Geofencing... This has to be a bug!!!

[burgr86]

Have several Arlo Pro5s and 4's all on wifi and for the last few weeks I have been going crazy trying to understand why geofencing is not working correctly.  Arlo support says it's setup correctly.  Here is the issue with 2 phones, mine and my wife's.

System is on Standby ....  Wife leaves, I stay home, system arms to away as it thinks both phones are out of the zone.

System is on Standby .... Wife returns home, I'm still home having manually set the mode to standby after she left.  Arrive automation executes setting the system to standby (it's already on standby) and notifying me that it did so.

System is on Standby - Wife is not home, I leave the zone, system runs leave automation (everyone leaves) correctly.

System is on Arm Away - I arrive home, wife is still not home, system runs arrive automation(anyone arrives)  correctly.

System is on Standby - Wife is home, I leave - nothing happens as it should.

System is on Standby - Wife is home, I arrive - nothing happens as it should.

So why does my system arm when I'm home and she leaves, yet if she's gone and I leave also geofencing acts correctly.  This make no sense and has to be a bug.   Both phones are logged in, all settings are correct.  I continue to get bad and conflicting information from Arlo support which tells me first line support does not clearly understand how this works or is supposed to work.  And yes, it's the new interface.  Shows both of our phones correctly, I set arrive to anyone arrives, and I set leave to everyone leaves.  Any thoughts?

[jguerdat]

What phones and OS versions?

[burgr86]

Iphone 14 pro and Iphone 12  ios 17

[burgr86]

in the evenings it works as should I took my wifes phone last night and went for a drive and left mine here and the system DID NOT ARM.  This morning my wife left with her phone and my phone is here and the system armed.  It does this every morning but not in the evening.  Makes no sense as the system is in standby both times of day when she leaves.  Yet if i leave and she is already gone it works correctly and the system arms.

[burgr86]

4th Day in a row, wife left I am home, cameras executed everyone leaves as mode changed from standby to away

[jguerdat]

It sounds like your schedule automations are overriding GF. I'm still not clear how the interaction is handled but check your GF Leave automation and click on Always Enabled. It seems that you can disable appropriate modes so GF is handling the mode switching but my testing has been unsatisfactory. I'm not aware of any documentation on this part of the automation so trial and error has to be used. I ass-u-me that disabling Arm Away would be needed but...

[burgr86]

I would agree with you except that my scheduled automations for this particular home are 

10:30 pm arm home, and 5:30 am standby.  There is nothing in the schedule set to arm away.  That's what makes it so odd, and yes, documentation is terrible and support is even struggling with it since I've gotten some really bad directions from one support person only to be told something 180 degrees opposite by another.

[DougalArlo]

System is on Standby ....  Wife leaves, I stay home, system arms to away as it thinks both phones are out of the zone.

I have the exact same issue. "Everyone Leaves" is triggered when only one person leaves and the other is still at home. This used to work fine before, but suddenly the issue started. I feel like the issue started after we upgraded the app to the same latest version (a month ago or so) for both phones.

FYI - In this situation, "Anyone Arrived" is triggered when the one who is at home re logs in to the account.

[jguerdat]

It appears, due to lack of appropriate documentation, I was going about this a$$-backwards. Read through the thread linked below for the solution found by MelindaMay a bit over halfway down.

https://community.arlo.com/t5/Arlo-Secure/Arlo-Pro-5-Setting-up-Geofencing-and-Schedule-Routines-to-...

[DougalArlo]

Sorry, what does that linked issue and a solution have to do with this particular issue where Arlo thinks 2 different devices as one in “Everyone Leaves”? It does not seem to be related. 

[burgr86]

My head hurts and I am sooooooo confused.  Yes, I too am a software developer and this makes no sense whatsoever.  Who would ever develop such a confusing mess?    And Arlo doesn't really want to deal with it as most of them don't understand it either.  Why would my system arm away when wife leaves in the morning (5:45 am) and I am home?  My schedules don't have arm away in them?  And why would my system work correctly when my wife leaves at 4:00pm and I am home?  I'll keep looking at the link you sent, until my head explodes, maybe then I'll figure it out. 🙂

[burgr86]

I also remember the old interface you would tell it what to do when in away - follow the schedule or away, on when home follow the schedule or standby.  We always had a schedule, which was for the whole day so it would look at the time of day when entering the geofence and then do what the schedule said.  Support keeps trying to tell us that the schedule takes over when we enter or leave the fence (that's the old interface) but the new interface does not seem to work this way.  No one has ever explained how the new interface works with schedules.  When you enable a schedule is it triggered or just enabled so it can run at the appropriate time.    Since we set the schedule for a specific time I and others I would assume would think that means 'enabled' so when that time comes it executes.  Why else set one specific time for that automation if not to execute at that time.  If I have something that executes at 5:30 am then I would expect it to execute then, not look to see what time it is and if it is earlier or later than that time do something according to that automation.  My 2 schedules execute exactly at the right time and do exactly what they are supposed to.  The issue is geofencing and works later in the day and not correctly in the early part of the day.

