Night Vision Quality And Motion Detection in Arlo Pro

[5013164]

Yesterday I unboxed my 6 Arlo Pros and base station which cost almost $1000, set them up, and positioned 3 (1 in kitchen, 2 outside) to see how they performed before setting up all 6.  I had high hopes based on reviews. I'm very disappointed and hope the problem/s are fixable. Only the indoor/Kitchen camera has detected motion. The Driveway Camera is in a tree, 7 feet high, aimed at a driveway 15 feet away. A car driving past -- across the frame, not towards the camera -- is not detected. A person walking past is not detected. Neither is captured on video or photo.

The Front Porch Camera is mounted 7 feet high, aimed at the front door 6 feet away. It has not detected any movement in or out the door.

The Kitchen Camera is mounted 7 feet high. It detects every time I enter its frame, but it only captures me on screen if I linger in the frame. If I move through quickly, it records too late to capture my image.  All 3 cameras have a lag time of ten seconds OR MORE.  "Live now" in fact means "Live 10-20 seconds ago." 

The Night Vision on all three cameras produces unusable videos. I will try to attach photos, including zoomed-in snapshots to illustrate that I do not think the images will help police capture and prosecute an intruder. The Driveway snapshot is just darkness. Changing the Video setting to "Best Quality" did not help. 

I currently have 3 Vimtag Outdoor Cameras, 2 NetCam Pros, and 1 Zebora.  All are FAR better quality, especially Night Vision, but require being plugged into electricity or POE. I was hoping to change to all Arlos and not be limited by the need for an electric source.

All 3 Arlo cameras show excellent/full WiFi strength.  

Am I doing something wrong?

Driveway FreezeFrame in DaylightDriveway Night VisionFront Porch Night with Porch Light OnFront Porch Night VisionZoomed In Quality of Porch Night VisionKitchen at Night with Lights OnKitchen Night VisionZoomed In Quality of Kitchen Night Vision

[jguerdat]

The driveway shot is just too far and too much view.  Motion detection for people is 25 feet max and can be less.  Figure out what you really need and reposition.  You certainly don't need to monitor the sky.  The night vision LEDs can't possibly light that scene from a battery-operated camera.  Some of the issue can be due to the reflection from the leaves but it boils down to distance and how light falls off as the square of the distance (4x the distance requires 16x the light level).

The other night vision shots can also partially be a result of reflections from close-by objetcs, causing the automatic exposure to see that reflection and darken the rest of the image.  The image on the porch, maybe not, but the light walls could be causing this.  One thing to try is to use live view and adjust the brightness by clicking on the sun icon and adjust the slider.  If that helps, be sure to save the setting.

To improve motion detection, positioning is important so motion is across the FOV but there's also a sensitivity setting in your modes.  Use the Mode tab, select your base and edit the Armed mode.  All settings for motion are in there.  Better yet, create your own custom modes for full control.  The FAQs here have all the gory details.

[MADTH]

Night vision quality is really bad and this is not acceptable considering the steep price paid for this. I just bought this on black Friday 2017. I am disappointed with this purchase. There is 10sec lag in motion detection as well.

[MADTH]

This camera is suitable for indoor use only, not suitable for low light/ night time outdoor.

[JamesC · Accepted solution]

Arlo Pro 2 ups the game by introducing 1080p resolution, a wider field of view compared to previous generation cameras, along with a host of new features that include versatile power options, 2-way audio, and advanced motion detection with activity zones.  All of the above is done while maintaining the things our users love and have become synonymous with Arlo:  Simple wire-free setup, Weather-resistant ruggedness, Optional 24/7 continuous video monitoring, local backup storage, and up to 7 days of free cloud storage.  Not to mention, Pro2 is backwards compatible with all previous generation accessories and base stations. 
 
The same applies at night time, where in each frame, a user can literally see more in every shot.  By upgrading our image technology, we also upgraded our motion and night vision capabilities.
 
Some users have requested that we increase the overall “brightness” of our cameras.  While seeing brighter, albeit subjective, is a valid request - simply making images brighter may not always apply to the scene that is being recorded.  Every user’s setup is different, as well as the type of scene and image being captured.  One fix for all situations can often result in tradeoffs in other aspects of the image quality.  As an example, simply going brighter can result in oversaturated images dependent on the user’s scene.
 
What we did focus on addressing however, was overall image quality during high motion.  Especially in security driven use cases where the action being captured could be a vandal at your front door trying to run away, we wanted to enhance the overall quality in those situations.  Over the weekend, we released a FW update that reduces the amount of compression when fast motion is detected.  This results in better quality videos, with minimal change in overall file size being allocated to capture that motion event. 
 
Arlo aims to up the game in image quality with each new generation of product, and we know our users will enjoy literally seeing more in every shot, seeing more details, as well as crisper video even in fast motion scenes. 

-Arlo Development Team