New Smart Plan Subscription Pricing 12/13/19

[CaliArloUser]

Over the last two weeks I have bought eight more Pro2 cameras, another VMB400 base station and a WMB4050 base to add to my existing five camera Pro2/VMB 4000 system at a cost of $1,200. It was my intention to eventually expand this even further to 20 Pro2 cams. Went to subscribe to the $14.99/mo Elite plan today, 12/13/19, only to find a shocking price increase/camera limit decrease in the subscription plans was also announced today. It is my understanding that  anyone who already had an existing Premier or Elite plan will not be effected by this change and their plan costs/cam count will remain the same and if I had signed up yesterday (guess I should have but I was busy spending $1,200 on more Arlo gear) I also would be able to have up to 20 Pro2 cams for $14.99 a month. Does Arlo think customers like me who spent $1,200 on more hardware immediately before this subscription plan change are now going to also pay $390 a year for 20 Pro2 cams while other customers only have to pay $180 a year for the same exact service? I don't need or want 2 or 4k video, I only need Pro2 1080p cameras. Why wasn't a separate plan for those of us who only have, and will only ever have, Pro2 1080p cams introduced? Why does Arlo think it's ok to now charge some customers more than twice the amount of money for the same exact service others are getting? Why couldn't the $9.99/10 cam & $14.99/20 cam subscriptions have remained the same but been modified for 1080p cameras only and separate subscription plans for 2K and 4K cams been added. Before I even had the chance to get a plan and hook up these new cams/bases I now have to pay more than 2x as much as others for the same 20 camera Pro2  subscription service? This is not right nor fair at all to those of us wanting to simply add more Pro2 cameras, what is Arlo thinking with this extreme egregious pricing change?? Why would I want to keep the $1,200 in product I just bought on top of the $600 I had previously spent only to now have to additionally spend over 2x as much as others for a subscription plan that offers me absolutely nothing more for my money? Can anyone  from Arlo please explain this to me or tell me why I wouldn't want to return everything I just bought? I was a happy Arlo customer but to say I am now an extremely unhappy Arlo customer would be putting it mildly.

[Boot879]

Yeah. I don’t post here often. This forum seems to be more of a “help yourselves by helping each other” kind of place. I’ve seen some “canned responses” from Arlo pop up... but it’s clear they aren’t prepared to actually go through these forums and answer questions. The original Arlo cameras and the Arlo Q cameras had an issue which caused the video to be pink. Arlo never addressed the problem (a hardware flaw) and users like me who went looking for answers didn’t get help. Some people got replacements if it happened within the warranty period.. but most people didn’t get anything. The warranty replacements were a joke anyway... they eventually break as well since the problem was a design flaw from the start.
The recent change in the plan pricing has many of us throwing our hands up. It’s very “bait and switch”. I recommended Arlo over Nest and Ring because of the plan pricing. Now I recommend Eufy Cameras and tell people to avoid Arlo.

[Mavrrick]

Honestly at this point i wouldn't do the Arlo Pro 2 bundle for free storage. I would get the smallest pro 3 bundle and add pro 2 cameras. Then just use local storage. You get allot more then the 7 days they give free and can access it anywhere.

I have a two camera pro 2 bundle from arlo and upgraded rhe base station to the pro 3 version. It is a great oprtion to reduce costs. Now it also links to the video doorbell so that is retained to. Right now my setup is 3 arlo q cameras, 2 Pro 2 camera, the video doorbell, and a Pro 3. All seem to work well and all but the Arlo Q cameras write to the base station. The Pro 3 base station has a 500 GB drive attached to it. I had a 8gb drive attached and it seemed to give me about a month of recording.

You are right in that the Arlo Q's have a issue with some of the filters. I think i saw it was because they are mechanical and unfortunately are prone to failure. I have been lucky so far, but will just replace them with Pro 2's or 3's when they break. I am well out of my warranty period on all 3 at this point.

[BBFR]

Doesnt help if your 15 cameras are at 3 locations. Yes you can have 3 accounts with 3 separate logins which is weak

[StephenB]

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@BBFR wrote:
 Yes you can have 3 accounts with 3 separate logins which is weak

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Grant access gives you the ability to see all 15 cameras from the same account (with most of the administrative controls).  So it's not that "weak".

[BBFR]

No, with my situation wanting to keep the 7 day free cloud you need a separate account for each 5 cameras.
Without any plan its 5 cameras per 1 email account login

[StephenB]

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@BBFR wrote:
 you need a separate account for each 5 cameras.

