Only recording videos of smart notification items

[kenzoc]

As of August 28th my cameras no longer capture any recordings for events which are not apart of my smart notification settings. As an example, my cameras used to always record my dogs in the backyard and properly tag them as animals without notifying me, now I have found these events are not being recorded and is impacting all my cameras as of August 28th. If I do turn on smart notifications for animals they are now again recording but of course sending me a push notification which I don't want.

I work in technology and can tell you this is a back end issue or firmware issue (before you tell me to reset or whatever garbage suggestion Arlo support has). 

The complete lack of QA on this product is insane, fix it. 

[JamesC]

The development team has completed a cloud release resolving the issues some users experienced with suppressed recordings from Smart Detection settings.

With this release, all recordings should be visible in the library/feed regardless of the selections made with Smart Detection toggles unless the event takes place outside of a user defined Activity Zone.

[JamesC]

After further investigation, the development team has identified the cause behind some users continuing to see missing video clips when smart notifications for specific events are toggled off. We will be releasing a cloud side fix later this week to address these concerns.

We appreciate your patience and feedback while we work to resolve these issues. I will provide another update once we have more information available to share

[JamesC]

I realize there is a lot of confusion in this thread due to the recent changes we rolled out. I apologize for all the frustration this has caused. Currently, we've rolled back the changes but we're continuing to investigate reports from users about a few unexpected behaviors they are still experiencing.

1.) Video clip deletion when smart toggles are turned off. This results in recordings not arriving in the library or feed when the smart classification toggle is turned off (for example, Vehicles are turned off, resulting in no notification or recording). This change was rolled back but some users are reporting they are still experiencing this behavior. The development team is actively investigating these reports. The intent after we rolled back the changes is for all event recording to be saved to the library/feed regardless of your Smart Alert and Smart Detection toggles (unless the motion is outside of a defined Activity Zone in which case it will be discarded as expected).

2.) When all motion or all other motion is turned on but smart notification toggles are turned off, clips for these events are arriving as expected in the library/feed but they don't have a classification label, whereas previously they would still have a vehicle label even if vehicle notifications was turned off for example.

3.) In the latest version of the Arlo app, there is confusing verbiage in the Smart Notifications toggle area that states recordings will be suppressed when the toggles are turned off. This is the change that was rolled back and this is being updated in a new version of the app that will be released soon.

The development team is working hard to revert these changes to the previous expected behaviors, I will provide more information as soon as I can.

JamesC

[Dogwatcher1]

We are having the exact same problem! Our cameras aren’t recording events unless we have smart notifications turned on. It’s incredibly annoying and we can’t find out how to fix it nor can we find anything from Arlo about this change. 

[StephenB]

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@chicane wrote:

Do you work for Arlo? 

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No, all Arlo employees who post here have Arlo badges.

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@chicane wrote:

Thanks @StephenB, you are spot on. I was filtering smart notifications (only one category enabled). 

How did you know this? 

Since when did this change? is this a camera firmware, app, or server/cloud side change?

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It clearly is a behavior change.  I am thinking it is probably intentional, since it seems unlikely to be a bug.

Based on reports here, it changed recently - late August.

[benmettler]

I have Arlo Secure and am using Smart Notifications on my many cameras. Literally overnight my cameras have stopped recording any motion that is not checked as receiving a smart notification.

For example, I have a camera that points at the street where my cars are usually parked. I have disabled vehicle notifications, but left on people, animals, etc... Looking at my recording library I can still see vehicle recordings as expected through 9/2, but then starting 9/3 it not longer records any vehicle motion. If I turn on vehicle smart notifications I start to get vehicle recordings in the library and as soon as I turn it off, I no longer get vehicle recordings again. 

I've checked filters, tried to restart just about everything I can think of and nothing seems to resolve the issue. Any help would be appreciated.

[StephenB]

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@benmettler wrote:

I have Arlo Secure and am using Smart Notifications on my many cameras. Literally overnight my cameras have stopped recording any motion that is not checked as receiving a smart notification.

For example, I have a camera that points at the street where my cars are usually parked. I have disabled vehicle notifications, but left on people, animals, etc... Looking at my recording library I can still see vehicle recordings as expected through 9/2, but then starting 9/3 it not longer records any vehicle motion. If I turn on vehicle smart notifications I start to get vehicle recordings in the library and as soon as I turn it off, I no longer get vehicle recordings again. 

I've checked filters, tried to restart just about everything I can think of and nothing seems to resolve the issue. Any help would be appreciated.

