How to Reach ARLO Support

[vmorland]

I'm finding it impossible to reach ARLO support via either phone or chat.

On both the web and in the app, there are three questions that must be answered before the NEXT button becomes active.  The second question about product has a dropdown menu on which all the items are grayed out.  Since this question cannot be answered, the NEXT button does not work.

Please explain how to reach ARLO support.

P.S. My support question is: In the new app, how do I set up Arm Home so that all 3 cameras are on in motion detection mode from 10pm until 7am? (This was easy to do in the old app.)  Even though I have set it up in the Routines, all cameras are active 24/7.

[StephenB]

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@vmorland wrote:

P.S. My support question is: In the new app, how do I set up Arm Home so that all 3 cameras are on in motion detection mode from 10pm until 7am? (This was easy to do in the old app.)  Even though I have set it up in the Routines, all cameras are active 24/7.

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You disarm the cameras by switching the system mode from "Arm Home" to "Standby"  at 7 am, and then arm them at night by switching it again from "Standby" to "Arm Away" at 10 pm.

Those two routines should be enabled in both "Standby" and "Arm Home", but not enabled in "Arm Away".  Then you can manually switch to "Arm Away" when you leave on a trip, and the cameras will stay armed 24x7 until you return.

[vmorland]

Thanks, Stephen.  I appreciate your help.

How to I get into "system mode?"

When I click on "Explore Modes" in the Routines area and then click on Customize Arm Home it does not let me switch to Standby at any given time.

In my "Arm Home Settings" I had previously set up a routine to turn on at 10 pm and another to turn off at 7 am.  I disabled those and now I cannot re-enable them.  They are grayed out in the list of automations and I cannot click the radio button to turn them back on.

Any suggestions?

[StephenB]

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@vmorland wrote:

How to I get into "system mode?"

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Although I think you already know this (based on your follow-up), I will answer it anyway.

There are three built in system modes - "Arm Away", "Arm Home", and "Standby".  By default, "Arm Away" arms all cameras; "Arm Home" arms all outdoor models, and "Standby" doesn't arm any cameras.  You can modify this behavior by going into routines->modes and editing the rules in those modes.    You select the mode you want manually on the dashboard screen, the currently selected mode is shown in color.

There are also "custom" modes that work differently.

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@vmorland wrote:

In my "Arm Home Settings" I had previously set up a routine to turn on at 10 pm and another to turn off at 7 am. 

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It sounds like you mean to say that the routines were enabled in "Arm Home" before, but are not enabled in that mode now.  Is that correct?

If the automation list shows them as "disabled" and grayed out, then navigate to routines->modes->arm home, and scroll to the bottom.  You should see all automations there, and you enable/disable them from that screen.

[vmorland]

Again, thanks for sticking with me on this.  🙂

We're on the same page, but my app is not behaving the way you describe and the way I would expect it to.  I am running ARLO app version 6.30.1 on an Android phone.  I followed your instructions to  "navigate to routines->modes->arm home, and scroll to the bottom.  You should see all automations there, and you enable/disable them from that screen."  I see the two automations that I created "Turn off at 7 AM" and "Turn on at 10 PM", plus two defaults "Home (leave)" and "Home (arrive)".  All of them are grayed out and do not activate when I tap the radio button to turn them on.  (I can hear the audible click indicating that the phone is sending a signal, but the button remains unfilled and the automation remains disabled.)

You can see why this has been a frustrating experience...

Verne

[StephenB]

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@vmorland wrote:

Again, thanks for sticking with me on this.  🙂

We're on the same page, but my app is not behaving the way you describe and the way I would expect it to.  I am running ARLO app version 6.30.1 on an Android phone.  I followed your instructions to  "navigate to routines->modes->arm home, and scroll to the bottom.  You should see all automations there, and you enable/disable them from that screen."  I see the two automations that I created "Turn off at 7 AM" and "Turn on at 10 PM", plus two defaults "Home (leave)" and "Home (arrive)".  All of them are grayed out and do not activate when I tap the radio button to turn them on.  (I can hear the audible click indicating that the phone is sending a signal, but the button remains unfilled and the automation remains disabled.)

