Introducing Arlo Smart - FAQ & Resources

[AngeloM]

Introducing Arlo Smart. Intelligence for your Arlo. Extra peace of mind for you. Arlo Smart adds intelligence to your Arlo cameras to give you a more personal and purposeful home security experience.

Want to learn more about Arlo Smart? Below you can find all the resources you'll need to know about Arlo Smart and how to set it up on your Arlo Security System. Check out these YouTube videos below:

Meet Arlo Smart:

Reduce Unwanted Notifications on Arlo Smart:

Enhanced Lock Screen Notifications on Arlo Smart:

Respond to Emergencies Quickly with e911 | Arlo Smart:

If you would like to read on how to setup Arlo Smart on your Arlo Security System, and some other helpful resources, check out these articles below:

• How do I set up Arlo Smart?
• What is Arlo Smart and how can I benefit from it?
• What key features are available with Arlo Smart?
• How does the Arlo Smart person detection feature work?
• What is the Arlo Smart rich notification feature?
• What is the Arlo Smart cloud activity zone feature?
• What is the Arlo Smart e911 feature and how does it work?
• I’m not receiving notifications now that I have Arlo Smart; what do I do?
• How do I set up the Arlo Smart cloud activity zones?
• How do I set up the Arlo Smart e911 feature?
• How do I enable the Arlo Smart person detection feature?
• What are the available Arlo subscription plans and how much cloud storage is available?

If you have any questions about Arlo Smart, post down below and we'll get to you as soon as we can. If you need any more help on Arlo Smart or your Arlo Security System, visit Arlo Support for more information.

Check out Arlo Smart today with a 1-month free trial.

Thank you for being part of the Arlo family!

[treebuilder]

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@Digital247 wrote:

Im also having this same issue. This was a big selling point and doesnt work as advertised. if this doesnt get fixed i will not be subscribing.

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Agreed.  I'm willing to give them the trial period, but if the notification issue isn't fixed before it expires, I will be cancelling and will not be subscribing until it's fixed.  My front camera gets way too much motion, and zones aren't an adequate solution for that particular camera.  Person-only alerts would be perfect, but it's not working that way now, and I spend too much time during the day dealing with emails and push notifications from Arlo.

[buckfam]

I'm very disappointed that Arlo is not provding the smart features for free. The cameras weren't exactly the cheapest but I was intrigued by the free web service. Now that I see Arlo is going to charge for basic stuff like people detection and home screen notifications, I won't be recommending them to friends and family anymore and will seek other solutions. 

[alex1ecu]

Arlo Smart should be included when you buy any Arlo cameras. I spent $470 on my set of arlo 2 pro and it doesn't even include smart features. Kind of disappointed 😥

[FlCottage]

I went and bought 2 more Arlo Pro Cameras when Arlo Smart was available.  I have 10 Arlo Pro and 1 Arlo Pro2 cameras.  I thought that having the ability to set the activity zones would help to cut down climbing up ladders and changing batteries...does not work properly.  It is actualy recording motion outside the zones. The person feature sometimes works.  However, I keep getting an alert that a person may have been detected and it is the same tall tree branch that I keep telling the "Smart" feature that it is NOT a person. There is an Acorn decoration on a wall outside my house that the "Smart" feature must think it is a person's head. I keep telling smart that it is NOT a person. That part is amuzing but what is frustrating is that I purchased additional cameras since the subscribtion now allows more than 5 cameras and I thought I could finally get the two cameras in front of my house that I wish to monitor my car and walkway on a busy street and it is worse than it has every been and the activity zone settings either don't work at all or drain the battery daily while picking up motion outside of the activity zones.  In addition, I set the activity zones on my IOS and they appear different on "My Arlo" on my PC.  Setting the activity zones really needs to be improved as you can only alter via 4 corners.  I don't think there should be a charge at this point since "Arlo Smart" seems to need have much learning to do before it can be called "Smart"  This is my opinion since I have not had much luck with the trial.

[ATX_76]

Completely agree that Arlo Smart basic features should be free. I believe some of their main competitors don't charge for the basic person detection, as an example. Instead I have the annoyance of receiving a motion alert every time my plant leaves blow. I don't care about plants, I care about people approaching my door. Should be included with the basic service.

[treebuilder]

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I've had the same problem with the flag on my front porch.  Though after many, many instances of me having to tell it it's not a person, it's finally starting to learn that it shouldn't be alerting on it all the time.

