Video Pixelation after firmware update Pro/VMB4000r3 (1.16.1.1_3348_facf74c)

[Ordinary1]

Hi All.

Hope everyone is keeping safe and well.

Since the early hours of yesterday morning (25th April) UK time all of my Arlo Pro cameras have been suffering from extreme pixelation in both live view and motion detection recordings. The location of the cameras and base station have not changed for months.

The base station is VMB4000r3 on firmware 1.16.1.1_3348_facf74c

The four cameras are version H8 1.092.0.25_24_986

The pixelated video is also present on local USB storage suggesting a local issue.

I have checked WiFi strength using an analyser and all is good. All cameras have three bars in the Arlo app.

One of the cameras is within ten feet of the base station with no obstructions and is suffering the same.

I have noticed that a camera firmware update was issued in the last few days. Are there any known problems that could have caused such a drastic change in system performance?

[TechJohn]

I just got the following reply from Arlo via my BBB Complaint. Absolutely astounding. I will pursue legal action if neccessary.

"The business has sent the BBB a message regarding this complaint, and we are passing it on to you.  The contents of this message are attached. Please respond to this message at your first convenience via mail, email or fax.  If there is no response to this request within 5 calendar days, the BBB will assume that your dispute has been resolved.

The text of your complaint may be publicly posted on BBBs Web site (BBB reserves the right to not post in accordance with BBB policy). Please do not include any personally identifiable information when contacting us regarding this dispute. By submitting your complaint, you are representing that it is a truthful account of your experience with the business. BBB may edit your complaint to protect privacy rights and to remove inappropriate language.


Regards,

Rhianna Zastrow
Your Better Business Bureau

MESSAGE FROM BUSINESS:

Hi John,

Good Day!

I understand where you are coming from and we apologize for the inconvenience. Please be reminded that when you created your ARLO account, you agreed to the terms and conditions. Under Section 5 "Changes to your Arlo Service". It is clearly stated that "To the extent possible under the governing law, ARLO may, at its discretion and without notice or user permission, change, add, or remove features and functionality of the Arlo Services. ARLO is under no obligation to provide any or all features and functionality to your Arlo System and may, at its discretion, discontinue the provision of software updates to certain Arlo Systems. Because different Arlo Systems may support different features and functionality the level of service ARLO provides may not be the same for each Arlo System."

What I would recommend is for you to purchase an Arlo Smart Premier Multi Camera service plan. It will provide you 30 days of cloud storage and the resolution is capped at 2k (Pro2 camera is using 1080P). You can test it as it should improve the image quality of your camera. If you are not satisfied with it, you can cancel it on the same day upon purchase and you will get the full refund for the service plan payment.

Please let me know if you have further questions.

Regards,

Elbert Val Lambo
Customer Care Advocate
Arlo Technologies, Inc.

[Manolo86]

I have the new video doorbell and it sucks just as much as my Pro2 cameras. I doubt a lawsuit will get anywhere, but I hope it does. I'm just not going to purchase anymore Arlo products. I'm also selling all my shares once I can recoup my money. A company this horrible can't last that long, but if it does I want nothing to do with it. Eufy is my next platform.

[Kktracy3]

I would gladly pay for a monthly plan if it would help save the quality on my whole system but I thought some have tried and said it doesn’t make a difference. I may try again.

[Manolo86]

I may pay a subscription for another brand. Out of principle, I will not pay Arlo's fee since I had my cameras for less than a year and they're trying to strong-arm us into a subscription we were told we didn't need. Plus, I haven't been satisfied with everything on my trial subscription that came with the doorbell, so paying for it makes no sense.

[TWINO]

I have the same problem. I have the VMB4500r2 base station with 2 Arlo Pro 2’s. I bought them last year, July 2019. And I only use them when I am away from home for multiple nights.

I updated the cameras yesterday and the results are abysmal. The live video feed is pixelated, and the recordings will probably be the same.

I’m quite baffled, as this system is just one year old and I paid good money for it.

It is pretty much useless now. I hope a fix is forthcoming, otherwise I won’t be buying Arlo Product any more.

[CCNE37]

I doubt that you updated anything - Arlo pushes through these unwanted firmware updates without asking. The change happened in late April 2020 (2½ months ago).

The fix has not been forthcoming in this 2½ months, so I wouldn't hold your breath. Take some time and read the thread.

[TWINO]

I did read the thread. My camera’s have been offline for months, maybe half a year. So I first had to power them, and then the updates to the camera’s were needed to use them. So I did update them 🙂

And I know a fix does not seem likely, but I still wanted to voice my disappointment about this. For what it’s worth...

[TerryHoss]

Well I’m finally fed up with the horrible image quality and Arlo’s lack of concern on this issue. I ordered new cameras from Reolink, Arlo will never see another dime from me.

