Arlo Ultra 2 - How many cameras can I connect to a base station

[DanielTan]

Hi there,

I am about to jump into buying a security camera system and have narrowed down my options to the Ultra 2 or a different make - however, the Arlo Ultra 2 seems to be coming out on top.

There is currently a 3 camera bundle which includes 3x Ultra 2 cameras plus a Smart Hub/Base Station. As the Bundles seem cheaper am I OK to buy 3 or 4 of these Bundle packages and have all the cameras connecting to the one Smart Hub/Base Station ? 
I assume this is possible unless there is a maximum number of cameras per Smart Hub limitation.  Or the cameras can only connect to the Smart Hub supplied in each Bundle.

Thanks in advance.

[alex_loo]

---

@StephenB wrote:

---

@alex_loo wrote:

---

When the local home wifi is still fine (ie app at home can theorectically still talk to the hub) but public internet is  down, yes I can initially play local recordings from hub, but then after some timeout, the app will report all of the cameras and the hub to be offline (with a red exclamation mark).  When this happens, the hub cannot be accessed any more.

---

That's what I would expect. The hub is in fact off-line by definition, since it is not able to connect to the Arlo Cloud.  

Arlo's solution depends on the Arlo Cloud, even if you have a smarthub with local storage.  

I didn't mean to imply that you could always access local recordings when your internet was down.  I only meant to say that the local recordings would still be made, and would be accessible in the app when the internet came back up.

---

fair enough.  I don't find this a show stopper.

---

---

@alex_loo wrote:
ln practice, I reckon it shouldn't be difficult for ARLO to figure out if local streaming is possible. 

---

---

While they could potentially use local livestreaming whenever possible, I don't know for certain that they are doing that.  It is quite possible that there are situations when local livestreaming is possible, but they don't use it.

There are potentially three network connections in play on the phone - the mobile connection, the local wifi, and the VPN.  The VPN might be connected when you are home.  If it is, you probably want to use the local wifi for livestreaming, and not the VPN.

VPNs also often don't carry real-time traffic all that reliably.  Downloading the recording isn't real-time, so if it takes a bit longer than the recording time, nothing breaks.  But if the VPN can't keep up with the livestream, then the livestream won't be rendered properly. 

So it would be reasonable for Arlo to choose not to livestream over the VPN connection. 

Or maybe they could check the connections in order:

1. Local WiFi
2. Mobile Data
3. VPN

and choose the first one that works.

---

Two considerations here:

a.  In general, can an app like ARLO easily know if there is VPN there?  Personally, I doubt (say Netflix can only deny users who seem to be hopping around the world, from the location of ip address, NOT from whether there is VPN with the phone)

b. It may not be a good idea choosing mobile data but not picking VPN, from a data performance perspective. If I VPN home via WIFI of friend's place, where mobile data is pretty bad, the VPN-over-WIFI way is actually much preferred.

Base on (a) and (b) above, therefore I am guessing the network checking by ARLO, if any, cannot be a simple choice of wifi/mobile/VPN.

Alex

[alex_loo]

---

@StephenB wrote:

---

@alex_loo wrote:
Say the app can try connecting to the hub to see if they are local to each other

---

---

I don't know if the app is connecting to the hub for local livestreaming, or if the hub is connecting to the app when the cloud tells it to livestream.   It could be done either way.

---

agree but whichever way ---- HUB and app see themselves sitting next to each other LOCALLY (hub is local; app is local via VPN).

So yes ARLO can decide and say "if HUB is offline from cloud, then stop everything".  As said, not show stopper to me.

But my expectation is: that technically, the hub can still stream to app, when it is offline to cloud.

---

@StephenB wrote:

Note that if your phone is connected to a remote wifi network, there often will be another device on that network with the same local IP address as your smarthub.  It could even be someone else's smarthub.

So if the app is reaching out to the smarthub, then "Connecting" has to include determining that you are reaching your own smarthub, and not something else. Technically this could be done with some form of fingerprinting.  It could also be done more dynamically (for instance, there could be a time-limited token that the cloud gives both the base and the app).

If Arlo does this the other way around (the smarthub attempting to reach the phone), then fingerprinting probably can't be used, since most phones do have a feature where they obscure their mac address.  So there would need to be some other mechanism to ensure that the smarthub is reaching the right phone.

---

if the mobile has already been VPNed, the app will NOT be able to see friend's smarthub LOCALLY.   From "local network" perspective, the app should only be able to see the smarthub, back home.

