Video glitch example. Arlo pro 4 XL

[Jfurnari03]

Stop worrying about integrating AI, little more on focusing optimizations and glitches on maybe  almost 2 year old cameras. Yet you want to be paid the big bucks on yearly subscriptions.. your base backbone infrastructure better work perfectly.  

[Jfurnari03]

if you're an end user with similar issues.  Download your recordings, upload them up YouTube and attach your videos in your message.  And tag which camera you have in the related product line in this post here 

[StephenB]

Have you tried measuring the wifi upload speed at the camera location?  You can do this using the Ookla speedtest app on the phone (with mobile data turned off).

[Jfurnari03]

These are recordings that are stored in the cloud, the connection should be between the camera and the node that's hardwired into my router.    These camera's don't connect DIRECTLY to my wifi.. Just register's to the node itself

[StephenB]

---

@Jfurnari03 wrote:

These are recordings that are stored in the cloud, the connection should be between the camera and the node that's hardwired into my router.    These camera's don't connect DIRECTLY to my wifi.. Just register's to the node itself

---

If the smarthub is near the router, then the wifi signal from the smarthub should be about the same quality  as your router wifi.  You need at least 2 mbps upload speed for the Pro 4 (preferably more).

Also - if the smarthub is right next to the router, then the router signal might be overloading the RF circuitry in the base.  So try moving the smarthub as far from the router as the ethernet cord will reach.

[Jfurnari03]

i'd say this happens to 5% of my recordings.. all the rest are fine.   So if it was in-fact that it would happen to a way higher percentage than that.   They want more money for their subscriptions.. I'm going to be just as simply apply more pressure than simply ignoring it just on that fact.   But let's say my mother got attacked by that man at the front door.. how do I present that footage to the police if that was the case.  You get my point?

[StephenB]

---

@Jfurnari03 wrote:

They want more money for their subscriptions.. 

---

No doubt.  But there is no evidence that they are intentionally corrupting local recordings.

The causes are 

1. corrupted bitstream - generally due to loss
2. failure of compression hardware

5% of recordings suggests (1).

[Macahi]

This happens to my recordings, probably less than 3% of the time, and only on the one camera that does tend to have the most tenuous connection.  When it happens, it will happen for several recordings over a day or so.  Most of the recordings are fine, but I'll get some that look like the above.  After the day or so passes, everything is fine again.  It's likely an issue with temporary, intermittent signal interference between the camera the base unit or maybe temporary degradation of your wifi or internet connection.

[Jfurnari03]

Haha no doubt in my mind that they are intentionally doing anything to harm local or cloud recordings.  It's just optimizing it in a way where it slows down the download so it can process files correctly from the camera to the node.  Does the instructions state anything that the node needs to be a certain distance from the WiFi, that's if there is any documentation on that

Update: found it (https://www.arlo.com/content/dam/arlo/support/Ultra_User_Manual_en.pdf)

Minimum recommended distance. To reduce WiFi interference, place the
SmartHub 6 feet (1.8 meters) away from your WiFi router. Place your Arlo Ultra
cameras 10 feet (3 meters) away from the SmartHub, and allow at least 6½ feet (2
meters) between cameras.

[StephenB]

---

@Jfurnari03 wrote:

Haha no doubt in my mind that they are intentionally doing anything to harm local or cloud recordings.  It's just optimizing it in a way where it slows down the download so it can process files correctly from the camera to the node.  Does the instructions state anything that the node needs to be a certain distance from the WiFi, that's if there is any documentation on that

---

It's called a "smarthub", not a "node".  It's using closed wifi, so the range is the same as a normal WiFi router's.  Which is why I suggested testing the connection speed using your phone.

Arlo does provide this information:

• https://kb.arlo.com/5568/How-to-extend-the-Wi-Fi-range-of-an-Arlo-camera-if-it-is-out-of-range-or-ha...

But the 300 feet in that article is clearly a maximum, not a guarantee.  And as I mentioned above, wifi interference is a possibility. 

 If a packet doesn't reach the smarthub from the camera, then it needs to be retransmitted.  When there is burst of loss (which sometimes happens), then the transmission queue in the camera can become full (requiring packets in the queue to be dropped).  That is one scenario for loss.

The smarthub can handle up to 5 streams simultaneously.  If you are staying below that, then the smarthub should be able to keep up.  If the storage is failing, then you'd have a similar scenario where the queue for disk writes in the smarthub becomes full because the storage isn't keeping up.  

Note that a subscription doesn't really change this.  The camera is still streaming video to the smarthub, which will forward that stream to the Arlo Cloud and simultaneously save it to local storage.  If the smarthub doesn't get all the video from the camera (for whatever reason) then the Arlo Cloud video is also corrupted.