Arlo Ultra 2 Nightvision to Color video freezing

[LewisP30]

Hi,
I have been having a consistent issue with my Arlo Ultra 2 camera during night time.

My camera will pick up motion and begin recording in black and white as it should. As the subject that triggers the camera to record gets closer to my camera, the camera auto switches to color video recording mode.

During the transition from black and white video to color, their is about a 3 second freeze. By the time the cameras processing catches up, the subject will usually be gone and important data is missed.

The arlo app shows that the camera has a good connection to the hub and the camera has three bars of signal strength. I’m on a 1gb network connection.

Is their anyway to remove the delay between b&w video and switching to color?

As this camera is a security camera and used for that purpose, it’s disheartening when their is shady activity happening and you review the footage and their is a gap in recording. This is a flaw that breaks the product.

Thanks

[jguerdat]

I don't have an Ultra 2 but my various cameras, including an Ultra and the Pro 3 floodlight, show nothing of this behavior - it's color right away. By any chance is your camera connected to AC power which would give you the 3 second look-back which I suppose could be what you're seeing? 

[LewisP30]

Hey, thanks for the response. The camera is connected to AC power but this issue is not the 3 second look back.

When someone comes into my activity zone, the camera begins recording as it should, as they are passing my driveway, a few seconds into the clip the camera switches from black and white mode to color mode and during the switch, the video feed freezes and then about 2-3 secs a later picks the feed back up but the person teleports from one area to the next. Their is a gap in recording that’s missing.

After the camera switches to color mode (and the associated delay) the feed is recorded. Again though, it causes a gap in the record video due to the paused frame.

It seems when the camera switches to color mode it causes the video feed to temporarily freeze, which in turn causes the record videos to have gaps that are just a frozen frame.

[jguerdat]

I suspect the issue is the 3 second look-back but you'd need to test my theory by removing AC power overnight. You may also want to disable Night Vision but I don't think that's the issue.

[LewisP30]

I guess I should add that this issue only happens at night. This does not happen during daylight hours.

Only when switching from night vision to color vision with the spotlight.

[Edinburgh_lad1]

Would the issue you're describing be happening as dawn breaks? Or it's relatively light (with for example, some white surfaces reflecting into the camera)? 

Your video freezing points to communication issues between the camera and the base station. You should bring the two closer to see if this behaviour is still happening. 

[StephenB]

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@LewisP30 wrote:
I guess I should add that this issue only happens at night. This does not happen during daylight hours.

Only when switching from night vision to color vision with the spotlight.

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I've seen this issue posted once before, but don't recall seeing any resolution for it.

Removing the AC power for a night would be a good test, as it might be linked to the combination of foresight (Arlo's name for preroll) and the transition to color vision.  The preroll is about 3 seconds, and likely the nightvision section is what the camera captured before it detected motion.

Another useful test would be to turn off the low light color vision and the spotlight, and just use nightvision - checking if the freeze still happens if there is no transition to color.