New annual plans do not all include 4k

[Wickedly]

I was sent an email in January discussing the price increase along with introduction of annual plans. 

they stated in the email and on the website that all plans will now be 4k. 

except now on the website with the new annual plans available they do not all include 4k. 

From the email:

Universal 4K Support

All of our plans now support 4K high resolution cloud recording. Users with Ultra or Ultra 2 can step down a plan and pay less for an equivalent service.

Are you going to support 4k on all plans as you promised?

[Dipper]

Hello:

I noticed the same thing one going to my account on the website.   I wanted to change my Secure Plus plan to the Secure Plan Yearly subscription for $119.88.   In the plan comparison under my account where you would go to make the plan change, the Secure Plan states 2K resolution.   But if you look at Arlo's website under plans they all say 4K resolution.  Even the link that they sent us back in the beginning of the year says all plans would be 4K (in US). 

So, before making the plan change yesterday, I corresponded on line with an agent and explained the same thing.  Even sent them a screen capture on the information I was seeing under my account.  They agreed that it did say 2K, but assured me it would be 4K as they stated it was an error.  They stated that they even spoke to "someone" else and said it was an error.  

So, I asked them to send me an email follow up from chat stating that I would receive 4K resolution on the Secure plan for $119.88 a year before I went ahead an made the plan change.    I received the email and them made the plan change.   Well.... woke up this morning and saw recordings after the plan change and they are all stamped with a 2K resolution marker.  All my previous recording are stamped with a 4K resolution marker.   

To make things even more confusing, I was curious so I went back under my account to check the plans again and now they all have the 4K resolution removed.

Arlo, what's going on?

[Wickedly]

Thank you for the reply and sharing your experience. Same here for me. Support promised it was going to be 4k. 

im glad I didn’t pull the trigger yet and sorry for your experience. Please update when you hear more. 

[tmaninga]

Yep, still the case Feb 4.  Holding off on purchasing my annual plan until the fix it.  Something inside me just doesn't trust it otherwise.

[Wickedly]

I just contacted support and they say it’s 4k but if I upgrade and it goes to 2k they will refund me. 

they missed the point. I don’t want to go through all that trouble. I want confirmation that my service will not get degraded but they couldn’t. 

[detroitlions]

I purchased the Ultra 2 over two years ago and refused to pay Arlo's ransom for the 4K subscription service when the Arlo Secure was all I wanted but my cameras would only record in 2K because of it.  I was shocked to see they finally came to their senses and upgraded the Arlo Secure to 4K.  I was just about to sign up and saw this thread.  Now I'll hold off until this is resolved.  For $120 / year I will subscribe IF and only IF my recordings are in 4K.  Otherwise I will keep with the 4K local recordings and deal with the shortcomings.

[detroitlions]

Arlo - which is it???  Your website clearly states:

* Above prices and 4K video resolution across all tiers will be in effect starting Feb 3rd 2023. 

When I go to the subscribe page,

Arlo Secure Multi-Camera

Unlimited Cameras

• Up to 2K video recording with 30 days of video history
• 10% discount on products at Arlo.com
• Loses e911 Emergency Call Service

It better be the former or Arlo will not be getting a penny of my money.

[Dipper]

So, after spending 2 hours on a simultaneous call and chat session with several different people at Arlo, they all agreed that I should be getting 4K recording with the annual Secure plan for $119.88 but would have to escalate the issue to figure out how to fix it.    

The latest response has been to cancel the subscription, they will then credit me back the pro-rated difference and then I should repurchase the plan.   But, it still says under my membership that the plan includes 2K recording.  So, I suspect the same thing will happen again.   By the way… when I did switch to the Secure plan it also downgraded my local streaming from 4K to 2K.  

I am at a loss to understand how they screwed up this new plan role out and why it is so difficult to get a straight answer on fixing it.

[Dipper]

Thinking out loud here.   I’m wondering if I am actually getting 4k cloud recording and local streaming.  It’s just that the stamps on the recordings and streaming for each camera just say 2k.  