[harsh_chane]

Any progress?? I got mine today and was so disappointed by the picture quality just after it getting updated to the latest firmware.

[Macarioc]

I did the same...video quality on the Reolink cameras is amazing.....

[Ozphoenix]

We now have the Eufy camera. Model T8831CD3. Wireless, 2 cameras and base station for $370.00 (AUS). Have to say it's not much better!! Very disappointing. Here's my summary;

- When something moves, it too becomes pixelated. Not quite as bad as the Arlo, but still not great.

- It's also missing things, not picking up as much as the Arlo. There are cars going past and it doesn't detect it.

- we can't view vidoes on the desktop computer, only the 'live' feed, which is highly annoying. We can with Arlo. With Eufy, its an app on your phone or tablet. Which is very annoying as it is so much easier to use the desktop screen. 

- the audio is awful! I can hardly make out what is going on. Its like sound from one of the early computer games. Synthetic, oddly pitched and pretty bad. 

- the app on the tablet/phone is also not great to use. Awkward and slow. On the tablet, when you want to go back to the events, it first goes into vertical orientation, and you need to tap it again to go back. Very irritating. 

The Eufy is a thumbs down. I wouldn't bother. 

[Ozphoenix]

Going through the sound again on the Eufy, it sounds like aliens underwater! Terrible.

[CCNE37]

Good information.

Not sure that the general "Eufy is a thumbs down" is correct though because the model you have is the older and much cheaper 2C model. I would be interested in hearing more about the newer HD cameras and how they compare. Your 2C kit sells at JB HiFi for $399 vs $799 for the newer HD 2 camera kit, so a massive difference in price.

I am surprised that videos are not available on a desktop - wow, that would be a show-stopper for me.

Does the app have a similar scheduling feature to Arlo where you set up a bunch of difference "modes" (each with different cameras, different sensitivities etc) and then pick and choose which mode to use in a weekly schedule ?

[DGT79]

Hi Team,

Having issues with artifact and Pixelated images on both recordings and live streaming, I have logged a case but also wanted to check in with the general community, I see some others have had similar issues, but I don't see anyone with a resolution.

Two problems in need of community advice:
* The above mention issue and screen captures provided
* Can never seem to get 1080P Quality no matter what I do, and I have it on "Best Image Quality" settings for all cameras, everything is as 720P resolution or worse, regardless of what I do, cameras either have full bars or two bars and are constantly plugged into power bricks and are always 100% charged

I have done the usual removes and adds as per others advice on here before posting this, just to make sure I was removing all doubt, still arrived at the same situation in all cases.

What are your thoughts or suggestions? Might help me when dealing with the support team.

Screen shots provided 🙂

HW VersionVMB4000r3

Serial Number4RE3827VA0C2B

Firmware1.16.2.5_3508_62dfaa0

HW VersionH3

Serial Number52M18275A5D75

Firmware1.125.14.0_34_1189

Cheers,

David.

[CCNE37]

David

Have you read the 488 posts prior to yours 😀  - lots of thoughts but not too many suggestions (other than dumping Arlo). This has been an ongoing problem since April 2020, and to date there has been little to no response or reaction from Arlo - feel free to contact support though - it can't hurt.

[DGT79]

Hi CCNE37 ,

Actually when I was browsing through all the threads, I didn't come across this one, looks like one of the mods moved my post into here, which I am OK with that as I don't like double posting.

I lodged a ticket but no response, which sadly is a stark difference to what it was like when it was Netgear, they had fantastic support when I first got the units almost 16 months ago, I am checking with Harvey Normans now as to whether I can return them for warranty or not using ACL as they are not living up to advertised both on packaging or on the website, and there is no support on the product now.

This is really sad as I had enjoyed this product until they messed with the units, change the quality of them and now want you to pay more to get that, this does not sit well with me or our Consumer Protection laws here in Australia, and the retail outlet is being supportive.

Time to look at another vendor! What a waste of $800 😞 

Cheers,
David.

[CCNE37]

You can try Hardly Normal, but I don't rate your chances as they are well out of warranty. I didn't see too many getting a full refund on their diesel VWs (myself included) when that storm hit. Waiting for the MauriceBlackburn class action suite to pay some meagre rewards in December.

Mine are not as bad as the images you posted, but they are nowhere near what I would expect from 1080P. My old original 720P Arlo cameras are producing slightly better video than my Pro 2 cameras.

I actually thought that you couldn't get support (free support) from Arlo after they were out of warranty - perhaps that was phone support ? They are woeful, so I haven't bothered. The Arlo mods know all about this thread, but never respond with anything remotely useful.

[DGT79]

I am curious as to why this thread is still marked as Solved and why my post was shifted into a solved thread when clearly the issue is not solved and in fact if reading the more recent and current posts, the problem is getting worse.

