Automatisation issue

[Olivier_b]

@JamesC 

In the "Activate When Present" mode, I would like to set up an automation that enables motion detection only between midnight and 7 a.m.. I created an automation that says “every day at midnight” / action “customize device”, and I selected my outdoor camera (Arlo Ultra 2) for the automation, then chose motion detection and video recording.

However, this has no effect — the outdoor Arlo Ultra 2 camera does not switch to motion detection mode at the start time of the automation.

[StephenB]

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@Olivier_b wrote:

I created an automation that says “every day at midnight” / action “customize device”, and I selected my outdoor camera (Arlo Ultra 2) for the automation, then chose motion detection and video recording.

However, this has no effect — the outdoor Arlo Ultra 2 camera does not switch to motion detection mode at the start time of the automation.

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I've never gotten that approach to work correctly either.

What you need to do is switch to a new mode at midnight that arms the camera, and then switch back to a mode that disarms it at 7 am.

As far as "When present" goes, you need to dedicate a mode for when you are away (Arm Away is most intuitive), and then switch between the other two in your schedule (not enabling the automations in Arm Home mode).  You can customize standby so it doesn't disarm all your cameras if needed.

This is limited, and there are certainly use cases that can't be accomodated with three modes.

[Olivier_b]

@StephenB @JamesC @BrookeN @ShayneS 

That doesn’t work for me because in Standby mode, all cameras must be turned off, and in Arm Away mode, all of them must be active.
However, in When Present mode, I absolutely need two configurations:

• The first one activates only the garage camera during the day.
• The second one activates the outdoor cameras as well from midnight to 7 a.m., but not the indoor one (so Arm Away isn’t suitable).

The Arlo app allows you to create an automation not just to change modes, but to change the camera settings themselves.

If this option exists, it should be able to work, right?

I’ve never seen an app offer a feature that doesn’t actually work.

Is this yet another one of Arlo’s quirky specialties?

I also noticed that the support videos in the Help section of Arlo’s website lead to dead links...

What a complete disaster from A to Z...

[jguerdat]

I'm confused (no surprise) - what is the When Present mode you refer to? Are you talking about geofencing?

The Customize Device setting is designed to allow you to have defaults set in a camera's settings under Default Mode Settings but still be able to set cameras to different settings for different needs. Yeah, it's a bit confusing and you're not the first to try to use that in that manner.

Are you saying that you are using the Standby mode to turn cameras off or that you believe that it must be reserved for that? If the latter, the name means nothing - use it as you will.

[Olivier_b]

@jguerdat @StephenB "When present" mode is the intermediate mode (my App is in french, maybe bad translation)

Not speaking about geolocalisation.

I want that in this mode (and only in this one) the camera setting change to activate motion detection from midnight to 7 am.

I created an automation saying that in this mode, at midnight it must change outdoor camera setting to motion detection, and another automatisation saying that at 7 am the outdoor camera settings must stop motion detection.

All seems to be well configured, but it's not working, the settings stays as their are.

The 2 other mode must have different configuration (Arm away = all camera with detection / Standby = no camera with detection / When Present = must change setting at midnight but not for all camera (only outdoor ones)

[jguerdat]

Unfortunately, that isn't possible using only one mode. You must switch between modes in order to do this.

FYI, in English the middle mode is called Arm Home (so When Present) and the left mode is Arm Away.

[StephenB]

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@Olivier_b wrote:

That doesn’t work for me because in Standby mode, all cameras must be turned off, and in Arm Away mode, all of them must be active.
However, in When Present mode, I absolutely need two configurations:

• The first one activates only the garage camera during the day.
• The second one activates the outdoor cameras as well from midnight to 7 a.m., but not the indoor one (so Arm Away isn’t suitable).

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As I said, three modes aren't enough for a lot of use cases.  Definitely a miss by Arlo (keep in mind I don't work for them).

Can you explain why Arm Away must arm all your cameras and Standby must disarm all your cameras?  The app does not require that.

