Do you have to insert a SD card in order to play back video?

[Deltabreeze]

I just received this camera as a gift. Have a few questions on it.

Do you have to insert a SD card in order to play back video?

I have mine disarmed since I'm only using it mainly to watch my cat when I'm gone

It also has a six second delay time in live stream, can this be fixed?

Thanks!

[jguerdat]

Good questions. The purpose of the SD card is simply to have a local backup of the recordings sent to the cloud as well as to provide videos if the Internet connection is dropped for any reason. Unfortunately, you have to pull the card to see the videos so regard it simply as a backup. No, you absolutely don't need to use a card since it's simply a backup.

The delay in live viewing is really not configurable.  The best you can do is make sure your connection to the router is high quality and strong and that your Internet upload speed is at least 1Mb/s or higher. The rest is due to the need to connect to the server and get the replies. Also, a computer usually reacts faster than a phone.

[Deltabreeze]

Thanks for the reply.  Have another question.  Do you have to have it armed in order to play video back? I had it on last night to test it out but don't know how to play anything back. I had it the camera on, just not armed.  Didn't want to startle my cat, or me for that matter.I just have the Arlo Q and I'm not seeing a spot for the SD Card.

[jguerdat]

Only the Q Plus has an SD card slot so that's not going to work an a plain Q.

The mode (Armed or whatever) has no bearing on playing back a video.  Since you say you're not going to record anything, use the Disarmed mode. No recordings will occur unless you manually select the record button while live viewing. Any recording will be visible in the library for playback regardless of mode.

Recording is pretty much the same as live viewing. I'm not sure how that would startle the cat or you. While there may be a light click when activated, it's pretty unnoticeable and would quickly be dismissed.

[Deltabreeze]

Thanks again for the reply.  That explains it.  One last question though.  Can I hit the record button from my laptop vs phone? Or does it strickly need to be done on the cellphone?

[TomMac]

ios / android or web.... makes no difference