Very slow notifications?

[bubdog]

I just got my Arlo system and after upgrading to Smart Elite my notifications are extremely slow. It can take 30s to 1min30sec for a notification to happen after there is some motion or a person on my cameras. This obviously makes features like live view, 2 way audio, e911, and alarm pretty useless as I don't know something is happening until it is way too late for any of those things to be useful.

I know the issue is not with my internet service, I have 150mbit up and down fiber. The cameras were alerting almost instantly before I upgraded to Smart Elite.

Is there an issue with the Arlo service at the moment? When will this be resolved? Are other people experiencing this?

[dhiller0217]

By the way, and sorry for the long-winded previous message, I have also confirmed that removing the "Arlo Smart" feature from all my cameras has made my notifications consistent and timely as well.  So yes, there are definitely bugs with Arlo Smart which need to be worked out in the app.  I don't want to pay 10 bucks a month for all these new features if they're unreliable, and I definitely won't try CVR, which theoretically WOULD be nice now that I have a camera I can give outdoor A/C power to.

[ralfyguy1]

---

@dhiller0217 wrote:

Agreed on the problems stated here!  I've had the Arlo system for nearly two years.  I've been using 5 Arlo Pro cameras the whole time, and everything has been decent at best.  The cameras themselves are nice, but the APP has caused me the most frustration, and the APP is vital to this system.  There have been versions which have worked great, and others which have been nearly useless. The current app with Arlo Smart incorporated has been the absolute worst so far.

Long story short, I got tired of my driveway camera dying constantly from too much activity, so I decided to add a 6th camera yesterday, which is an Arlo Pro 2, and I'm going to give it A/C power soon.  I needed the ability to add this 6th camera to my subscription, so I did the Arlo Smart Premier trial with intent to pay for the yearly upgrade.  I am having zero success with reliable push notifications now.  I wasted 4 or 5 hours troubleshooting yesterday, hard reset my system, and resynced every camera I have.  They either don't show up at all on my Android Galaxy S7, which I also upgraded to Oreo yesterday as well, or they show up late, and when they do show up, I am getting notifications for cameras which aren't even triggered for push notifications in my modes.  Example - Rule#1 is set for when Camera 1 detects motion, to record video on Camera 1 as well as Camera 2. That rule is supposed to provide a push notification.  No other rules have Camera 2 set to even detect motion or give notifications.  When Camera 1 detects motion for Rule#1, IF I get a push notification, which is about 1 out of 10 times at best, I get lockscreen popups that Camera 2 has detected a person or motion.  What's the deal with that?  And I can't even scroll down on the lockscreen notification to see the video snapshot.

Arlo Smart needs these bugs worked out, and it needs to work more seamlessly with the modes, unless I just completely don't understand its purpose.  Most importantly, I just want my notifications to come in promptly and tell me which camera they have been detected on.  That is the single most important feature for this whole system minus every other bell and whistle and patched in "new feature" that Arlo has gone through.  These systems are WAAAY to expensive to cause such a vast amount of people these types of consistent frustrations.

---

Thank you for this post as it ACCURATELY describes the same problems I have. I once again took all 9 cameras out of Arlo Smart and BAM all notifications were INSTANT and more importantly actually I received EACH ONE EVERY TIME! Moving all 9 back into Arlo Smart and it is back to rolling dice! RIDICULOUS!

I understand the delay for Arlo Smart Cloud Processing to a certain degree, but NOT the IF you get a notification AT ALL! That is plumb STUPID! THAT completely misses the target, and renders the whole system rather useless. 

[dhiller0217]

You're welcome!  Frustrating, I know!  Let's hope they get this resolved soon.  The smart features could be nice if they start working correctly.  Until then, I'll be keeping my cameras "un-smart" so that I at least get notified properly. Good luck.

[ralfyguy1]

---

@dhiller0217 wrote:

You're welcome!  Frustrating, I know!  Let's hope they get this resolved soon.  The smart features could be nice if they start working correctly.  Until then, I'll be keeping my cameras "un-smart" so that I at least get notified properly. Good luck.