The Silence from Arlo is deafening, given they are a publicly listed company I would have thought that attention to detail on their products would be paramount to ensure good shareholder returns.

Cheers,

David.

[CCNE37]

Excellent question - can only be answered by the over-zealous Arlo mod who marked it that way. This question has been asked several times in this thread with no clear answer, and zero response from Arlo.

My guess is that some dim-witted techie thought that it was a person's setup or wifi issue, and decided that it wasn't an Arlo issue (in spite of the fact that there is nearly 500 posts here indicating otherwise). Many have said that Arlo's response from Support was that it must be a wifi issue - WTF ????

The Arlo base station is connected directly to a router via ethernet cable, and the router is (in many cases) connected to the ISP by fibre optic cable, the desktop (in my case) is connected via ethernet to the same router, and the Arlo base station talks to the camera via wifi, but not a user/owner's wifi (it is Arlo's own wifi), so how the hell is a user's wifi even involved in the process ???? But that was a common response from Support for some bizarre reason - they are absolutely clueless and disinterested in sorting this out.

One owner (not too far above this post) posted that Arlo had responded to a legal complaint by saying basically that we as customers agreed at sign-up that Arlo could change anything they wanted at any time without consultation or notification, so they have and there is nothing we can do about it. How is that for customer service !

Well, customers can do something - they can vote with their feet, go elsewhere, and tell everyone they know to avoid Arlo like the plague (or perhaps Coronavirus is more pertinent in current times).

[YannisHBG]

My 2 cents on the whole situation. Have been having really poor bitrate issues with my Arlo Pro 2 system ever since I bought it in early June. Nowhere near the advertised 1080p. To make a long story short after numerous emails back and forth with Arlo support I got this email today:

" Thank you for your reply.

With more than 4.25 million registered accounts serving up more than 144 million video events a day, Arlo has become a massive platform, users rely on every day, one that now also delivers AI and computer vision processing. To maintain a platform of this size, we continually review and adjust our variable video compression, which optimizes the size of videos transmitted to and from our platform. It seems that for some users, particularly those with cameras in high-traffic areas, the dynamic video compression resulted in poor video quality, so we’ve updated the software to improve the variable video compression algorithm.

Which means that we are having a global issue regarding to bitrate. In your previous emails you didn't mention about the bitrate, but only about that video quality is nowhere near 1080p.

Your case will be send forward and attached to the issue.

When there will be any update regarding this issue, we will get back to you immediately."

Draw your own conclusions....

[CCNE37]

This is a complete cop-out. The bit about high traffic and complex scenes is complete BS.

It is also BS for them to say that they don't know about bitrates - there has been numerous posts in this thread with real world numbers stating bitrates, and they are woeful. The bitrates have halved in the last year or so, dragging the video quality down the toilet with it.

If there system can't cope because of "new business" then perhaps part of the new business plan should have been to upgrade their systems to maintain a consistent quality of service.

My cameras are neither high volume (if I get more than 20 videos per day across 5 cameras it has been a busy day), nor complex scenes (they monitor things like doorways, not ever-changing street scenes), and yet I have seen a significant change since early April 2020.

[DGT79]

Great input all!

The thing I don't get is, when I bought it I had the ability to plug a HDD or USB drive into the USB ports so I didn't have to send it all up to the cloud, and by doing that I could maintain full 1080P at full bit-rate.

With this updated from Arlo, I can only assume that I am no longer able to do that and I have to pay for a subscription service for already expensive cameras compared to new market competitors.

So I think I have resolved in my mind I will not be upgrading to the 4K ones, I will use the rubbish I have been lumped with now until I finish reviewing some new cameras, and move away entirely from Arlo and never come back to them again... First lesson in business "DON'T SCREW THE PAYING CUSTOMER' and it appears they have no problems in doing that and openly as well.

Cheers,

David.

[YannisHBG]

Indeed @CCNE37 . The funny thing is that right up to this email they were claiming that all the videos and images I had uploaded were fine and true 1080p so no problem (Their proof was : "Download them on your desktop, right click on the file and click on properties..). As soon as I pointed them to the poor bitrate direction then suddenly all is not fine.... If this is not fixed soon I will no longer remain an Arlo customer

[Jlew4]

Cameras have operated fine for a few months.  Last month (July 2020) one camera would randomly have pixelated, blurry recordings, now it's EVERY recording and a second camera has started.  

I've seen that this started being a problem for some people back in April and May.  Why is this still happening?????

It's on the app and the actual arlo website - still can't see the recordings.

WHAT IS THE FIX FOR THIS??????  I've restarted the cameras, I've restarted the base.  HELP WITH THIS ISSUE

[jguerdat]

Try removing and resyncing the cameras. It could be a signal strength/quality issue, too, so try moving a camera to see if that makes a difference.