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Yes. 

BUT you can then use grant access to allow one of your accounts to access the cameras from all the other accounts.  https://kb.arlo.com/000039122/How-do-I-add-friends-to-my-Arlo-account

In fact, you can set up each of the accounts with access to all the cameras in the other accounts.

[Mavrrick]

Thought it would cost a bit. If you got 3 VMB4540 base stations you could have them all on one account and have months of recording for free on one account and access it from anywhere. Not just 7 days

[StephenB]

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@Mavrrick wrote:
 If you got 3 VMB4540 base stations you could have them all on one account and have months of recording for free on one account and access it from anywhere. Not just 7 days

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Yes.  Pretty expensive work around though.  I haven't seen a stand-alone VMB4540 for sale.  Three VMB5000s would cost $450 USD on Amazon.

[Mavrrick]

You can get the VMB 4540 from Arlo directly for 99 each. So 300 and i agree it isn't a cheap option.

[BBFR]

I did as you suggested for my spouse's login. Worked fine but myself as the administrator I am still logging into 3 accounts. If I create a new email address is it possible grant access to the new email address that I could use to give myself access to all 15 cameras with 1 login?
I did like the smart features of the premier plan but not going to pay raised pricing.
It's to bad a third party software developer couldnt come up with a competitive solution. It's not that people arent willing to pay for services but their new price structure and plans cost almost everyone a significant amount of more money.
Thanks

[BBFR]

This is a solid solution. I would be willing to dive in but my greatest fear is Arlo would change something with firmware or policies if a significant number of users went in this direction.
Thanks

[Phobin]

All

If we were frustrated with the pricing update from 19 Dec ... the newest pricing update will really update many of us.

I have been operating an original Arlo for 4 or 5 years for a vacation home and an Arlo Pro for our main home. I am not rich and the storage plan (Dec 19) was no non starter for us. I 'decommissioned' the original Arlo and replaced it with a Blink  XT2 package.

I wanted to provide some feed back on the Blink XT2 system. I would be interested in others experiences with other packages. I think its quite obvious that Arlo is in deep trouble and its time to bail.

Overall comments of the Blink XT2 system:
Set up and install:

The network base and set up was easier than my two Arlos. Love the smaller footprint of the 'base' station. I will cover the software later. The units were also very easy to set up but the camera units did appear to be slightly inferior to the Arlos. The arlos seem to hid better in plan sight. The mounting systems of the Arlo are superior as well. I was concerned that I was going to break the Blinks mounts.

I should point out that my Arlo system has survived two hurricanes with winds over 90 mph. I had one camera (original Arlo) get wet inside the battery compartment. After removing the bad CR123 batteries, letting the unit dry and cleaning the terminals ... it worked fine.

Video quality. I don't have the latest Arlos .. so to be fair I have the Arlo Pro which is rather old not but ... I found the Blinks to have a wider field of view but also tend to be distorted at the edges of the video.

Software: Blink's software is excellent. The camera software breaks the video image into a grid. One can individually 'mute' any of the grid 'squares'. This really reduces the number of false positive recordings.

Another strength is the response time from getting an alert to actually opening the software to view the activity. My Arlo's and software seem to take sometime to load up the image. Blink's software is .. on average .. faster ...

Overall, I truly loved my Arlo. They just keep bungling the cloud fees and their notifications are less than desirable. Did anyone get a notice that their Arlo were going to stop working in the middle of a pandemic and civil strife? No ... just one day I noticed all my notifications stopped. Maybe I missed the email but I feel like its was like Arlo was saying 'oh by the way  ... the world is crumbling around us; we are changing our service .. sucks to be you'

Its a bit unfair but there are other video surveillance providers that offer limited but free storage. Blink has the backing of Amazon and Arlo is trying to go it alone. The problem is wireless home video surveillance has become commoditization and easy to get. Arlo is still living 5 years ago when they were a premium  service and technology. 

Not sure if Arlo will take this post down .. but this is my 2 cents worth. Good luck

Contact me if any one wants my original Arlo and its cameras plus the Arlo Pro and its camera (and dual charging station) on the cheap

[Mavrrick]

I hear you. I have recently started looking at some other options as well. I have the Arlo Video Doorbell, 3 Arlo Q cameras, 2 Arlo Pro2, and 1 Arlo Pro 3. Because of some testing I was doing recently I got to experience some of the added features of Arlo Smart which I had pretty much written off. Well ofcourse with the Video Doorbell and the Pro 3 i need smart to be able to record to the cloud. Fortunately I also picked up a VMB4540  base station so i can record to that and have access to all of my recordings that way. 