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There are other users reporting this, and I am thinking it is an intentional change in the behavior.

IMO, it is a bad idea.  I'm ok with adding the ability to block recordings based on classification, but I think that needs to be an option, and not hard-wired behavior.  

[StephenB]

Looking at my Arlo 5.0 app, I am seeing that smart notifications has been rebranded "Smart Detection", and now blocks recordings and notifications.  Looking at the camera rules, I am also seeing the ability to filter notifications by classification there.

The combination is a reasonable change, as there are folks who've been asking to block recordings based on classification.  Though I do think that smart detection should be configured in the camera settings, and not hidden in the location settings.

But unfortunately, the new behavior also appears to be affecting existing users, and they don't have any way to block notifications by category, and still get recordings.  

@JamesC - is this something Arlo is going to fix soon?

[dgoldg]

I have several 5S and Pro4 cameras, and right now they're not recording any motion that's not indicated as a Smart Notification. For example, if my dog goes outside and "Animal" is not set as a Smart Notification, it will not record him at all. And on other cameras, everything (people, vehicles, etc.) was identified as "Motion" and I received those alerts as "Motion" even though I had not set "People" and "Vehicles" as a Smart Notification.  I suspect this is a software bug that will be corrected.

Just wondering if anyone else had this issue pop up in the last few days. 

[Caccoop1]

Within the last week my Wired Video doorbell no longer works properly.  I noticed a week ago there was an update.  It is sporadic, sometimes recording everything and sometimes nothing.  I also have 4 other cameras connected to a base station which are doing the same thing, so feel it must be connected to the software update.  Is there someone that can help address this issue?  Has Arlo quit supporting older equipment?

[dgoldg]

I am having this issue as well. It's very frustrating to not have recordings even when you don't want smart notifications about them. 

[SouthernArlo]

I have smart hub base station VMB4540R2 that has 4 essential spotlight first Gen cameras and a Pro 3 hooked to it.  3 of the cameras face the street and I get thousands of recordings a day. From vehicles / motion / people / animals.   The app has been set to only notify me for people and animals as you could imagine….   Starting I think Sept 3rd at 12:01 am.  But Same as the original poster,  All the cameras will not record a video unless the smart notification for that camera has that type of motion alert turned on.   I have turned on all notification types for all cameras and they all will record video and upload to the cloud.  But .. then I’m getting many unwanted notifications.   I turned off the vehicle and all other motion option on all cameras except on 1 to troubleshoot.   That 1 camera will give a notification and record the video and upload to the cloud.  I’m guessing there was a software update.  Either on the cameras or the base station. Or on arlo smart.   I would love to find a solution !  

[Jeff-SJ]

I will confirm this is true for me as well.   Just started late on 9/3/2024.   Fortunately, smart notification for person (most important) is still working.   Recently, a few non-smart notifications for 'animal' have been slipping throug as smart noticifactions (annoying), and more animals being seen as 'person'.   I had one cat being seen as a vehicle a couple of weeks ago.  🙂

[steve_t]

Kinda seems easier to me to tap Settings > [Location] > Smart Detection and select the camera that you want to change the smart detection settings for. It would be longer to go Settings > [Location] > Devices > [Camera name] > Smart Detection. 
Or have I got that wrong as to how you suggest it be located in the app?

[dgoldg]

After an hour on chat with Arlo Support, this issue is being escalated. But if you're having this problem, please contact Arlo Support and start a case. They claimed no one else was having this issue, or that no one else has started a case for it. 

[Jeff-SJ]

One more point of note - I use a USB stick in the VMB for archiving and videos are appearing there for any motion detection.   I gather that like the email notifications, a change has been made due to massive uploading video traffic.  If this is the case, some sort of notice would be handy.

If this is the case it would be nice to be able to tell the app on my phone to show from my USB - dragging the USB over to my computer to wade through cryptic directory names is a non-starter.  🙂

Hopefully, this is all a glitch and will normalize soon.   'person' detection with the push through DND at any hour is ultimately important but being able to see what critters tore up my garden without the DND override and later review is still useful.

[StephenB]

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@steve_t wrote:

Kinda seems easier to me to tap Settings > [Location] > Smart Detection and select the camera that you want to change the smart detection settings for. It would be longer to go Settings > [Location] > Devices > [Camera name] > Smart Detection. 
Or have I got that wrong as to how you suggest it be located in the app?

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Now you have to tap

• profile->location->smart detection->camera

so 4 steps if you already know where it is.