One option you have is to modify Standby to arm only the garage camera, and to modify Arm Home to arm all the outdoor cameras.  Then leave Arm Away as it is - arming all cameras.  If you do need to disarm the garage camera, you can instead go into the device setting and turn it off.  That has a similar effect, though you cannot schedule the camera to turn back on.

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@Olivier_b wrote:

The Arlo app allows you to create an automation not just to change modes, but to change the camera settings themselves.

If this option exists, it should be able to work, right?

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Yeah.  Though in this particular case I think the concept wasn't well thought out to begin with.  

If a mode has no rule for a camera, it is unclear what should happen when an automation attempts to arm or disarm it without changing the mode. 

• Is the rule added (or removed) permanently to that mode (unless another automation reverses it)? 
• Is a new temporary rule added (or an existing rule temporarily suspended in the case of disarm)?  If temporary, how does the user see whether the camera is in fact armed or not?

FWIW, changing the motion detection threshold for an armed camera didn't work reliably when I tried doing that it either.  

My impression is that Arlo paused any fixes to the automations and instead refocussed on putting back custom modes.  Not sure what they will do when that is released (whether they will keep working on fixes, or just remove options that don't work).  
  

[Olivier_b]

@StephenB 

It’s outrageous to offer a feature that doesn’t work, just as it’s equally problematic to have only three modes in this case.

Thanks for your responses — it’s great to see that there are customers who are more responsive than Arlo’s own support, but it’s concerning.

Unfortunately, your solution isn’t really one, because to turn the garage camera on or off I use the iPhone widget — I can do it in 3 seconds with a single tap.

Whereas if I have to disable the camera through the app, it requires opening the app, going into settings, turning it off, etc. — far too cumbersome for a family of five who go in and out of the garage multiple times a day.

When you look at the staggering number of issues reported in this community, and at the same time see that competitors (probably the strongest being TAPO, backed by TP-Link) offer products that are far more capable, cheaper, and with an app that’s 50 times better, I don’t see Arlo lasting much longer…

[StephenB]

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@Olivier_b wrote:

Unfortunately, your solution isn’t really one, because to turn the garage camera on or off I use the iPhone widget — I can do it in 3 seconds with a single tap.

Whereas if I have to disable the camera through the app, it requires opening the app, going into settings, turning it off, etc. — far too cumbersome for a family of five who go in and out of the garage multiple times a day.

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I agree it would be a few more steps.  I suspect custom modes will be released soon, so hopefully that will help.

When you want to disable the camera during the day, is the main issue to eliminate notifications?  Or do you also need to stop recordings?

[Olivier_b]

@StephenB main issue is notifications, if i can stop it it will be better than nothing

[StephenB]

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@Olivier_b wrote:

main issue is notifications, if i can stop it it will be better than nothing

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Ok.  If you don't ever need notifications from the garage camera during the day, then you could  disable notifications from the garage camera rule in the standby mode.

You could also create a focus type that (perhaps reuse personal), that is set up to disable Arlo notifications and then maybe also widgets to enable/disable that focus.

Both of these would work with my approach above.

[Olivier_b]

@StephenB 

With this solution, I wouldn’t receive any notifications in case of an intrusion. As for the other option, it’s not really better, since it would require me to tinker with all the iPhones in my family just to work around a limitation that a publicly traded company like Arlo should be able to handle natively — especially for such a basic feature.

Nothing against you, Stephen — on the contrary, you’re genuinely trying to help, and I really appreciate that.

Where is Arlo support, sleeping all the day ?!? @BrookeN @ShayneS @JamesC 

[ShayneS]

Hi @Olivier_b 

Thank you for your feedback. Our community team aim to respond as quickly as possible, typically within 24 hours, which appears to be the case here. I appreciate you bringing this to our attention. I’ll review the details you provided and follow up with an update as soon as possible. 

[ShayneS]

@Olivier_b 

Thanks again for the feedback, The development team is working hard to deliver a similar custom modes experience that legacy users have come to enjoy while maintaining all the new improvements and features included in the latest version of the Arlo Secure App. We will keep the community up to date as we approach the release of this highly anticipated feature.

For more information about the latest Arlo Secure App, see here: https://www.arlo.com/en-us/new-arlo-secure-app