Thumbnails

[Johnny290]

Are there any plans to get thumbnails for the remote storage access

[michaelkenward]

Arlo doesn't talk about "future features". For example:

Re: Will Arlo upgrade its direct storage access? - Arlo Community

To my mind without this feature remote storage access is crippled. Why not add this as a "feature request?

Arlo Idea Exchange - Arlo Community

[Johnny290]

One of their competitors has local storage and has no problem with thumnails. As a matter of fact I believe that's why Arlo is giving us local storage in the first place because of competition

[michaelkenward]

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@Johnny290 wrote:
As a matter of fact I believe that's why Arlo is giving us local storage in the first place because of competition

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Not according to the official announcements.

Arlo said that it would provide access to local storage after the launch of the Ultra cameras. There was uproar and a flood of complaints when people discovered that, unlike the Pro 2 and older cameras,  the Ultra system does not come with free cloud storage for seven-days.

Local and Remote Access to Local Storage for Arlo Ultra via Arlo App Expected in Second Half of 2019

[Johnny290]

I know what Arlo said, but their competition is offering free local storage with thumnails. That is their primary motive, for free local storage they could have done this anytime with any of their Arlo products.

[Johnny290]

They may act like they're doing you a favor. It's all about competition

[StephenB]

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@Johnny290 wrote:
I know what Arlo said, but their competition is offering free local storage with thumnails. That is their primary motive, ...

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The facts are clear - they launched the Ultra in late 2018, and immediately got complaints on the need to pay for cloud storage.  In January 2019 they announced that in response to customer feedback they would provide remote access to local storage for free in the second half of 2019 (which they did, but just barely).   

Remaining competitive could also have factored into their thinking. That is of course speculation - there is no way to know what their "primary motive" might have been, especially when you choose not to believe what they say. 

You seem to view responding to competition as a negative, which frankly makes no sense to me.

[Johnny290]

It's all about competition it always is, not a negative thing a positive thing. And why do you think they waited all this time to release it when they could have done it months ago. And the competition has local storage right out of the box and they have thumnails with their local storage. Arlo finally released local storage at the end of the year without thumbnails which makes it pretty much useless

[michaelkenward]

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@Johnny290 wrote:
And why do you think they waited all this time to release it when they could have done it months ago.

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There speaks someone from a position of deep ignorance. Do you know how much effort goes into those things?

That feature required not just new firmware for hubs but a rework of the software on  the servers at the Arlo end.

Can you imagine the uproar had they rushed out a quick fix that went and broke the thousands of users in the many countries where Arlo provides cloud subscriptions? That involved a long series of beta tests.

There was one important date in the calendar that set the timetable for providing local access, the year after the first Ultra buyers signed up for their year's "free" cloud account.  If BestBuy and Arlo hadn't screwed up, that deadline would have been in April. As it was, Best Buy jumped the gun and sold Ultra systems before the official launch by Amazon and other sellers.

I add this extra detail for the benefit of anyone interested in life in the real world. I don't expect facts to convince those who knows all the answers before asking the questions. 

[Johnny290]

I've had Arlo for years do you know how many times these people have sent out a firmware without proper testing and broke everything which was done recently with the Arlo Ultras. They have never been good at firmware updates they have never been good at software. You keep acting like these people did you a favor when this is all about money, competition.

[StephenB]

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@Johnny290 wrote:
It's all about competition it always is, not a negative thing a positive thing. 

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We agree.

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@Johnny290 wrote:
And why do you think they waited all this time to release it when they could have done it months ago.agree.

They haven't said, but whatever the reason was I think they made a good decision.  They ran into a flood of unexpected issues when they transitioned to the new app, and throwing more changes into that mix would likely have made things even worse.

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@Johnny290 wrote:
 without thumbnails which makes it pretty much useless

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I agree it needs thumbnails.  I don't look at every video stored in my library, and looking the thumbnail is part of my decision process.

Technically the process requires them to decode the video in the base, extract an representative image from the video, and then convert that image to jpg.

With 4K and 2K video, that requires an HEVC decoder license for the base (and an AVC license for 1080p).  That might cost Arlo (it depends on whether Arlo is at the royalty cap for those licenses or not).

Also, waiting for the thumbnail before notifying could create more lag, since the base would be using a software decoder w/o hardware acceleration.

Still, I'd like thumbnails - even if they had to be populated a bit after the video is captured.

[Johnny290]

You also seem to forget that Arlo launched Arlo Ultra without proper testing and it was so bad they had to take it off the market. Just another example of poor engineering

[Johnny290]

Again I want to mention another company has local storage with some thumbnails with notifications and has no problem doing this

[StephenB]

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@Johnny290 wrote:
... they had to take it off the market.

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No I didn't forget.  But we were talking specifically about the local storage feature, and I didn't think it was relevant to that.  But adding a major new feature (like local storage) to the Ultra while they were stablizing the first release would have been (in my view) a bad decision.

I don't understand where you are trying to take this conversation.  We agreed on the need for thumbnails, and no one is saying anything else.  

FWIW, We also agree that there were issues for Arlo in 2019 (including some obvious mis-steps), and that more work is still needed to resolve some of them.  But I don't see much point in revisiting the past, I'm much more interested in helping folks with their current issues, and discussing what we'd like to see next.

[Johnny290]

I'm taking this conversation to the point where I started this post. All the way at the beginning. Local storage without thumnails is not that good.

[Johnny290]

Look at my first post you're the one who keeps carrying on not me

[michaelkenward]

Your question was answered immediately, with a suggestion as to how you could add your weight to the demand for thumbnails.  The "discussion" continues only because you keep banging on with comments that have nothing to do with that first message and the immediate answers.

I see that your entry in the Arlo Idea Exchange - Arlo Communities repeats your failure to spell thumbnails correctly.

Thumnails - Arlo Community

Anyone else interested in this feature, might like to add their vote.

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@michaelkenward wrote:

Thumnails - Arlo Community

Anyone else interested in this feature, might like to add their vote.

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A good suggestion.  The idea there currently has only two votes ( btw one of them is mine).  

Perhaps now we can stop this discussion?

[LandJS]

A statement was made, it appears to have been turned into a argument and then went overboard nit picking about spelling.  Does it take time and money to produce many of these features, yes.  Is it about money, yes, that's what business is about.  Cell phones do it, cable and satellite do it with all the extras.  However, there are systems out of the box that have these features and when it's part of your sales pitch yours should to.  Mine are a year old and have never gone a month without something not working 100%.  Multiple people have commented here about how every update breaks something else, not just one person wishing for a feature to work.  Microsoft, Google and Amazon have small issues they have to fix also but they are also well tested before release and they get right on a fix.  With Arlo it is always a month to four months, it's like a constant beta.  Name one other thing you would buy that you would accept this from.  You buy a car and it goes in every month to be fixed, because it screwed up going down the freeway.  Your new TV keeps acting up and you miss half your shows until the next firmware update.  Arlo may end up great but it clearly wasn't and isn't ready for prime time.  They probably are on a bare bones budget now.  As market watchers point out, they are now a stand alone company without Netgear and are up against some pretty big names.

[Johnny290]

Well said I have seen Arlo give us firmware updates and software updates and totally destroy the system unlike I've ever seen any other company do. And Arlo is not here to do is favors there here to make money