Arlo support help?

[Barritia]

Let me start by saying that the priority support from Arlo is not worth the money. Not in the slightest. I have been having issues with the cameras for a while and guess that they prefer you to come here for help as they close the support after 4 days and not 7 like normal. Some of us have full time jobs and don't have a chance to test their "fixes" in 4 days as it can take a week or 2 to test the cameras. What's also crazy is when they asked me to send them a video of the issue which was video freezing they said they couldn't load the file format. It was a iphone file so not exactly uncommon. Then I sent them the share link to the video and they said they couldn't load that file type either. It's their file type. So their support give the same response of disconnect the cameras and add them back to the base. Getting sick of dealing with this generic response. 

Ok so if you of you can be a help on here that would be great

1. I have been having issues with the cams freezing after picking up an activity. They will start to record then the pictures freezes for a few seconds then starts again by which time i see there legs coming and then their legs leaving with no face or body shots.

2. When attempting to live view the activity by loading the camera it will just say connecting and not load. I can see the activity zone logo flashing to show there's movement but the cameras will not connect when there's activity.

3. Activity zones are way off. Some of them are highlighted to such a small area and they still go off with activity in them zones and i have to reduce the sensitivity to a point where the cameras dont go off with people even in the highlighted activity zone

4. Some days i can get hundreds of notifications of activity and there's nothing moving. Not a single noise or motion. They will start and i get them about every 10 seconds then after an hr they will stop. This happens at random times. 

5. Picture goes green when recording some activity. i have added a 2nd base to get better signal for these cams but even with 3 bars they will still do this on some videos. 

6. I bought an Arlo ultra 2 set to go with the arlo ultra set to help the cams that only had 2 bars of signal and the ultra 2 cameras have a worse signal strength than the arlo ultra cams.  Im getting one bar with the camera less than 15ft from the base station. 

7 Package detection and animal detection dont work. Not sure if this is because the video freezes and it cant see the package or if this is another issue.

I didn't even make it past number one with multiple messages back and forth to their customer service and live chat where i have wasted 2hrs so far on just getting the video files they wanted to work. I am amazed at how bad their customer service is. You get reconnected to a different person each time and have to explain it all over again. 

Thanks for any help

[ShayneS]

Hi @Barritia

This sounds like you might be having a range or wifi interference issue. May I ask which troubleshooting steps you have performed so far?

[Barritia]

Hey Shayne

Well I thought that could have been an issue too so I upgraded my router and still had the issue. I upgraded to a 1 gig up and down internet and that did not solve the issues so I upgraded to a 3 piece mesh system which is complete overkill for my 1000sqft home as I can get signal at neighbors houses 5 down the street and that did not solve the issues so I added a second Arlo base and that didn’t solve the issues.

I’m running 2 other camera types. Wyze and Samsung and they work flawlessly. They load up almost instantly. Arlo on the other hand clearly has some issues. There is not one camera that’s more than 30ft from a base. There’s literally no walls for them to pass through. 1 at most on all cams.

Not exactly sure what to try now. Had a onewheel stolen from my driveway and 3 cameras pointed in that location 2 did not activate and the one that did froze so I couldn’t see what happened.

[ShayneS]

Thank for the detailed info.

Do you mind bringing one of the cameras closer to the base station, maybe 2' or so for trouble shooting purposes. "If the cameras aren't too hard to get to"

Thank you

[Barritia]

Hey Shayne I can. Let me know what I need to do. I’m still having these issues so I need to get this figured out. I have actually connected one of the problem cams to the new base station that’s only 10ft away from it and still having issues.

[ShayneS]

Are you able to PM me the serial number of the affected cameras?

Thanks