[burgr86]

OK, today I removed the scheduled arm home and scheduled standby automations and when wife left the zone with me at home, the system still armed to away, so the schedules have nothing to do with my particular issue.  Arlo, I have an open case and keep getting pointed to knowledgebase which is worthless in this case as clearly, it's not working.  I have requested multiple times for a second level to contact me without success.  What are my TWO subscriptions getting me if we can't fix this or get proper support.  Please help!

[jguerdat]

I'm still trying to test what was suggested in the link I provided in my post above so can't be sure. The key here seems to be adding what she calls an exception. To do this, edit your schedules and click on Add an Action. Choose Enable/Disable an Automation near the top and choose Leave for the daytime schedule, click on Next and choose Enable. For the nighttime schedule, use the same process but choose Arrive and set it to Disabled. As you exit editing the schedule be sure to save at every opportunity. I do note that she also perhaps had to use the Test Automation selection to get hers to work - dunno if that's really needed.

That's how I interpret the directions anyways. BTW, here's the directions again so you don't have to find them in the link:

In the 'Day' automation:

• 'Day Time' = Arm Home [or whatever mode you want];
• Schedule > When: > Sunrise or Custom time
• CREATE THIS EXCEPTION ~ 'Then' = 'Leave*' automation is set to ENABLED.

That way, if you go out, through the day, it will trigger your 'Arm Away' mode. If you come back, it will switch to 'Arm Home' mode [or whatever modes you want to select based on how you use your modes].

In 'Night' automation:

• 'Night Time' = Arm Away [or whatever mode you want];
• Schedule > When: > Sunset or Custom time
• CREATE THIS EXCEPTION ~ 'Then' = 'Arrive*' automation is set to DISABLED.

That way, if you come home at night, it won't change it to 'Arm Home', when you want the camera to remain set on 'Arm Away' [or whatever other mode you want it to stay on].

*arrive/leave or whatever you name them [my images show the names I named them]

I had to just go in and test the automations to get them working correctly and onto the current mode [I was Home but it was Night - so I wanted Arm Away mode] but it's been working exactly as I want it to!!

[burgr86]

Thanks for all your suggestions, so this morning, I deleted the scheduled automations completely so only leave and arrive are left.  Leave is set to arm away, arrive is set to put in standby.  Wife left at 9:00 ish this morning and I am home, system trigged arm away (everyone leaves).  This evening around 9:15 pm wife left to pick up son at airport, I am at home, system did not trigger arm away.  So, in the mornings arm away triggers in the evening it works correctly.  WHAT SENSE DOES THIS MAKE, with NO Scheduled automations and even with scheduled automations the result is always the same, when she leaves in the mornings and I am home the everyone leaves triggers.  If she leaves in the evening and I am home it does not (works correctly).  I keep thinking its not detecting my phone, but it is because when I leave the home and she's gone the system arms, and when I return and she's still gone the system disarms so it is detecting my phone.  How can this be that geofencing works differently in the morning vs the evening.  This is so frustrating.  We've deleted all the automations and reinstalled them also, deleted the app on both phones and reinstalled them.  Radio silence from Arlo.

[jguerdat]

Sorry, I have nothing for you. AT this point I would bug support but I'm also tagging mods in case they can light a fire. @JamesC , @ShayneS , @BrookeN 

[burgr86]

Thank you and very much appreciated.

[ShayneS]

Hi all,

Which version of the Arlo mobile app are you using as well as the model device/OS version?  

@burgr86 I see you provided the model version, can you provide the Arlo app version as well.

@DougalArlo Can you provide info for Both questions.

Thanks 

[burgr86]

I am on 4.10.6 wife on 4.10.5 we were both on 4.10.5 with same result. I recently updated.  She is going to update also but we had been on same version.

[burgr86]

This morning (Thanksgiving), wife left to go grocery store about 7:15 am.  I stayed home.  Cameras DID NOT arm away.  Maybe taking thanksgiving off?? 🙂    Hopefully this will continue to work correctly.  We changed nothing so maybe something changed at Arlo?  In any case, Happy Thanksgiving.

[DougalArlo]

Here is my environment:
Arlo app: 4.10 (7096)

phone: iPhone iOS 16.7.2

[6307]

Mine does the exact same thing and also isn't recording all events. It also changes my settings, which is quite alarming. No pun intended.

[burgr86]

Yesterday wife left for work at 5:41 am and I am still in the home.  Cameras DID NOT arm way correctly.  Today wife left for work at 5:39 am and I am still in the home, cameras ARMED AWAY.  WHY WHY WHY?  What sense does this make.  James?  Anyone?  My case is still open but nothing......

[Nicktim]

Hello,
jumping into the thread as I have more or less the same problem since the 4.0 app.
No automations work like the idea on ios. Neither geofencing nor schedule.

After each night, the automations are ticked off from active mode. for example, the schedule that should alarm in the evening... have tested everything and even Arlo support, which unfortunately is not of much help in Sweden. claims it's a problem in the new app on ios (while saying they thought it was fixed)

[burgr86]

Today I went out of the zone and wife stayed home and system armed to away.  First time it's done that, usually only does it when wife is away and I am home.  Geofencing does not work correctly.  So I had the wife set the system to standby and when I arrived back in the zone the system detected my and set the system to standby even though it already was on standby.  They have thoroughly broken geofencing and now won't even respond to my update case emails.  I am just talking to myself and yet I am a paying customer for two homes.