Arlo Ultra - New Owner Issues

[mike_guy]

I've just bought an Arlo Ultra two camera kit for home security, and like many others have a raft of issues which have left me feeling frustrated and wishing I had spent my money elsewhere.

I've tried support and whilst I hold no grudges against them (I get they have to ask certain questions - I work in IT too!) I've gotten nowhere. So I'm posting on here in hope an Arlo product manager or engineering team member can get back to me and at least give me some confidence to hold on and fixes are on the way.

My gripes are:

Speaker is awful - If I try and use the microphone to talk to the person (Samsung Galaxy S10) they can't hear a thing. It is so quiet. The camera is right next to the door so it isn't too far away.

Intermittent notifications/recording - at least a couple of times a day I will get someone trigger the motion detection but not generate a notification or cloud recording. Local recording to the SD card however still takes place no problem as does viewing the live stream. I have no interference, the kit is close by (no more than about 5 metres between base and camera). Just seems a software problem.

Slowness/lag - by the time I get a push notification and the live stream opens the person is long gone. It is just way to sluggish in comparison to other solutions I've seen.

Pleeeeeease give me some hope. I want to love the cameras, but at the moment can't. I feel like I've wasted 700 quid.

[mike_guy]

...and now both cameras show up in the app with an error saying they need AC power to enable smart zones - which should not be the case as they have a smart subscription included with their purchase and were working fine before. This is no doubt a weird bug as a result of removing and re-adding them earlier (when trying to test with non-smart issues for the lack of capturing/notification).

Really hoping someone can help get this sorted - it is so unbelievably painful as a consumer of the product. If I can't get a stable working product in the next couple of days these will have to go back and I'll get Nest and a long drill bit to run power instead. 

@JamesC - you seem to be a man in the know - if you can assist in any way and prevent me from leaving as a brand new customer I would uber appreciate it. I can't get anywhere productive quickly with the usual support channel. I can assure you as a technical person who works in tech I've tried restarting, re-installing, there is good coverage for both cameras and no interference on the 2.4Ghz channels.

[JamesC]

mike_guy,

We're investigating reports of some users experiencing intermittent notifications/recordings when motion is detected. I don't have any updates on this at the moment but the development team is actively searching for a root cause.

Do you experience the same volume regardless of which device you use when using push to talk? It could be an audio setting on your Galaxy device that is causing the issue. Try a different device to see if you experience the same behavior to further isolate.

If you removed and readded your cameras, check to make sure they are still Smart enabled if you're using activity zones. You can do this by logging in to your Arlo account and navigating to Settings > Smart Notifications > make sure your cameras all all in the "Active" slots.

JamesC

[n1976jmk]

Hi @JamesC, the only reason I believe that Arlo support does not have more cases from users experiencing this interment issue is that its just that.

It works sometimes and does not work other times.

Since I have had so many issues since April 2019 when I initially bought the system I have kept such a strict watch on the system I can tell pretty soon when something is not right.

Thanks for your time on this James!  Appreciate it!!!

[mike_guy]

Hi,

Thanks for coming back and I hope you had a good Christmas. I am afraid it is too late for me though - I've sent them back for a refund. They just aren't fit for purpose as they are right now. Everything I tried to do seemed encounter a bug or intermittent error and I've no confidence they will be fixed anytime soon.

Just for your reference in terms of other people - they definitely were still smart enabled but the error persisted.

Hope you guys get the issues and software sorted out as they were otherwise very nice bits of kit. Until then though like I say - not fit for purpose. Maybe one day!

Thanks
Mike

[StephenDL]

I had the same issues months back now and also returned the system after spending the equivalent of two whole days on the phone with Arlo support who told me that they didn't have a solution. I think this is a way bigger issue than Arlo even realise and makes what is meant to be a security for the home unable to be trusted. Some people must be having success with it as I bought it initially because it was recommended, but there must be an underlying problem in some setups/systems/software something that makes it unreliable for many. 

