Arlo geofencing. Plus the ability to make iOS button widgets for arm and disarm is a real help.

[Dannybear]

Previously had similar issue, followed the fudge fix found on the forum to disable both mobile devices then save and close the app. Open the app and then enable both mobile devices then save. No problems since, strange that the app will not enable an additional mobile device if one has already been enabled previously.

[awearlo]

What has helped in my case was to rename the iphone. Instead of 

"Mywifes Iphone" I tried 

"Mywifes_Iphone" which did not work, too. 

Changed it again to 

"MywifesIPhone" and now it works. 

It seems that special characters as blanks and underscores are an issue.  

Many thanks to support!

[AncientGeek]

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@RChobby wrote:
Geofencing does not work reliably with two cell phones, with the Arlo iOS app. Somehow it fails to track who is in and out of zone.

Try Ifttt combined with life360, that combo works perfectly for Arlo geofencing. Plus the ability to make iOS button widgets for arm and disarm is a real help.

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It had worked more often than not for us prior to V2.6.0.  Thank you for the tip on IFTTT.  I avoid tools that require me to share my security credentials for other tools.