License plates unreadable

[Kb22]

Just purchased 4 Ultra 2 cameras BECAUSE THE BOX SHOWS THAT THEY CAN IDENTIFY LICENSE PLATES! Had them professionally installed following all of Arlo’s specifications. 3 days of clips and ALL license plates are a blur. I’ve spoken to customer service and they say I need to spend more money on 4K. Has anyone had luck with this? Or should I get my $800 back?

Tech support had me turn on tracking and zoom but this made zero difference.

[LandJS]

Yes even the Ultra made this claim on the the box but only by zooming in have I been able to read one and if you watch there ad videos that is the way they do it, by zooming in on the plate.  Pan and zoom may zoom in on motion but not on a particular spot.  I have found pan and zoom to be to herky jerky for my use.

[pwaggs]

I am not sure why you are not getting 4K now under the free trial. You should be. The only thing you are mission out on is the 3 second look back and the continuous video recording.

Anyway, I have had my system set up for a few days now and will agree with you that the "zoom" is pretty terrible and the ability to read anything is non existent. 

The initial non zoomed 4K image is very nice and super clear. But the zoomed image is completely rubbish. Absolutely useless. They would almost be better off removing the zoom feature.

Perhaps it is the compression or just a matter of digital zoom, but if you can't read it in the original capture, you certainly will not be able to after applying a digital zoom.

[pwaggs]

Some small details I forgot to note in my comment. Not sure why I cannot edit:

You can zoom 12X in the live view and only 8X in the cloud recorded view. 

Both are equally worthless as far as clarity, but you can make things even less readable in the live view.

[M6cabriolet]

get your money back. I wasted my money on 2 . Go check out Wyze cams for cheap and good quality. 

[HotLoveMonkey]

It would be a great feature to add a license plate reader function such as the software offered on this site https://www.openalpr.com/  NOTE you need an IP camera for this software to work and it will not work with ARLO unfortunately.