You can see why this has been a frustrating experience...

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FWIW, I use an iPhone.

I'm tagging @BrookeN and @ShayneS in hopes they can offer some advice (and see if they can reproduce your issue).

[jguerdat]

I believe the issue is that those Automations are disabled. Using the Android app, I can look at my Automations and click on the "clock" to the left of the automation name which disables that automation (for geofencing, clicking on the "location" icon does the same thing). When disabled, those Automations are shown in your modes, at the bottom, as grayed out.

Go back into the Automation screen and enable them.

[StephenB]

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@jguerdat wrote:

I believe the issue is that those Automations are disabled. Using the Android app, I can look at my Automations and click on the "clock" to the left of the automation name which disables that automation (for geofencing, clicking on the "location" icon does the same thing). When disabled, those Automations are shown in your modes, at the bottom, as grayed out.

Go back into the Automation screen and enable them.

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Good catch, I didn't realize pressing the "clock" on that page had any effect. 

The iPhone app works a bit differently - pressing the "clock" disables the automation on the automations screen, but it remains enabled on the mode screen (and can still be toggled on/off there).  I'm not sure if the automation is in fact disabled or not.

IMO pressing "Clock" should disable the automation in all modes.   But you should still be able to enable it from the modes screen (and of course it should then show up as enabled on the automation screen).  Enabling/disabling from the mode screen shouldn't silently fail, and of course the status should be consistent on both the automation and mode screens.

The other option is to simply remove the action from the automations screen, and just manage the automations from the three modes.

[vmorland]

Thanks for the additional information, Stephen and jguardat.  I now have the problem solved (I think), but it was not quite as easy as it should have been.

In short, there was no way that I could enable the two routines that I had created.  In the Routines area, whether I was in MODES or AUTOMATIONS, there was no way that I could enable the two routines.  They were grayed out and no amount of clicking would bring them back to life.

In the end, I had no option but to delete those two routines and recreate them.  They were then active in Arm Home, but they were also automatically active in Arm Away and even Standby (which seemed counter intuitive).  So I went in to those other two and deactivated them.

At this point I have structured Arm Home to turn all three of my outdoor cameras on from 10 pm to 7 am and I will see if that works.

I took some screenshots from my Android app to document what I encountered, but I can't see them in this message so I don't know if they uploaded properly

[StephenB]

embedded images need to be manually approved before they can be seen.

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@vmorland wrote:

At this point I have structured Arm Home to turn all three of my outdoor cameras on from 10 pm to 7 am and I will see if that works.

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You are perhaps misunderstanding something basic.  "Arm Home" always operates the same way - which is determined by the camera rules in that mode.  You CANNOT  disarm and rearm your cameras while staying in "Arm Home" all the time.   You have to schedule a mode change to "Standby" at 7 am, and schedule another mode change back to "Arm Home" at 10 pm.  So you are toggling between two modes - "Arm Home" at night, and "Standby" during the day.   This is not the same as "structuring Arm Home".

Therefore your "Turn On" automation MUST be enabled in "Standby", since the system is in "Standby" mode when you want it to trigger.  Similarly, "Turn Off"  MUST be enabled in "Arm Home".   It is safe to enable both automations in both "Arm Home" and "Standby" (it does no harm).  But it is best to disable both automations in "Arm Away", so you can use that mode while you are on a trip (either manually or with geofencing).

[ShayneS]

Hi @vmorland 

Thank you for the feedback. I’m glad to hear your automations are now working. Please let us know if anything changes.

If you need additional assistance, you can also contact Arlo Customer Support at 1-877-427-5680, available Monday–Friday, 6:00 AM – 8:00 PM PST for the US and Canada.