Arlo|Smart Home Security|Wireless HD Security Cameras
× Arlo End of Life Policy Notice
To view Arlo’s new End of Life Policy, click here.

Reply
Discussion stats
berbmil
Aspirant
Aspirant

Not able to setup activity zone properly due to zoomed view when viewing activity zone setup.

activity zone viewactivity zone viewcamera live viewcamera live view

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
JamesC
Community Manager
Community Manager

The major issues being discussed in this thread have been resolved with the most recent Ultra Camera and SmartHub firmware updates. Please check here to make sure your systems automatically updated to the latest versions:

 

Arlo Ultra VMC5040 - 1.070.50.2_205_0c7c8e1 - 19th December 2019

Arlo SmartHub VMB5000 - 1.15.0.4_297_aa40f04 - 18th December 2019

 

If you're having a different issue, please open a new thread here in the community, reach out to me in a private message directly or contact support to further investigate: Arlo Support Team

 

A big thanks to the community for helping our engineering team troubleshoot these issues and thank you for your patience while we worked to release these updates.

 

JamesC

View solution in original post

28 REPLIES 28
Timbukyou
Aspirant
Aspirant

Activity Zones only offer the upper left quadrant (25%) of the full picture to create a zone. I have reset both the cameras and the hubs. This shows up this way on my computer AND my cell phone so it has something to do with my Arlo account or the Arlo equipment.

53Crusher
Apprentice
Apprentice

JamesC - You are the only person trying to help this community, I thank you for what you do, but this is a plea to you for help!

 

I was one of the very first owners of the Arlo Ultra system and am well versed in it and previous firmware updates/problems. This is my current system.

 

Base Station VMB500r4 Firmware 1.15.0.1_244_c345a43

4 Ultra Cameras H6 Firmware 1.070.50.0_197_09137a0

Audio Doorbell HW version 1.2 Firmware 1.2.0.0_309_283

Chime HW version 1.2 Firmware 1.2.0.0_297_266

Android Arlo App 2.12.0_26090 released 12/13/19

All cameras have constant AC power cables

 

The above is just to show that my $1500 Arlo Ultra system is completely up to date for firmware/software and is still completely non-functional. Although I did NOT want to spend 1/2 of my weekend troubleshooting Arlo equipment, I felt it was my duty to try and be part of the solution and not just complain. I did NOT want to go down this road, but I did. 

 

Got out my ladder, physically removed all four Ultra cameras, audio doorbell and chime. Within the Arlo desktop app, I removed the chime, bell, four cameras and then base. Pressed sync button on chime 10 seconds to reset it. Pressed sync button on doorbell 10 seconds to reset it. Removed the batteries from all four cameras. Pressed reset on the base station for 10 seconds. Took the additional steps of deleting all video in my cloud storage library. Bought a brand new 64Gb SD card for the base station. Deleted the cache for my Arlo Android app and then deleted the app. Restarted cell phone and re-installed Arlo app. 

 

At this point, I believe I had created the equivalent of a new out of box experience. Plugged Ethernet cable into my SmartHub and applied power. Light went to a solid blue. Used my newly installed Android app to add the SmartHub to my account. To be extra safe, I gave it a different name than before. Inserted brand new 64 GB SD card and reformatted with the Arlo Android app. One at a time, I installed the camera batteries and added them using my Android app. To be extra cautious, all cameras received a new name. 

 

Finally, I added the audio doorbell (with new name), and associated it to a camera. Lastly, added the Arlo chime (with new name). All synced well and everything went as it should have. 

 

Physically reinstalled all devices back to where they belong. Verified that I could do a "live view" on all cameras. Doorbell and Chime behaved as expected. 

 

THIS IS WHERE I BELIEVE THE PROBLEM LIES.........

Tried to set up activity zones with my Android app as well as Desktop app. All four cameras are automatically zoomed to either the upper left 1/4 of the live view screen, or they are even zoomed into a 12"x 12" area in the upper left quadrant. There is no way for me to change this. As a result, I can NOT set an activity zone and they really only trigger when something happens in this small area. 

 

Although Arlo hasn't paid me to be a beta tester for their system over the last year, that is EXACTLY what I have had to do to protect my $1500 investment. I REALLY hope you will forward this to your engineers. There is NOTHING I can do to make this better. The problem lies with the firmware update of 12/2. Instead of focusing on new features, Arlo should make sure that basic functionality exists first. I am starting to regret my purchase last year. 

 

Certainly i could call tech support and let them take me through their pre-written scripts, but as you can see I have meticulously done what they would have me do and my system is still no better than a door stop.  The problem lies with ARLO.

