Grainy Night vision, connectivity issues, battery life lasts about a week, etc.

[Miamicarey]

Purchased the Arlo Ultra 4K’s (4 pack) for $1000..00 from Best Buy and have had nothing but technical issues, battery life lasts about a week, connectivity is terrible, image is grainy at night, etc. Best Buy pulled this product off the shelves stating technical issues. I tried to return but Best Buy states I’m outside of the 15 day return policy window. Arlo won’t take back the product either. BUYERS BEWARE! These cameras are a joke!!

[JamesC]

Miamicarey,

There have been several updates since the original Arlo Ultra  launch in January that address many issues and concerns. The most recent updates for the camera, the SmartHub and the mobile apps (iOS and Android) have fixed many customer facing issues, improving the overall experience.

I encourage you to check to make sure you have the latest firmware updates available for both your Arlo Ultra system and your Arlo mobile app and test again to see if you still have the same experience.

If you continue to experience issues, please post the details here and we would be happy to help troubleshoot.

For more information on current firmware and software releases, take a look here:  Release Notes

Thank you,

JamesC

[Gigi_Puff]

I'm having the same issue...grainy videos even though 4k streaming is on. When I download the video it's the same in the MP4. What gives? We spent A LOT on this system.

[Gigi_Puff]

As an added insult - you can't even select it as a product, i had to select the closest model number.

[JamesC]

Gigi_Puff,

When live streaming do you see the 4K badge in the top corner of the stream? Is the 4K badge showing in the thumbnail for your library recordings?

JamesC

[Miamicarey]

No 4K icon... That iis just one of many issues. Battery life sucks! Connectivity sucks! If someone is breaking into my house or stealing my car off the driveway, these cameras will fail!!

[Gigi_Puff]

No sir, even though stream in 4k is set to on.

[JamesC]

It sounds like the battery life could be an issue if the camera is struggling to maintain a connection with the SmartHub. Try bringing your SmartHub closer to the cameras, or the cameras closer to the SmartHub to improve the signal strength and this will also help battery life.

If you don't have a 4K badge on your library recordings, you need to subscribe to the PVR (Premium VIdeo Recording) service. This will allow 4K recordings to be saved to the library. Take a look here for more information: What Arlo subscription do I need to record videos with 4K resolution?

For more on how to stream 4K content, take a look here: How do I stream in 4K with my Arlo Ultra camera?

JamesC

[Gigi_Puff]

James - No battery life issues for me, yet, and the cameras are all within 20 feet of the hub - This was all done for testing after I literally just unboxed it - I charged the batterier and update all relavant firmwares.

Is there a way I can upload a clip for you to see - 4K is an add-on but 1080o should be included. This looks really bad, like sub 720p.

For the 4K - Will the camera reocrd to local storage in 4k?

[Gigi_Puff]

As a follow up, here are the video details - note it states 1920x1080 - but if you'll allow me to post a gdrive link or upload to youtube, you see it's extremely blotchy. To clarify, it's not grainy as for the original poster, but blotchy/blocky. I think it will become clear when you see it.

[jguerdat]

You can post alink to a video from any service including Arlo. Select or view a video in the library and use the Sharing icon to copy the link to post here. The link will only be good for 24 hours.

[Gigi_Puff]

Here we are:

https://arlo.netgear.com/hmsweb/users/library/share/link/79C7FBB7CF4EEE3B_201904

[jguerdat]

That video looks normal to me. I do see a little pixelization initially which is likely the compression catching up with the scene.

[Gigi_Puff]

That's really dismaying. The blockiness/pixelation is throughout the video. The frame may be 1920x1080 but that is not an acceptable quality. The person in the video was literally 3 ft from the camera. If someone's driving by on the street or walks past the driveway no way youd make out the license plate or enough detail to positively identify them (trying to think of real world examples).

[jguerdat]

As has been mentioned before in various threads here, even at 4k the use of 180 degrees FOV plus compression to keep bandwidth and storage requirements reasonable will always impact the ability to zoom in or pick out distant details. Use of the more restrictive FOVs (wide or full) may help by causing you to position the camera in a better location but the same issues still are at play. The hardware/software combo is a given - it's up to you to optimize it for your needs with camera positioning and settings. Remember that a camera with such a wide angle lens will never be an ID camera - those require a longer focal length with much narrower FOV. The use of 4k helps overcome this but only to a point.

BTW, assuming your video is 1080p, that's only a 2 megapixel image. There's only so much you can do with that.

[Miamicarey]

Looks like you spent a lot of time coming up with this bull response. The bottom line is that there are many technical issues with the Arlo Ultra 4K’s. Too many to mention! These cameras should not have been released until thoroughly tested! I want my money back!!!!!!!!

[JamesC]

Miamicarey,

I will reach out to you in a private message with more information on this topic.

JamesC