Animal detection still triggers siren rendering system unusable if you have a pet

[RachelA]

Hi  I also upgraded to the paid subscription, believing that animal detection would enable me to have my arlo system on without triggering the siren from our indoor cat nor our outdoor dog. 



As a buyer interpreting the marketing language on animal detection, and  using the UI when configuring the feature, there is zero indication that once configured,  the alarm still triggers. 



Disappointing  experience, Arlo. I bought a monthly sub for this feature but its primary selling point is not operational. 



Install Arlo. Lose your investment entirely by..having a cat. Am cancelling subscription today. 



Let me know when the outstanding scope of the feature is actually delivered.

[ShayneS]

Hi @RachelA

What troubleshooting steps have you tried so far? I do not want to suggest anything you may have previously performed.

  Have you tried contacting customer support regarding this issue? I have attached the link here for you - Arlo Tech Support

[RachelA]

Hi Shane,

I've set the mode settings by camera, to not trigger when an animal is detected.  I've reset the system and retested.  I've cleared the settings on all, then reconfigured and retested.  Note: I am a software analyst tester.  

I then searched the Arlo Community, finding posts from other Users describing exactly the same behaviour.  Once I viewed a post that had been marked by the responder as an Idea, as a software analyst I interpreted that to mean that the behaviour is as designed i.e. the Arlo system's animal detection feature allows users to control whether Alerts are received or not AND it does NOT control whether the Siren is triggered.

Are you saying that the animal detection feature's expected behaviour is that it should enable users to deactivate BOTH the Siren AND ALSO the Alerts? i.e. the feature is present in the Arlo Pro 2 system with Animal Detection?

[ShayneS]

Hi @RachelA

I would suggest contacting customer support so they can provide more information regarding this. I will attach the link here for you: Arlo Tech Support

[RachelA]

Hi Shane, 

This is good news.  I will contact Tech Support to assist me in diagnosing why the Alerts are successfully not triggering but the siren still is triggering.  i.e. therefore the configuration / setup is correct, so it appears this is a system fault.

[Locutus73]

@ShayneS @RachelA I might be wrong, but it's my understanding that the siren is triggered by the PIR and it's totally unrelated to smart notifications; let me explain:

The PIR senses motion -> you can start a recording and/or set off the siren -> the video is sent to the cloud and analyzed by AI -> you get a notification only if the AI detects a person or a car or whatever you enabled.

The siren comes before the AI analyzing the videos. Same for the HomeKit sensors: they are PIR related, not Smart plan/AI related.

I obtained what you want using some external integrations: my Arlo system sends email notifications both to my email and to a dedicated email which is countinuosly read by a linux process which sets off a virtual HomeKit sensor if a specific text (i.e. "detected an unknown person on your Arlo...") is in the email... then I have HomeKit automations for setting my sirens off (including Arlo's one) .

Regards.

[RachelA]

Locutus73, you have nailed the explanation.

@ShayneS , see the step by step sequence of events explained by @Locutus73 .  Could you kindly communicate back to Arlo R&D that the current behaviour still triggers the siren despite activating animal detection on Smart feature to ignore animals, therefore the customer experience is that the system is unusable if you have a pet at home and want to have a security alarm.

I'll be cancelling my subscription until this feature is available.  There's actually no point in having the Arlo system for me now.

Locutus73 I love your workaround, but its a little too much for me to bother with personally.  Thanks for the comment and the assist.  Much appreciated.

[ShayneS]

Hi @RachelA 

  Have you tried contacting customer support regarding this issue? I have attached the link here for you - Arlo Tech Support

[Locutus73]

@ShayneS I don’t think this is an issue for the support team. That’s the (not useful) intended behavior... AFAIK smart notifications are for applying AI to notifications and nothing else as the name suggests.

Maybe R&D could be contacted for suggesting a new feature: applying AI to Arlo automation and to HomeKit sensor (as I did with third party software).

[StephenB]

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@Locutus73 wrote:

@ShayneS I don’t think this is an issue for the support team. That’s the (not useful) intended behavior... AFAIK smart notifications are for applying AI to notifications and nothing else as the name suggests.

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Even if that is the case (which certainly could be the case),  it might be worth contacting them, as R&D does pay attention to what support is telling them.

Plus maybe post an idea in the idea exchange.

[RachelA]

Thankyou both.  At least there is an explanation for why it still triggers the siren.  Which is actually quite a disappointing feature and from my perspective, whats the point of having an arlo system if you can't use the siren.

I'll contact tech support.

[RachelA]

Well, I've used the link you posted @ShayneS .  However, after trying for over an hour and a half to write an explanation in the Drop us a Note subsection, the section keeps suddenly disappearing from my screen and I have to start over.

I give up.  don't have time to spend this long trying to log the issue.  So frustrated.

[millerchip]

Hi @Locutus73 , thanks for your detailed explanation. Can I ask, do you know what the delay is between the PIR sensing motion, and the notification arriving? I could in theory be up for rolling my own solution, but not if they delay is so long as to render it ineffective against potential burglars.

Also, have you made your home-grown integration available anywhere online, eg, Github?

@ShayneS , some feedback for  your product managers -- I don't yet own an Arlo, and without this capability I won't be buying one. Hopefully if enough people in your target market also flag this is a showstopper, they might add this to their roadmap.

[ryanr16]

Agreed! Made it sound like I could prevent animals from triggering siren. Just notifications. Notifications are nice, but siren is way more important.

[ryanhiggins86]

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@Locutus73 wrote:

@ShayneS @RachelA I might be wrong, but it's my understanding that the siren is triggered by the PIR and it's totally unrelated to smart notifications; let me explain:

The PIR senses motion -> you can start a recording and/or set off the siren -> the video is sent to the cloud and analyzed by AI -> you get a notification only if the AI detects a person or a car or whatever you enabled.

The siren comes before the AI analyzing the videos. Same for the HomeKit sensors: they are PIR related, not Smart plan/AI related.

I obtained what you want using some external integrations: my Arlo system sends email notifications both to my email and to a dedicated email which is countinuosly read by a linux process which sets off a virtual HomeKit sensor if a specific text (i.e. "detected an unknown person on your Arlo...") is in the email... then I have HomeKit automations for setting my sirens off (including Arlo's one) .

Regards.

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This is a great explanation as to how the siren with the Object Detection feature currently works, but doesn't explain why it works in this broken manner. There shouldn't be any reason why the siren cant be treated just like a push/email notification, and come after the video has been analyzed instead of immediately being sent to the siren. Surely they can modify how the siren/base station/object detection all interact - if I can set off the siren from my phone remotely over the internet, they can surely do the same (or not in this case). It is obvious that this was just overlooked by Arlo staff. If a user didn't want to get a notification on their phone from an animal/person/car detection, why would they then be ok with a loud siren going off. They should of at least made it clear of this flaw, especially for a camera system that already costs so much with an additional paid monthly service.