 

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT TO DO!

trevorns
Aspirant
Aspirant

I had same issue for 1 of 2 Ultra cameras and spent a couple hours with support.  After trying everything (drop, add, reboots), we clicked the factory reset button on the base station then re-added the cams.  Fixe the zoom issue for zones.

 

Hope that helps!

 

berbmil
Aspirant
Aspirant

The reset of basestation fixed this; however, what a P.I.T.A. Had to re-pair all camera's, ie. get ladder remove camera from housing etc. etc.

Anyway

Thanks for the information

Echostorm
Tutor
Tutor

I have the EXACT same issue, I have rebooted my hub, swapped cameras, my activity zone on my camera that is PVR enabled always goes to a top left zoomed in zone, then never triggers anymore!  FIX THIS NETGEAR!

Echostorm
Tutor
Tutor

This is not solved, resetting the base station does not fix this problem, it comes back!

Echostorm
Tutor
Tutor

I have troubleshooted this to PVR enabled cameras.  If you take the camera OFF the PVR (premium video recording plan) the whole image appears on activity screen, as soon as your place the camera in PVR the activity zone becomes zoomed in  to the top left corner.  This clearly is a server side issue that needs to be addressed!

surfer1000
Luminary
Luminary
I have the problem I don't have the plan...the last firmware update **bleep**ed up a lot of things with systems
jprikios
Tutor
Tutor

This is hardly a solution considering the amount of time it would take to reset 10 cameras and 2 base stations considering other community members have stated this issue returns.

berbmil
Aspirant
Aspirant

Basestation reset only worked until i setup "Arlo Smart" then activity zone reverted to 25% view. So no, did not fix the original problem. Seems to be related to "Arlo  Smart" and change from PVR to "Smart Arlo". Seems the people who were early adopters are the ones used for fixing what should have been corrected before rolling out the crappy software.

JamesC
Community Manager
Community Manager

The development team is currently investigating this issue. I will provide an update when I have more information.

 

JamesC

Chimpboy
Aspirant
Aspirant

Hi James_C - Just so that you have a larger list of accounts to examine, I have the same issue with one camera working fine and the other two not. I will do a base station reset to see if that works. 

Chimpboy
Aspirant
Aspirant

The Base station reset worked. It did take two times to do it, but that fixed the view on the zone screen. 

53Crusher
Apprentice
Apprentice

New firmware 1.15.0.4_297_aa40f04 was pushed out to my base station last night! Still didn't fix the activity zone zoomed view issue for me................

srandall25
Apprentice
Apprentice

it will fix it initially, then it goes back to where it was before... 

srandall25
Apprentice
Apprentice

Hello James,

 

Apparently a new firmware update was pushed out. It did not fix the zoomed in problem with activity zones... Not sure if it actually fixed the problem with the base station going offline or not. Are there any release notes for this release?

JamesC
Community Manager
Community Manager

srandall25,

 

There is still another update coming to address the other issues. This update for the SmartHub addresses the crash issue that results in the SmartHub dropping offline. I will provide another update when the camera fixes are available.

 

JamesC

srandall25
Apprentice
Apprentice
Thanks for the update James. Where would one go to see the firmware release notes by version and date? Thank you.
JamesC
Community Manager
Community Manager

srandall25,

 

Firmware release notes are available here: Firmware Release Notes

 

JamesC

fespejo
Aspirant
Aspirant
Same issue for activity zones and video settings view
Chrisk2
Apprentice
Apprentice

The fix did not resolve the problem.  The problem is now on 2 of the 4 cameras.  Yesterday before the fix it was only on 1 camera.  So basically the fix doubled the number of cameras with problems.

Meiko
Aspirant
Aspirant

HI Same issue here.

Doesnt work on mobile or any browser.  Issue started with all of a sudden being told have to setup activity zone when set to AC.

After that resolved one camera is in zoom only when setting activity zones.

Only thing that worked for a period of time was

Remove the SD Card

Remove the camera with issues from the account

Reboot the base station

Add camera back to account.

Was then full view and added one activity zone.  When adding a second reverted back to zoom in Activity screen.

SD card was not in at this time.

 

Was going to do a full reset however after reading this thread seems a waist of my time.  

I have a ticket open which John was very helpful going over all the troubleshooting.  Ticket is still open so have updated it with a link to this thread.

If anyone finds the solution please let me know 🙂

53Crusher
Apprentice
Apprentice

Looks like all four of my cameras received another firmware update last night 1.070.50.2_205_0c7c8e1 and guess what?

1/4 zoom issue was resolved and I was able to set up all four activity zones. Only thing I noticed is that three of the cameras have unusually low network signal right now. Will see what the day brings, but my issues may have been fixed!

brianhollings
Star
Star
My zone issue was resolved with latest firmware!
1.15.04_297_aa40f04