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.

[AncientGeek]

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@Dannybear wrote:
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.

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Thank you.  I will try that.

[AncientGeek]

I did this and ended up with an odd outcome.  Both phones now correctly show "out of zone" for our vacation home, but my wife's phone shows up as "unavailble" on the geofencing rule for our primary home.

My Arlo environment is complicated.  I have Arlo-Q, Arlo-Q Plus, Original Arlo, Arlo Pro and Arlo Pro 2 cameras attached to three different Arlo accounts and shared among the three accounts.  I would think the data model for geofencing would have a single entry for our devices and their status, but perhaps that isn t' possible due to privacy

Update:  I repeated the process for the offending location, and now "unavailable" has been replaced with correct information.   Oddly, I realized that geofencing information for one Arlo-Q at that same location did recognize her phone as being "in zone" prior to my repeating the the process,

Now for the acid test of having each of us in different Arlo locations to see if it works correctly with one person in zone and one person out of zone.

[ShayneS]

Due to the amount of issues described I have opened a case for you. I will contact you via private message with further information.

[bplunkett]

Thank you.

I had changed my phone's name to remove an apostrophe but it still has a space. That seemed to work for a while but then just yesterday it went back to not recognizing that my phone was in the area.  I just find it hard to believe that characters in the phone's name could be causing any issue.

[ElizabethE26]

I’m having the same problem with my spouses phone. It shows as unavailable even after all the troubleshooting. I’ve removed special characters from phone name, reinstalled app, checked location services, removed his phone and added it back to geofencing. Nothing works. My phone works fine with geofencing.

[Skinner]

I too had this problem tried every suggestion listed on the site here... finally out of frustration did a hard reset on both phones and reopened apps, and voila everything working perfectly now

[Mabryan7]

This is getting really obnoxious. Geofencing hasn't worked well hardly ever but now the second cellphone shows unavailable all the time. I've uninstalled and reinstalled, etc. Nothing works, so geofencing is useless. How has Arlo not addressed this? I hope someone from support responds.

[Claymsmith]

I've set up geofencing with two phones.  Both 'always allow' location tracking, both showing that they are in and out of zone properly.   However the only phone that arms/disarms the cameras is mine.  In the UI, 'Enabled Devices' has both phones listed properly.  It just only seems to make changes based on my location, and not the other phone.  Both are iPhones 8 and X.

Edit:Title edited for clarity.

[AncientGeek]

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@Claymsmith wrote:

I've set up geofencing with two phones.  Both 'always allow' location tracking, both showing that they are in and out of zone properly.   However the only phone that arms/disarms the cameras is mine.  In the UI, 'Enabled Devices' has both phones listed properly.  It just only seems to make changes based on my location, and not the other phone.  Both are iPhones 8 and X.

Edit:Title edited for clarity.

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Yes.  I have a similar problem.  Wife and me with two iPhones.  OK when we are together, but not OK when we are apart.  I believe even when she is at one location and I am at another, both locations stay armed even though one of us is on location at both locations.

[TomMac]

Geozone works fairly well with one phone...issues do seem to occur with multiples.

[Dannybear]

I believe this is a known issue. It has happened again for me after updating the iOS app. The fudge fix is to disable geofencing for both mobiles via the app, save, close and reopen the app to make sure the settings stick. Then reopen the app and enable both mobiles again at the same time and save. Again close and reopen the app to make sure the settings stick. Note that you may see the setting change back as the base updates the app so do it slowly to allow time for the settings stick. This is just my guess to why it happens. Hope it helps.

[AncientGeek]

I tried that and it didn’t fix it for me.

[Claymsmith]

I did discover this evening that the other device is often in battery saver mode (because charging is clearly hard).  I've followed the tip above, as well as asked her not to use battery saver.  Lets see how that works.

[AncientGeek]

This week I noticed when I was at one location and my wife was at another location, geofencing seemed to once again be working properly.  I hope that wasn’t a fluke and it has really been fixed.  We are both using iOS mobile devices.

[KilianZoll]

Is there a fix for this yet? 

My unit is still showing as "Armed" even though my wife's phone is clearly listed as "In Zone", and keeps triggering. Incredibly frustrating and it is draining the expensive batteries in no-time.

By the looks of it these problems have been happening for up to a year without a fix from Netgear. How is this even possible?

[ShayneS]

@KilianZoll

  Have you tried contacting customer support regarding this issue? I have attached the link below for you - Arlo Tech Support

[madkiwi]

After a month the geofencing "appears" to be working correctly today* with the home mode correctly using the appropriate schedule. Who knows if ihis is just an abberation though...

