U provide minimal assistance

[OHfun19]

Arlo has some great camera's but their support service is terrible and it looks like once their cloud storage goes off of free a lot of the functionality goes away because some of their equipment does not provide for capturing of images using your equipment

I have an open ticket and have no response

I finally got up on a ladder and it looks like my base station does not allow for a Sid card or installing a usb hard drive so if I want to retain video of alerts I have to subscribe to your cloud service

I find that unacceptable! After spending close to $600 for your system I feel like I would have been better off with a Blink system
This is the 1st time in my life where I am tempted to file a complaint with a state/federal agency

U don't even have my unit on your pull down list and it's like 1.5 years old
Arlo 4K UHD Ultra VMS5240-100NAS Base S/N 5GH18B7HA1DB8

[michaelkenward]

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@OHfun19 wrote:
I have an open ticket and have no response

I realise that this must be frustrating, but just about every support organisation I visit warns that the world is coming to an end as many people are in quarantine and cannot work, so there are fewer support staff. Everyone who can works from home and then tries to get help with problems.

I am surprised that Arlo has not flagged this up on it support pages.

So queries that might have been answered quickly now have to join a long and growing queue.

This is a good place to get help. It can be a lot quicker.

Unfortunately, I cannot understand what your problem is.

Take this bit:

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@OHfun19 wrote:

I finally got up on a ladder and it looks like my base station does not allow for a Sid card or installing a usb hard drive so if I want to retain video of alerts I have to subscribe to your cloud service

What does it mean? What are you trying to achieve?

What is an "Sid card"? (Google tells me nothing.)

And what does getting up a ladder have to do with anything? Your Ultra cameras have nothing to do with storing data, so no need to climb up ladders. 

Local storage is down to your hub. The Ultra hub has a slot in the bottom for a microSD card.

Find the manual for your system her:

Arlo - Security Cameras and Systems

Then there is this:

What is Direct Storage Access and how do I use it?

Finally, this bit puzzles me.

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@OHfun19 wrote:

U don't even have my unit on your pull down list and it's like 1.5 years old
Arlo 4K UHD Ultra VMS5240-100NAS Base S/N 5GH18B7HA1DB8

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I don't know where you were looking, but as you can see I found the Ultra system in the database and added it to my message.

[Eric33]

I agree with your summary regarding Arlo support. It is very poor. My guy was telling me all kinds of things that were not true found out support was from the Philippines. Simply reading the documentation word for word then placing me on hold to constantly as someone else what to do for 2.5 hours. When I asked for a second level tech it he was now better. After my initial call it took 7 days for someone to call me back.

I purchased the newest Arlo Ultra 4k system and 3 cameras. After you remove the cloud service almost nothing works as described in their documentation when using the micro-AD card.

Saved image issues - Was told you could be able to view remotely if port forwarding was enabled. This is not the case. Arlo support guy had no clue how to configure. Stated I should be able to view on library in my.arlo.com. This only happens when I have cloud service not local microSD storage but documentation states I should be able to. 

Arlo support will not troubleshoot - My techs solution was to disconnect my entire network and plug base station directly into the ISP router. What home system has that setup? 

The reason I purchased ARLO Ultra 4k system was so I did NOT  have to use the cloud storage at $10 per month and have the ability to see my recordings on my.arlo.com so I could remotely view them when I was not at home. I do receive alerts remotely because even after you disable the cloud service you still get alerts. I have to wait till I get home to view recordings. Also, using VPN as ARLO documentation suggested does not work. I am in IT and have tried multiple VPN solutions nothing works.

Support documentation - online documentation is very high level and really does not give good detailed instructions and troubleshooting.  

Lack of logging- There is really no logging file I can access to tell me where the failures are. By default this should be an applet on the app or in the my.arlo.com portal. This way I could see where the failure is. I am a technical IT guy but if you do not have detailed logs I have no option but post on blogs ..... that are not very helpful as there is no technical expert really answering the blogs. 

Lack of technical support - Arlo gives you 90 day phone support then blog only. Well my first 90  days I talked to 3 different Arlo technicians. They all basically read out of the manual. 

These suggestions are good basic software troubleshooting standards that are clearly lacking and  show large gaps in your support and product. Hopefully you will improve on them. Now I have to look for another solution and sell my existing one. 

[StephenB]

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@OHfun19 wrote:

I finally got up on a ladder and it looks like my base station does not allow for a Sid card or installing a usb hard drive so if I want to retain video of alerts I have to subscribe to your cloud service

Arlo 4K UHD Ultra VMS5240-100NAS Base S/N 5GH18B7HA1DB8

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I'm a little confused on how the ladder relates to this.  But you should have a VMB5000 base station (there will be a label on the back).  

The VMB5000 has a slot for a microSD card, which is used for local storage.  

https://kb.arlo.com/000062337/What-is-Direct-Storage-Access-and-how-do-I-use-it

https://kb.arlo.com/000062124/How-do-I-record-4K-videos-to-a-local-storage-device

[michaelkenward]

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@StephenB wrote:

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The VMB5000 has a slot for a microSD card, which is used for local storage.  

Indeed, and there is a diagram on page 60 of the manual.

micro SD card