I say this because after going back and evaluating previous 4k recordings and my local streams the resolution appears to be the same prior to my plan change.   

It does also state in a separate Arlo article for the plans that 2k for the secure plan is maximum for other countries but 4k is available in US.  So maybe this is more of a marketing labeling issue.   But I get that that it should be consistent in writing across all marketing material and subscriptions.

[detroitlions]

Thanks for confirming.  If your recordings are in the 3840X2160 format, I would also agree they simply need to update the 2K stamp to 4K.  I've had multiple versions of Arlo cameras going back over nine years.  If there is one constant throughout all those years, I have never had one good experience with their customer service.  This forum is exponentially better and any issues I've had have always been resolved here.  I am going to take the plunge and upgrade to Arlo Secure and my format better be in 4K or else 🙂

[detroitlions]

My father-in-law has had the 4K plan for two years and he just changed from the Arlo Secure Plus monthly plan to the Arlo Secure annual one.  We checked one of the cameras before which was in the 4K format.  Five minutes after switching to Arlo Secure we did a five second manual record to check.  I can confirm the format is 1920X1072 and not 3840X2160!  FYI for anyone reading this thread thinking of making the switch.  HOLD OFF until Arlo can figure this mess out.

[ScottR32]

Here’s a screenshot of the conversation I just had with Arlo Support, shared with the kind agent’s permission. In essence, Arlo is saying the info they provided us with to make a purchasing decision was incorrect. It will be interesting to see if they do what’s right or continue on as they always have.

 

 

[detroitlions]

It looks like the forum blocked your conversation with them.  We just had one as well and after getting transferred multiple times they said the cameras were not getting a good enough signal.  We did our best to keep our laughter inside.  They said, "the 4K is only allowed for Arlo Secure Plus, on the updated plan, even the Arlo Secure unlimited, it should record to 4K."  They said they will escalate it but if I am a betting man they will not do what is right even though the subscription for the Arlo Secure annual clearly said 4K when the switch was made to Arlo Secure.  Now the plan says videos up to 2K so we all will need to wait and see how this pans out.  Any reputable company would simply upgrade the customer to the Secure Plus and refund the difference if they cannot resolve this mess they squarely created.

[ScottR32]

Looks like my screenshots were blocked. Here’s the copy/paste version of the transcript.

AGENT (Arlo Support): Hi, Scott. Thank you for waiting. 
AGENT (Arlo Support): I see here that your Ultra cameras can't live stream on 4K quality. Let me check my resources to furtherly assist you. 

USER: Thank you, Dan. 

AGENT (Arlo Support): You're welcome. 
AGENT (Arlo Support): I can also see that yes, you have purchased the annual plan. I'm afraid to say that you purchased the wrong one. 
AGENT (Arlo Support): You have the Arlo Secure Multi-Camera. But, the subscription should be Arlo Secure Plus Multi-Camera to have the cameras streaming on 4K quality. 

USER: csat_shown message 

AGENT (Arlo Support): Hi Scott, are we still connected? I am still here to give you assistance regarding your concern. Hopefully, you can still respond to this conversation. 

USER: The new plans and pricing rolled out on Feb 3 and 4K is included in the $9.99/mo Arlo Secure (non Plus) plan.  
USER: Are we still connected, Dan? 

AGENT (Arlo Support): Yes. 
AGENT (Arlo Support): I'm sorry about the confusion with the update. 
AGENT (Arlo Support): It should still be the Arlo Secure Plus Multi-Camera. 

USER: I have a screenshot of the package I purchased and it clearly states “up to 4K video recording resolution” 

AGENT (Arlo Support): I do understand the point. 
AGENT (Arlo Support): However, there might be some confusion with the new update. 

USER: Arlo’s marketing and rate sheet materials are very straight forward. Where is the potential confusion at? 

AGENT (Arlo Support): This is something that we need to clarify on our end. 
AGENT (Arlo Support): I will leave our case open and will give you an update once this has been cleared out. 