---

That's what I do at least during the night hours. On the other hand, this is PART of the paid subscription, and not all of that money is for the additional cameras, to have more than 5. It is also advertised as a "SMART" function and lures people into signing up for this actual very nice function. Yet it doesn't deliver as advertised, as people find out later, and is a bit concerning. That has nothing to do with "nit picking", it is EXPECTED to work as advertised. And besides that, it is also a bit disturbing that obviously there is no real beta testing going on, and instead is performed by the paying customer.

I beta test satellite equipment and software and I DON'T pay for it!

[JamesC]

The Arlo development team is currently investigating this issue. We will provide an update as soon as we have more information to share with the community.

JamesC

[diesel59]

I also have had some pretty terrible experiences of late with Pro 2 and Pros not detecting motion AND/OR sending notifications horribly slow on a Smart Premier membership. While I know $10/mo isn't a lot of money, Arlo (Netgear) needs to invest some more money that they make on their cameras on the development/Quality Control of their software/cloud infrastructure. I have been an Arlo supporter for a couple years now, but my confidence with the platform is wavering when I can't trust it for the peace of mind that I bought it for.

I wish this was the first time that I was disappointed with the support that the Arlo team has provided. I recently had an issue renewing my subscription which dropped me down to the free membership. This problem lingered for nearly a month while 4 of my expensive cameras were unable to record events/save to cloud. 

Has there been any progress made from the Dev team since this thread hasn't been updated since the 10th of September?

Thanks, 

Another Unsatisfied Paying Customer

[bubdog]

I was in contact with a level 3 support person who said they were working on it but they have stopped replying to my emails for over a week now. It is really frustrating how little Arlo communicates about known issues or the status of fixes for them.

[bubdog]

It appears Arlo has gone silent on this one. A month has passed and there are no improvements or updates. Very frustrating. I wish they would just communicate the status of these issues rather than just leaving us hanging.

[LandToSea]

JamesC can we get some sort of update as it has been over a month since you acknowledged that it was being addressed. We are left to assume the worst.Personally, I am debating returning my 1mn old Arlo Pro 2 5 camera system tio Costco.

[RobertRosal]

Yes an update would be great and always appreciated because the delays make the feature worthless and you can add Arlo Support to being no help at all!

[Me333]

Don’t let them on your computer. I had a tech tell me he needed to get on my computer. I explained I use my iPad or iPhone app. Tech insisted on my using my iMac. He said he could alleviate my camera issues. I let him on, against my better judgement. He goe to files & says my computers corrupted. He can get it cleaned by American Soft Tech Corp. The cost is $329. He has the ASTC rep call me. The clean with CC Cleaner was $129 & $200 for a fire wall. I told him., that’s too much for a firewall. He said it was a deal, for that day only. I told him, Oh that’s because
I’m me. I told him to forget it. Not happy they had access to my computer files. I called my cable tech. He said they have a firewall in place. That they’ve never been hacked to date. Called Apple tech. They restored my computer to an earlier date. I called an Arlo tech to report the incident. Their tech told me, they didn’t need to be on my computer. All repairs are made from he base station.. I gave him the previous tech’s name. He promptly hung up on me. I called Net Gear Technical. Explained what happened the gentleman said he had to go. He hung up on me as well. Not real impressed with Arlo or Net Gear...

[jguerdat]

That's what you get by not using real Arlo support. You Googled (or similar) a support number and got a scammer.

Use the Contact Support link at the bottom here and again  on the new page. The 3rd page will get you a real Arlo support number.

[bubdog]

Almost another month gone by. @JamesC please give us an update. Will this issue ever be fixed? Smart notifications are still way too slow, nothing has improved. They take 20 seconds minimum after a person enters the camera's view until I get a notification.

[dhiller0217]

I too would like an update, please.  In addition to notification delays, the other issue I'm having is that my rich notifications do NOT show an image until I log into the app, which completely defeats the purpose of the rich notification.  I'm obviously not going to sound my alarm or call E911 from my phone's lock screen (which I have the option to do) if I don't know what even triggered my camera. Is anyone else experiencing this?  I've posted another topic about this specifically as well.  Thanks.