[Trance_Omega]

You only need to look at trust pilot lately to see the extent of how bad arlo's reputation has gotten.
I too have a system that is half working and support has been totally useless and incompetent with them usually taking 5 days or so to respond and then with copy paste questions they keep repeating. In one ticket alone they asked me 5 (yes five times) for the camera serial number and date of purchase. Get a refund or if your age thinking of purchasing them please look elsewhere for a system that works and a company that gives a  about its customers.

[TheZenDJ]

Crap. I wish I had read more reviews before I bought these. It looks like I'll be returning them as well since they are working poorly right out of the box. Within a few hours of setting them up I had already tried all the generic troubleshooting fixes and contacted the support line but so far to no avail. Severe lag time and/or no video showing up in the library even with a strong wifi connection and various settings turned on or off. Thankfully, I only mounted one camera (of the three) before trying things out, so I'll only have to go up the ladder one more time to take it down tomorrow. Very disappointed in myself for not doing more homework before purchasing. The most annoying part is, my son has a couple older Arlo 2 cameras that work like a charm! I guess buying the latest doesn't guarantee they're the greatest.

[SDB12345]

I unfortunately have 10 Arlo Ultra cameras. The cameras that are plugged in stop working even though they are at 100%. Once I remove their power source, they seem to wake up and start recording again. I'm so frustrated. I have to constantly do a juggling act to keep the cameras working. I'm taking screen shots and videos with my phone and posting them to show everyone these cameras are useless.

[Chrisk2]

I have had this intermittent problem with my 4.  Odd thing is support will have you delete the camera, remove from base, power cycle reboot base and add again.  Occasionally support asks you to reset the base and add all of the cameras back.

odd thing is now with the ability to see the local store you can see the cameras are actually recording, they are just don’t send to the cloud and they don’t respond to the live view etc.  the local SD card has the recordings.  This means it may be the cloud side vs the cameras, but -  I have found you need to reboot the base station proactively every 2-3 days and you will limit the not responding cameras to 1 out of 4 a week.  I may start a daily reboot of the base to see if I can go 7 days without a failure.

[Mikeybigs]

I bought the 2 camera ultra system and two outdoor charging cables about 20 days ago. I setup everything making sure both cameras had 2 bars and video bandwidth under device positioning always had a strong signal. Since I had the system setup I don't think it made it 5 entire days without some kind of issue.
The issues consisted of live view not working. A camera not responding to motion having to pull the battery and power cable, remove it from the system and resynch it. Geofencing not working correctly half the time. Camera getting stuck with motion detection non stop and recording of bull**bleep** blowing my phone up non stop. Oh and let's not forget the lag of 5-6 seconds. This is on a gigabit up/down fiber connection. For 700+ dollars and this many issues within the short amount of time I have tossed in the towel and have returned the system. The ultra system is a good concept but it's just not reliable enough. I'm just glad I made the decision to return it before my 30 day return was up and I was stuck with this.

[n1976jmk]

Hi Mike!

Can you please tell us what kind of router you have?

[WileE]

not sure they have an actual IT dept.  i have lodged 10+ tickets for problems over the last 4 months and all i get is a follow up email about a week later asking what operating system my cell phone is amongst other things and that they are closing my ticket. call center people are very nice/friendly just that the product is so full of bugs and no one to fix it seems. sorry no better help available

[Mikeybigs]

Router is an ASUS AX11000.

[n1976jmk]

Mike, I had a lot of similar issues to yours.

The two things that made the most difference I’m lost below. Arlo support after almost two months couldn’t tell me that but o discovered after so much of my time troubleshooting.

#1 make sure if have ‘home network protection’ by MacCaffee enabled or any kind of security suite similar to disable it. Arlo camera system is not happy with it.

#2 reset your Asus router back to factory settings

Please let us know let us how it goes!

[Mikeybigs]

I returned the ultra system.