[StephenB]

---

@Wickedly wrote:

Universal 4K Support

All of our plans now support 4K high resolution cloud recording. Users with Ultra or Ultra 2 can step down a plan and pay less for an equivalent service.

---

Turns out 4K with Secure is only for the US. Other geographies require Secure Plus.

• https://kb.arlo.com/88/What-are-the-available-Arlo-subscription-plans-and-how-much-cloud-recording-i...

Needlessly confusing IMO.

[osiks5]

Just adding on here, this morning I switched to the Annual Arlo Secure Multi-camera plan and I still have 2K recording with my Ultra 2's.

It's not just the timestamp either, I downloaded and played back some video in VLC player and it reported the resolution at 2560x1440.

I guess we need to hope they sort this out and upgrade the plan to 4K here soon...

[Dipper]

After another call today with Arlo tech support and them having me again go through all my settings.  They, have "apparently" admitted that it is a "known" glitch in their system.

The agent said that they will be issuing an app update to "fix" the glitch.   When and if this occurs who knows and if it does whether it will fix the issue.

You'd think that they would've fully tested and vetted the rollout of their new plans to prevent such issues.   Besides that the complete waste of time before they admit that it's an issue on their end.

[JamesC]

I've escalated the details of this discussion and will provide a status update as soon as I have more information available to share.

JamesC

[tjptony]

They never changed the logic/coding on the website to reflect the new 4k recording on the Secure subscription. I called support prior to changing as you did, they said it would be fine even though I was changing from the Secure Plus plan.  Well it prompted me that I would loose 4k, and I did.  I guess they never tested this before going live!  No idea when they are going to either change the app to fix this or fix my subscription.  

[StephenB]

---

@tjptony wrote:

 No idea when they are going to either change the app to fix this or fix my subscription.  

---

This should be a back-end (Cloud) change, so I don't think they'll need to do anything in the app. 

[tjptony]

Same issue for me.  I just changed subscription’s yesterday.  I have a memory card in the base station and it’s 2k local recording.  The web subscription page still says 2k.  Is it that difficult to change a website to say 4k, and then rip out 4k from everyone?  Wow, what a mess. 

[tjptony]

They obviously did not test this.  Or if they did test in a QA environment and it worked, they did not make the change in the production environment. Why in the world does this need an app update. It has to do with the subscription and what features you get.  They should give everyone with this upgrade problem free Secure Plus for the year since they caused this issue.  

[BobNnancy]

Same issue here. Spoke with agent prior to making the switch, they told me it was a “visual glitch” that it was saying it’d go down to 2k. Made the switch and sure enough I lost my 4k. What is the deal Arlo? What’s the remedy to this? I’ll be reaching back out to support tomorrow now! 

[JanisGeek]

I have a question about the new Arlo Secure packages & prices. I used to subscribe to the $14.99 pkg, but canceled because price recently went up to $17.99 for the same pkg. I heard that the old $9.99 pkg was going up to $12.99/mo, but instead of only having 2K recordings, it would have up to 4K recordings. I went to resubscribe to Arlo Secure, but this time to the $12.99/mo pkg, since it now has option to have 4K recordings. I go to Arlo on the web, but when sign into my account & I go to subscribe to the $12.99/mo plan, it says it only has up to 2K recordings, and doesn’t mention it going up to 4K recordings! I had received an email from Arlo that it would now include the 4K recordings! I have Arlo Ultras & want 4K recordings! When I go to Arlo on the web & check Arlo Secure plan pricing, it correctly shows the $12.99/mo plan as going up to 4K recordings. However, when I sign into my account there, it says the $12.99/mo plans only go up to 2K recordings. So there is conflicting info when I sign into my account on the web vs when I don’t sign into my account on the web. I am confused as to why there is conflicting info on that Arlo Secure plan?? Does anyone know??

[PGalore]

Wish arlo also offered 4k across all tiers outside the US.   It's blatant discrimination