[bubdog]

Yes I'm seeing that as well. I haven't seen an image on the notification in quite awhile, months maybe?

[Me333]

I don’t know about you? But I paid way too much, for 2nd class mail. Or for a white paperweight. Unless I receive, instantaneous response from my cameras. I don’t need this system. Technical help by way of India is aggravating & misleading...

[Me333]

Came home from dropping off my ballot & mailing a birthday card. Backed into the garage. Walked out front to retrieve our emptied trash can. Returned to the garage with it. Entered the house & was talking with my wife. My phone alerted me, nice!!!

[Sooner2k18]

I just upgraded to the smart pro plan and I couldn't figure out why all of my notifications stopped working, until I realized it was the person detection or cloud side AI. Ive gone from 100% quick and accurate notifications for a full year to 1 minute + delays due to this server side processing. How can they sell a feature that completely removes the security aspect of instant notification?

And no update from support for over a year??

[illuminous]

I am having the same issues as others in this thread.

After quite a bit of testing, as others have said, this is clearly a problem with the cloud service for Arlo Smart.

If someone comes to my door, it takes anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds for a notification to come through. I then open the app and tap on the stream and activate two-way audio. By this point it is at least 15 to 20 seconds since the person came to the door, which usually means they are gone. Honestly I can't believe I bought this system in part for the two-way audio. Disabling Arlo Smart reduces the notification time significantly (usually instant).

We all know Netgear and Arlo is at the top of the worst support on the planet list, so I'm really not expecting much, but it would be nice if they could acknowledge this issue and outline how they are planning to address it. 

I did see Arlo is planning to release new features for Arlo Smart (Package, Pet and Vehicle detection). These are great ideas, but could you possibly fix Arlo Smart first??

I've been tempted to expand my Arlo system and in particualr purchase the doorbell, but given the average reviews and comments about the same delay issues, I will steer clear until we see some improvement on the camera side. 

[bubdog]

I don't think this will ever get fixed. Either Arlo doesn't care or they are unable to fix it. Either way we as customers end up paying for something that doesn't do what it says on the box. 

I recommend doing what I did. Get rid of your Arlo cameras. Spend a bit of time (and less money than Arlo) setting up a couple of Hikvision or Dahua IP cameras and Blue Iris on a computer to record them.... Cheaper than Arlo, much better video quality, way more reliable, and no monthly fees. Not as convenient to set up as Arlo but also not terribly difficult.

[Boucher187]

I am having this same problem and I am not even on the "Smart Notification" PAID plan.  I have someone pull into my driveway and it takes 5-10 seconds to get an ALERT.  Does anyone know how I can get the alerts instantaneously like I used to before they added the "SMART NOTIFICATIONS"?  I am not even enrolled.   😞

[Boucher187]

I am in the same boat.  I purchsed these for the Alerts and Instant Notifications, both when I am home and away.  There needs to be a way to get OFF the Smart "Cloud" Notifications and get back to the instant alerts.  If I am not enrolled and paying, do not send my alerts to the cloud.

[GPDLT]

Same issues down here, since a couple of weeks push notifications are even slower, today the gardener was walking through 4 of my external Arlo pro 2 cameras and the first push notification was received almost 10 mintes later!!!

Smart system is 2 bad for me...

[secaz]

I was using an old Android version of Arlo Android app and things were working well with push notifications from my Arlo Pro system to my Samsung Galaxy S9+. I decided to install new Android version to see what was new and when I did it was taking between 2 and 10 minutes to receive push notifications. So i disabled cameras from Arlo Smart and uninstalled the new Android version and went back to version 2.5.1_21471. This old version has worked pretty well for me or at least it is far more stable than subsequent releases. I now receive push notifications almost instantly after reverting back to this old version. The new Android app version has so many things wrong and awkward with it that it's really unusable.

[lendellray]

Obviously I'm going through the same issue of delayed notifications. Another problem is where I'll receive an alert within 5 seconds on my phone but there's no recording showing in the app for maybe 30 seconds, or more. A few months ago I was showing the camera system to co-workers and now I'm telling them to hold off.