My wife has been asking for some time though to get CVR on a few of our cameras. I Paid $20 for 2 months so i could have CVR and Arlo smart on 5 cameras. This last month I got rid of Arlo Smart on all but the doorbell to get my bill down to $13. This is when Google just changed all of there plans and now you can have unlimited cameras with cloud storage for 60 days and 10 days of CVR on all of them for $12. Does that comparison make any sense. Well even with that that is a huge shift on investment to save that money. Well about a week and half ago I took delivery of a Eufy 2k indoor camera. It could have a little bit better design for cable managment, but it is 1/4 the price, can do motion and free CVR to a local SD CARD, and a remote RTSP server, and is 2k so it beats the Arlo Q hands down. The CVR browsing isn't perfect, but it is far better then what Arlo has for searching it. Now that camera isn't as good as the pro 3 or Ultra, but at 1/4th the price i can let allot slide. I could replace all my indoor cameras for less then price of just one Pro3, and likely will. I will also likely be eliminating my Arlo Q's and a Arlo Pro 2 that is indoors for the Eufy's with free CVR. Now I do think Arlo has better outdoor cameras right now. But that won't last forever the way this is going. 

The way i look at it is some of the companies like Eufy are behind but are shrinking the gap quickly and are maturing at a lightning pace, and if Arlo doesn't do something soon they will be past. 

[WalterAndreis]

Thanks for your information.. I'll be looking forward to install Eufy 2k cameras and forget this CROOK company... they simply get rid of my "legacy plan" now i'm forced to spent 4x more money to the same service that i had when i bought the cameras... 

I've 6 pro2, 1 doorbell and 1 baby selling for cheap... let me know!

[dcfox1]

@WalterAndreis  How much for a pro 2? 

[MiltonS]

Likewise I have bought extra cameras and now have 8. If I had known the limit was 5 cameras for a basic plan instead of men previous 5 I would not have bought the extra cameras. Arlo is shooting itself in the foot with this change as it will limit customers decision to expand camera systems

[Mavrrick]

You can look at the VMB4540 base station and record locally with as many cameras as you like and have external access the earlier cameras require you to pull the storage device.

One other thing to remember is only 5 cameras can stream or record at the same time on any basestation so you may need 2 basestations if your cameras are busy enough.

You can also create two accounts with there own basestation and split the cameras and then sharw the camera's between the accounts. I think that is what allot of users do to stay under the 5 camera limit.

[KingSolomon]

I have 7 cameras and need to buy two more. Please raise the limit to 10 cameras as it was at the time of my purchase of the cameras last year. I'm not sure why the limit of 5 is there to begin with since most people have more cameras

[KingSolomon]

By the way the plan last year allowed ten cameras for $100/year. Please bring it back

[jguerdat]

I agree that the Elite plan should still cover 10 cameras but we have no say. 5 cameras and then discounted single camera add-ons is all that's available. Or just use local recordings.

[troubles_2019]

I have has a worst problem

I only have 1 camera working and I have been charged 64 plus dollars for an annual

subscription

Can anyone explain ???

The other cameras do not work since 1 year

Perhaps the Community users can enlighten me and perhaps I can get a refund ???

Thank you community users

[dcfox1]

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@troubles_2019 wrote:

I have has a worst problem

I only have 1 camera working and I have been charged 64 plus dollars for an annual

subscription

Can anyone explain ???

The other cameras do not work since 1 year

Perhaps the Community users can enlighten me and perhaps I can get a refund ???

Thank you community users

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Some details would help even what plan are you on or got charged for but have you tried cancelling your plan in settings<subscription to start. 

[tony_2018]

I know this is an old post but I think at that price I would've just hired someone to run wires for me.

[cgveras]

I purchased the Arlo essential as an expansion to my Arlo Pro which provides the ability to save video clips with no subscription. I would have been better served with another Arlo Pro camera. When I contacted support I was clear with the representative that the purchase was to expand and Arlo Pro system. I was never made aware I needed subscription to add another camera. I now have an Arlo Pro system with an Arlo Essential camera that is useless. Arlo should provide the ability to expand an Arlo Pro system without a paid subscription.