Above "no local access to friend's devices" is an overview.  But of course, I am sure VPN connections nowadays can be still be tweaked around to conditionally allow local access to some devices at friend's place.

Am I correct here?  shxt we are discussing network academics here in ARLO forum! 😅

Alex

[StephenB]

---

@alex_loo wrote:
if the mobile has already been VPNed, the app will NOT be able to see friend's smarthub LOCALLY.   From "local network" perspective, the app should only be able to see the smarthub, back home.

---

If the VPN is not turned on (because port forwarding is configured), then the app would see that smarthub.

---

@alex_loo wrote:

---

But my expectation is: that technically, the hub can still stream to app, when it is offline to cloud.

---

Sure, it could.  NVR camera systems do all this stuff with no cloud at all.   

As I tried to say earlier in the thread, the changes you need to make in a secure hybrid architecture (that works both with and without the cloud) are more complicated than you are thinking.  The connectivity checks actually aren't that easy if you consider all the possible scenarios.  Plus, I think they'd need to change their approach to authentication (since the hub needs to authenticate the app in that scenario, which I believe requires the cloud connection now).  

My own priorities for improving local storage would be to 

1. eliminate the VPN/port forwarding
2. supporting both the browser and the app
3. supporting friend accounts

(1) is needed to get a good solution for (2) and (3), and would require that they use their traversal server for recordings.  

But I don't think Arlo will go down this path.  I think they will instead double down on making the cloud features as valuable as they can - doing just enough to be able to say that you don't have to purchase a subscription, but no more.  

FWIW, the home security system includes an optional mobile data feature, so the system will remain connected when the home internet is down.   They could add the same facility to smarthubs.  That would be another path to eliminating the VPN/port forwarding mess, as well as allowing the system to be used by folks who don't have reliable internet.

[alex_loo]

---

@StephenB wrote:

---

@alex_loo wrote:
if the mobile has already been VPNed, the app will NOT be able to see friend's smarthub LOCALLY.   From "local network" perspective, the app should only be able to see the smarthub, back home.

---

If the VPN is not turned on (because port forwarding is configured), then the app would see that smarthub.

---

I see.  Agree the app share the same local network with that smarthub but since the app (and the login account within) has NOT been registered with that smarthub, will the app be bothered by this alien smarthub?

---

@alex_loo wrote:

---

But my expectation is: that technically, the hub can still stream to app, when it is offline to cloud.

---

Sure, it could.  NVR camera systems do all this stuff with no cloud at all.   

As I tried to say earlier in the thread, the changes you need to make in a secure hybrid architecture (that works both with and without the cloud) are more complicated than you are thinking.  The connectivity checks actually aren't that easy if you consider all the possible scenarios.  Plus, I think they'd need to change their approach to authentication (since the hub needs to authenticate the app in that scenario, which I believe requires the cloud connection now).  

---

fair enough with the complexity.  Sounds like to make their life easier (and to guarantee business cashflow), they wil just move towards a subscriber-only architecture, and encourage migration (intentionally disabling local recording of live streaming for non-subscriber is an example)

My own priorities for improving local storage would be to 

1. eliminate the VPN/port forwarding
2. supporting both the browser and the app
3. supporting friend accounts

(1) is needed to get a good solution for (2) and (3), and would require that they use their traversal server for recordings.  

But I don't think Arlo will go down this path.  I think they will instead double down on making the cloud features as valuable as they can - doing just enough to be able to say that you don't have to purchase a subscription, but no more.  

---

I think so too 😖

Appreciate the need for continuous revenue from business perspective.  Personally, I do think value-added features like AI (reduce false +ve noises from alerts) a good way to keep 2 groups of happy customers (subscribers, non-subscibers).  But then of course, they need to work out a nice technical architecture to support this hybrid ecosystem.

---

FWIW, the home security system includes an optional mobile data feature, so the system will remain connected when the home internet is down.   They could add the same facility to smarthubs.  That would be another path to eliminating the VPN/port forwarding mess, as well as allowing the system to be used by folks who don't have reliable internet.

---

If there is such standby mobile data feature, I'd rather add this mobile data SIM card my home router instead, not just my ARLO.  And if I want, I can already do it with my ASUS router here.

Alex

[StephenB]

---

@alex_loo wrote:
If there is such standby mobile data feature, I'd rather add this mobile data SIM card my home router instead, not just my ARLO.  And if I want, I can already do it with my ASUS router here.

---

I agree it is more useful to add the feature to your router.