* Except for one "minor" problem. We have 2 homes with Arlo systems. My wife and I are both away from Home 2 and the geofencing shows that we are both out of zone. System is armed as it should be.

However at Home 1 I am currently at home, and showing as in zone, but my wife's phone is "Unavailable".

Which is just mind-boggling in the stupid category- Home 2 knows where she is, but Home 1 can't even figure out if her phone is on.

If Arlo could get everything working correctly at the same time I think I'd die of shock.

[madkiwi]

I was wrong, I left the house and system did not arm.

I rebooted the app, cleared my cache, rebooted the base station then removed both devices from geofencing and the system armed. Came home system did not disarm.

Wife's phone is still a mystery to station 1 while station 2 knows where it is.

So no geofencing since May 22nd, and Arlo has done 2 more base station updates to no effect. What a bunch of incompetants.

[madkiwi]

Further developments- as of yesterday the wife's phone was still being located correctly by one base station, but unavailable to the other. This morning, it is visible to both.

Yesterday geofencing appeared to work correctly on both base stations, for the first time in a month. Except for the wife's phone being invisible to Home 1, it's good.

So today with he phone being recognized again, and us planning to visit home 2 again, we'll have to see if we get the proper geofencing changes as we leave home 1, arrive at home 2, leave and return to home 1.

All this happened without re-installing apps or clearing app caches and without re-booting any base stations. So I will say with 100% certainty it was server side changes at Arlo.

As of this minute the only issue still vexxing me is one camera that is constantly reported as offline on the app even though when I log in to Arlo on a browser the camera is fine. This camera is offline about 80% of the time when I open the app.

[lrbest4x4xfar]

I'm having the exact same issues, ever since I've bought the system 5 months ago. Geofencing not recognizing both of our phones, one registering status while one is unavailable, one camera mostly bring off-line.

I'm at a complete loss. I've tried everything and read up on all the forums. This product is expensive crap and very buggy.

[madkiwi]

Today we left home 1 (together) and the system did not arm, even though both phones were showing as Out of Zone. After switching mode to Armed, then Geofencing, it went to away mode.

Arrived at home 2, it did not disarm, although the app showed us as both being In Zone. Had to manually disarm. Switched to Geofencing, it disarmed. When we left the system did not arm, and is still showing as Disarmed, even though both phones are recognized as out of zone.

When we got back to home 1 that one switched to home mode. Yay?

So go ahead and delete/ignore my post from this morning, it is not working.

[JAumiller]

Using iPhone 8 Plus. Geofencing works perfectly fine for me. My wife is using iPhone XR and is constantly listed as "Unavailable" in the geofence settings. We have had this system (2 cameras and base station) since this summer and the geofencing has constantly been a problem (it has maybe worked 3-4 times, not days, just random times for my wife). We have had multiple iOS since then as we always stay up to date and the Arlo system is on the latest firmware. I've even tried setting my wife phone up as the primary account and all that does is make both of us "unavailable" at all times even though the arlo app clearly shows our locations on the map.

PLEASE GET THIS FIXED ARLO!! I can't help but feel completely ripped off.

[wsscott]

I have the Arlo Q webcam, and use it with 2 iPhone 7's.  Both phones have the most recent versions of IOS (13.2.3) and Arlo installed.  My phone is the "main" phone, and I granted my wife's phone Access to the account.  She has her own email address for her to sign-in, etc.  So the problem is that my phone shows the current status correctly, ie. in the zone or out of the zone; however, my wife's phone just shows "unavailable". As a result when I leave the house, it puts the system in the Armed mode.  I've tried everything I can think of.  I've had Arlo for more than 2 years, and thought it got finally fixed in May of this year, only for the developers to have fallen off the wagon again.  What's the Problem?????

[martin8888]

Ever since we've had Arlo which is about 6 months the Geo fencing has never been reliable on the second phone. This is very frustrating as it's either going off all the time when we are playing in the garden or we are both out all day only to find out it was never armed the whole day.

My situation

We have two iphones. On my iphone (the primary device), it detects the geofencing fine. On my partners iphone however the geofencing is constantly wrong. When she's at home it say's it's out of zone then when she's away from home it normally says it's in-zone. 

I've checked all the settings and switched things on and off, logged in/out of the app as per other peoples suggestions. This sometimes fixes it for a short period then it reverts back to being wrong all the time.

This is very annoying and so far haven't been impressed with the technology. How can i fix this??

[wsscott]

Similar issue with mine, but now its showing her's as "unavailable."