I am still getting motion alerts from it, though, even though I've got my settings set so that I'm only supposed to be getting person alerts.

@FlCottage wrote:

I keep getting an alert that a person may have been detected and it is the same tall tree branch that I keep telling the "Smart" feature that it is NOT a person. There is an Acorn decoration on a wall outside my house that the "Smart" feature must think it is a person's head. I keep telling smart that it is NOT a person.

[ejf]

I had an arlo pro (base station and 2 arlo pro cameras) and needed another camera so I purchased the arlo pro 2 after finding out it would work with the same base station.

I decided to try Arlo Smart and it worked well (minus a couple of issues) but my biggest issue is that only the Arlo Pro 2 camera provides person detection. The Arlo Pros do not.

Is only the Arlo Pro 2 supposed to be used with Arlo Smart or is something wrong with my setup (i.e. mixed-cameras not allowed or utilizing my own external usb drive connected to the base station or ???)?

[jguerdat]

Maybe I'm missing something but I see the ability to set up Smart zones/settings on all my cameras, Pro 2 on down to the originals wireless cameras.

[ejf]

Sorry @jguerdat ,  let me clarify.

My Arlo Pros (not pro 2) also have activity zones set up and I see they are subscribed to Arlo Smart.  All cameras are set up to "notify me of people." However, I only ever get push notification alerts about a detected person from the Pro 2.

[jguerdat]

Maybe a dumb question but are push notifications enabled in your rules for the Pro 1 cameras?

[ejf]

yes, @jguerdat

push notifications on.  when I contacted support through chat, they had me run through turning off push notifications then turning them on again, rebooting base station, uninstalling app then reinstalling app, etc.  No dice.

FYI, the library shows the Pro 1s captured video with "Person" next to the videos. So it looks like they are detecting persons but no push notifications about them. 

[jguerdat]

Try removing and resyncing one Pro camera to see if that helps.

[johnboy83]

Hi Guys, 

Is there a timeline on when this feature is going to be available in Australia? 

Also is there a way to get this now, e.g. the only thing I can see that is region specific is the call 911 function. I am happy for that to stay as long as I can get smart notifications and cloud activity zones. 

Keep up the great work.

[ryanking]

So i tried out the smart, cool idea but not ready for primetime.  My subscription is now back to basic, however now that the system has my credit card information, i cannot get it to remove.  Please provide me with the abiltiy to remove my credit card information as Arlo no longer has any reason to have this information!

[FlCottage]

I am still having trouble with setting the motion zones.  Firstly, there should be a better way to set them - 4 corners does not cut it.  Secondly, Arlo Smart is not getting any smarter. The acorn in front of a wall on my house keeps fooling Arlo Smart.  I keep telling Arlo Smart that it is other, but I have to admit, it does look like the back of a person's head....

[CPaquette]

Same here, I can't believe this is considered an upgraded service instead of a fix to an issue with too many notifications. Aren't other people entering your property the main point of using a security camera? I can't believe I've wasted so much money trying to buy into a security camera system that notifies me 200+ times a day because the wind blew and a flower shadow moved into the image area. Thoroughly disappointed Arlo doesn't consider their customer their biggest stakeholder - if they did this would be a fix, not a paid upgrade to service!

[ralfyguy1]

Notifications are hit and miss ever since I upgraded to Arlo Smart. No matter what the settings are and how many times I reboot the system, Notifications are apparently only sent when Arlo feels like it and whether it feels like sending just popups on the phone screen without sound and vibration, popups, sound and vibration together or any other combination thereof without even touching any settings during the course of 24 hours. You can make a funny little lottery game out of it, like if a car goes by, if and what kind of notification you're gonna get. 

The best way to stay on top of it is to simply just ignore the phone, stay ay home and keep the computer screen on with the Arlo Device Page pulled up and monitor it constantly. Saves money on a TV provider too, because you don't get to watch anything anyways.

[Glix]

Australian Users...

TRADE PRACTICES ACT 1974 No. 51, 1974 - SECT 52. 52. (1) A corporation shall not, in trade or commerce, engage in conduct that is misleading or deceptive. (2) Nothing in the succeeding provisions of this Division shall be taken as limiting by implication the generality of sub-section (1).

Is Arlo “smart’ and “people detection” a violation of the Australia trade practices act? It does not work.

https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2004A00109