VMB5000 AU

[aremac]

I have 11 Arlo Ultra 2 cameras across 4 sites. I am very pleased with the quality of the system in general however granting access to friends/family is not aways without frustration. I have one friend in particular who is very tech savvy but cannot see the camera images. he gets alerts from cameras and is showing as accepted in my list of invitees but he just can't make it work.  So I uninvited him then reinvited him. he logged off from his Arlo account and then logged back in but still no joy. I have 3 others who have handed me their phones to accept the invitation and connect but no camera views again and they dont show as being accepted. Ive turned the base station off and on in the recommended order.

The base station here is VMB5000 AU and the number on the box is VMS5340

I have also looked at some of the many other Arlo Community posts regarding access problems

Any help/suggestions most welcome

[DannyBearAgain]

Can you confirm that the arlo app looks the same on your device as the friends devices?

 If not the friend sharing will not work as expected.

[StephenB]

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@DannyBearAgain wrote:

Can you confirm that the arlo app looks the same on your device as the friends devices?

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@aremac - to follow up on this:

Look at the app screen, and see if you see "Library" as an option, or whether you see "Feed" and "Dashboard" instead.  Do the same check on your friend's devices.

If these are mismatched (some "Library" and some "Feed"), then you will need to migrate all the accounts on "Library" to "Feed".  Post back for more instructions if you need them (after you confirm that you need to migrate).

[aremac]

Thank you both for your responses. On my iphone the bottom  four icons are from left to right are:  Devices, Library, Mode and Settings.

My friends iphone has Five icons and these are: Dashboard, Feed, Emergency, Devices and Routines.

We are both running the same version of Arlo i.e. 4.8.1 (6798) released 6/09/2023

So it appears we are not synced.

How do I go about migrating library to Feed. I dont understand what you mean by all the accounts on library to feed.

I thought Library was just for keeping alert images in a library. Sorry for being so ignorant about these terms.

[aremac]

If me and my friend have both set up Arlo accounts on our mobile phones how is it they look so different.

I'm really looking forward to getting this sorted out.

[StephenB]

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@aremac wrote:

I thought Library was just for keeping alert images in a library. Sorry for being so ignorant about these terms.

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Again, two different user interfaces that use different names for similar functions.  With the other interface you see the alert recordings in "Feed".

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@aremac wrote:

On my iphone the bottom  four icons are from left to right are:  Devices, Library, Mode and Settings.

My friends iphone has Five icons and these are: Dashboard, Feed, Emergency, Devices and Routines.

I dont understand what you mean by all the accounts on library to feed.

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What I mean is that both accounts need to say "Dashboard, Feed, Emergency, Devices and Routines".  If you had other "Friend" accounts, they would also need to say Dashboard.

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@aremac wrote:
We are both running the same version of Arlo i.e. 4.8.1 (6798) released 6/09/2023

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That doesn't matter.  The app supports both interfaces.  

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@aremac wrote:

How do I go about migrating library to Feed.

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Go into "add device" and select a Pro 5s camera.  You can't complete that process, because you don't have that camera.  But if you start that process, you will be migrated to "Feed".

[aremac]

SUCCESS !  I went through the add Pro 5S camera and my dashboard changed from Library to Feed and the friend who couldn't access the cameras, now can, so thats great. Bouyed by this success I marched into another friends office and said give me your phone. I re-invited him and when he attempted to accept by first signing in there was a message like 'invitation timed out' or similar and we couldnt proceed further. So we are almost there but this is another hurdle and one which I have struck before. Comments welcome please.

[StephenB]

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@aremac wrote:

 I re-invited him and when he attempted to accept by first signing in there was a message like 'invitation timed out' or similar and we couldnt proceed further. So we are almost there but this is another hurdle and one which I have struck before. Comments welcome please.

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Send him a new invitation, and have him accept the invite on a PC.

That involves

1. clicking on "create account" in the invite email.  That will open the browser to my.arlo.com
2. logging into the account (instead of creating one).  This includes going through the two-factor verification step.

After that the invite should show up as "accepted" in your account.

[aremac]

Thank you for your help with this, it is very much appreciated. 

I will do what you suggest when I next see him. I will reinvite him and get him to sign in and accept the invitation on a PC.

Re the two different interfaces, I prefer the other one that I became accustomed to which showed Library instead of Feed. I guess I'm stuck with the Feed version now, and will just have to get used to it. In your opinion is one interface better than the other.

[StephenB]

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@aremac wrote:

In your opinion is one interface better than the other.

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Arlo is going to shift everyone to "Feed" at some point.  I think they expected to have done this months ago, but enough issues surfaced that they postponed it.

There are a few things that are better with "Feed".  The modes in "Library" had gotten rather messy if you had cameras connected to your home wifi (as each camera had its own set of modes).  Its cleaner to have the mode apply to all cameras at the location.

But there are drawbacks to "Feed" also.  One is the the lack of custom modes.  Another is that scheduling has gotten more difficult, especially when combined with geofencing.  I don't think anyone has really figured out how automations are supposed to work, and as far as I can see it is almost impossible to debug them.