I'd prefer

• device->camera->settings->smart detection

which is also 4 steps if you already know where it is.

But I think it's more intuitive to put in the camera settings.  Since these aren't changed all that often, people will forget where to look.  There are certainly people in the forum who couldn't find it, because it never occured to them to search the profile.

[PlatinumZJ]

I'm having a very similar issue. Ever since yesterday the Arlo will only record motion events resulting from a person, package, or animal. I found that it will record other motion and vehicles if I activate those under Smart Notifications. That's a problem for me because I don't need a notification every time a car rolls down the street, but I do like going into my library to see who's been driving by. 

[Somervre]

I spent literally 4 hours on phone with support yesterday and had to escalate to a supervisor because they couldn’t figure it out. They were even going to send me new cameras. I told them they were not listening!!  It’s a problem on the back end with their cloud or something app related. They said no one else complaining. I said they are going to for sure!  Weird thing was I removed the app completely and reinstalled and for a few hours all my missing videos that had been recording showed up. I only have Animal selected in my smart notifications because I don’t want to know about every person and car that passes by. Now on the phone again with them and arguing with them because they want to start all over and take time to review logs that I sent them over 8 hours ago. HORRIBLE SUPPORT!!

[kenzoc]

It's their tactic.. if no one ever gets through to raise an issue they don't have to fix it!

It is very clearly a back end issue, I can literally see the day I went from 30+ animal notifications to 0. 

Is ther anyway we can reference this thread instead of all of us having to go through the pain many of you have valiantly done by enduring Arlo support?

[AJ-J]

Not sure what has changed but over the last week my library is no longer recording all motion unless smart notifications are disabled. I updated to the latest iOS app from the AppStore but this hasn't helped.

Previously I only had notifications for people and packages, but people, packages, animals, vehicles and other motion were all being recorded which is how I liked it. I dont need notifications for my dogs running around every minute but I do want to be able to see saved footage in case anything happens to them. But now because only people and packages are enabled under smart notifications, they're the only two things being recorded.

If I disable smart notifications completely everything ends up being recorded to my feed like it was originally, but unfortunately I'm getting push notifications for every single event - particularly frustrating in our current windy weather when I'm getting an alert every 5 seconds for 'motion detected'. And of course my dogs running around.

Any idea how this has changed and how to get it back? I cant for the life of me figure it out.

[dgoldg]

I actually mentioned and sent the link to this thread (and two others) but they still wanted to have other people open cases. 

[Somervre]

After waiting 45 minutes on hold for a supervisor today I finally got one…and all he could tell me is that they are now going to escalate it to level 2 support. And they will call me back. At some point

[chris4242]

Same problem started for me the morning of 9/03

[angelahortega]

I am having a similar issue as of Tuesday, September 3, 2024

I was getting nothing saved to my library. I then got a people smart notification and that saved to the library. Arlo had me do a manual recording, and that saved. I then turned ON all of my smart notifications and its now saving all of those videos. Arlo needs to fix this. Without the smart notifications turned on I wont get anything recorded.

[AJ-J]

It looks like Arlo has since put a banner up at the top of their website, stating:

"Some customers in Australia and New Zealand regions may be experiencing problems with live streaming and motion recordings. We are working to resolve this issue, please see status.arlo.com for the latest information."

Given I'm in NZ I am assuming this is the cause of the problem. I guess I will have to wait it out.

[CaseyRyback]

So this happened to me today and it drove me crazy.  I thought my cameras or smart hub were broken with no  recording.  I have a few camera's smart notifications turned off except for animals due to the amount of human and vehicle traffic.  These camera serve as redundant to others so I don't necessarily  need the notifications but like to review later as needed.  I ended up factory resetting my smart hub and all my cameras to no avail. This took quite a bit of time getting the latter out in the California summer heat. I figured it out randomly maybe the issue was correlated with smart notifications as one camera did record. 

If this is an intentional implementation, many will believe their system is malfunctioning.  It is not easily apparent that the lack of recordings and detection is correlated with smart notifications.  I hope this is remedied to the way it formerly was and or a bulletin is released. 

[StephenB]

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@AJ-J wrote:

"Some customers in Australia and New Zealand regions may be experiencing problems with live streaming and motion recordings. We are working to resolve this issue, please see status.arlo.com for the latest information."

Given I'm in NZ I am assuming this is the cause of the problem. I guess I will have to wait it out.

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No.  Everyone is seeing this change in behavior, it is not regional.

There is a different issue in Australia and New Zealand, with some people not seeing new videos in their feed until the next day.