Arlo Secure / Pro 5S - no longer regularly capturing videos, occasionally snapshots?

[chicane]

Hi All,

Since updating my Pro 5S firmware yesterday (to 1.040.28.7_93_caa9491) I am no longer seeing just videos in my feed (although still occasionally) but now I'm getting motion - snapshot (still images) captured as well?

Also getting "motion detected" push notifications - not the vehicle/animal/person notifications like previous. No image/video is captured on these alerts.

I have just logged this with support, anyone else having this issue? 

[jguerdat]

Have you checked your modes and rules (or the Default Mode Settings in each camera's settings) to verify that videos are to be recorded rather than snapshots? Do you have a subscription, even a trial one, for each camera? Have you checked the Smart Notifications settings?  It's possible that removing the camera and adding it back in may fix this.

FWIW, my Pro5 is still on the older firmware even though new firmware has been available for almost 2 months. Rebooting my hub to which it's connected as well as reinserting the battery to reboot the camera won't get me the update.

@JamesC , @ShayneS , @BrookeN ?

[chicane]

Hi @jguerdat, thanks for your reply. 

I have checked the camera config (only one is showing this) and it is configured to record videos than snapshots. 

I am observing this occurring only specific times - between 8am-11am AEDT (Australian Daylight Saving Time). Outside of this it records video as expected. 

I upgraded my home wifi router to a UDR (Ubiquiti Dream Router) and a UAP-AC-M (External Mesh Router) connected via a wired PoE connection. Unfortunately it is still happening today. The Unifi app shows Wifi Experience as Excellent (100%) for this device and my ISP uptime is 100% as well. 

Is anyone aware of any dependencies on cloud connectivity for image detection to work? I am growing suspicious of congestion on the Arlo side being a potential cause however I asked the Arlo phone support person this and they were not sure. 

I will try a factory reset anyway and see if it changes anything however I am somewhat doubtful.

[StephenB]

---

@chicane wrote:

Is anyone aware of any dependencies on cloud connectivity for image detection to work? I am growing suspicious of congestion on the Arlo side being a potential cause however I asked the Arlo phone support person this and they were not sure. 

---

If you have local storage configured, then you would get motion-triggered recordings on the hub whether the cloud is connected or not.

Notifications are done through the cloud.  Activity zone processing is also done through the cloud. 

So if something is disrupting your cloud connection, the Arlo services won't work normally.  Even if that is the cause, the assumption that is on "Arlo's side" might not be correct.  Congestion can occur anywhere along the path from your router to the Arlo cloud, so it could be your ISP network or the network connection between your ISP's network and the cloud servers.

Though it's been a while since I checked, I believe the Arlo cloud servers are hosted by Amazon and accessed via CloudFlare.

[chicane]

Hi @StephenB, thanks for your reply - I'll reply inline below.

If you have local storage configured, then you would get motion-triggered recordings on the hub whether the cloud is connected or not.

- No, I'm using direct wifi only. The Arlo home hub sucks, it moves its wifi channel to the EXACT SAME one as my primary wireless system without any ability to change it to anything else.

Notifications are done through the cloud.  Activity zone processing is also done through the cloud. 

- Interesting. is there any documentation anywhere? It does sound like a cloud dependency exists on event detection. 

So if something is disrupting your cloud connection, the Arlo services won't work normally.  Even if that is the cause, the assumption that is on "Arlo's side" might not be correct. 

Congestion can occur anywhere along the path from your router to the Arlo cloud, so it could be your ISP network or the network connection between your ISP's network and the cloud servers.

Though it's been a while since I checked, I believe the Arlo cloud servers are hosted by Amazon and accessed via CloudFlare.

-I'm running monitoring - 6ms to AWS cloud and 5ms to Azure cloud, 8ms to Google cloud. Wifi experience with Ubiquti Unifi UDR and external mesh node (where the camera is connected) shows Wifi Experience of 100% (no packet loss).

This happens only at a specific time of day - usually between 7-11am AEDT, coincides with midday LA time, 3pm NY time through to 4pm LA time/7pm NY time. I am not sure if there is any honest public monitoring of Arlo's cloud infrastructure available if this is the culprit. 

[StephenB]

I've never seen any documentation of their overall architecture.

Arlo is a cloud-hosted system.  When the camera is connected to your home wifi, then basically everything depends on the cloud.  Livestreaming will be local if you are at home, but everything else ends up going through the cloud.

[chicane]

Hi @StephenB, thanks for your reply. So the image detection is not done on the device itself?

I get the footage/events are uploaded but the image detection/processing I was wanting some clarification on. 

[StephenB]

---

@chicane wrote:

Hi @StephenB, thanks for your reply. So the image detection is not done on the device itself?

---

When the camera is running on battery power or solar power, motion detection is done using a passive infrared (PIR) sensor on the camera face.  So it is done by the device, but it is not image detection.  Video is not captured by the camera until after the PIR sensor detects motion.  When that happens, the camera then notifies the cloud of the motion event, and starts capturing video and streaming it to the cloud.   

If activity zones are set, the cloud analyzes the video and determines whether the motion is in zone or out-of-zone. 

If smart notifications are enabled, then It will also determine the smart classification for the stream.

If the motion is determined by the cloud to be in-zone, then the recording is saved.  And if the camera rule in the current mode is configured to notify, then the cloud sends a push notification to any running instances of the app that have access to the camera (the primary account and any friend accounts).

If the motion is determined to be out-of-zone, then no recording is made and no notifications are sent.

If the camera is paired to a smarthub, or it the camera is on AC power, then the processing is a bit different, 

[chicane]

Thanks @StephenB for the explanation.

It seems the latest issue I have now with my Pro 5S (12m away, with LOS to an external AP) is recording snapshots that are now blank. This occurs intermittently (although in blocks of it occurring, then blocks of it recording videos like it is configured to do).

I have upgraded my home wifi kit to a Ubiquiti UDR and external AP. The Wifiman app shows good solid 5G and 2.4GHz signal in the location. Wifi Experience is 100% as well.

Why is it doing this? 

Why is this camera doing this? 

[chicane]

After some more dialogue with support they are doing an RMA and replacing it.