Ultra Cameras don't seem to want to stay connected

[Jeremyinsf]

Rare for me to buy something on 'day 1' but I've been waiting for these Ultra cameras for a while.

Anyway, I picked up today and want this to be a success - but I can't seem to get the cameras to stay connected, even when they are within a few feet of the base station.  Both the 'regular' live view and view to position the camera time out all the time... constantly.  The message I get is "The request timed out" or more often, "This Arlo device is offline

Please make sure it is connected to the Internet. Visit support.arlo.com for help." 

My Internet is fine.  Other stuff all working fine.  If I move the camera or even touch it, that seems to make it worse.  Seems to be the same issue if I try to view on web or on mobile App.  No indication that the base station is going offline.  

I allowed all the latest firmware to update on the Base and the two camera's I'm currently testing with, and it has no effect.  Camera is H6 v 1.060.20.8_30046.  Power management is "optimized".

I tried 10ft from Base and then maybe 75 feet.  Same thing.

Thoughts?  I really don't want to return them 😞

[Cwmmmm]

So it seems the push was for connecting issues. Hopefully it will work for everyone else now. Thank you for the info..

[cgallatin]

the update seems to have addressed my connection issues

[Bigjames83]

No update for me yet. I brought one of my cameras inside and it seems to be working much better. It was only about 25ft away from the base station. This isn’t good if it can’t connect solidly at distance.

[cgallatin]

i didn’t see the updates until i restarted the base station

[adammiarka]

Yesterday afternoon my Smart Hub base station kept going offline.  Looking back, it was probably Arlo pushing the update.   Previous version was 1.12.0.0_29882 for the Smart Hub.   Now it's 1.12.0.0_30255.

[Ahwaldrup]

Props to The developement team for fixing it in a reasonable amount of time. Mine is working wonderfully. Big upgrade from the pro 2

[Ayrity]

Mine are working better it seems, however, if I change certain settings, then go back and hit live stream, the camera will still say it's currently in use, then say its offline. A reboot of the app and waiting about 5 mins seems to fix it.

Also the adjustments in the video settings dont seem to live update to the sample camera view that's at the top of the video settings page, that is what that's for right? Like if I change from ultra wide to one of the other settings, nothing changes on that sample view. Is that what's supposed to happen?

[adammiarka]

I've noticed if you change certain settings for the camera, the camera itself seems to "reboot".   The app will say that the camera is not connected.  If you just wait a couple of mins, the Ultra will join the hub again.   Not ideal, but my guess as to what is going on.

[Dukenewcomb21]

I’m glad they rolled out new firmware but I really hope they do something for the battery life. It was supposed to be the same as the pro2/Pro. My Pro cameras battery’s go about 2-3 months. My ultras were all fully charged Sunday, it’s now Wednesday and theyre ALL at roughly 75%. That means these will all need to be recharged within a week! That’s INSANE!

I can’t be unmounting Cameras that are outside and inside every week to recharge for hours.

Why on earth is battery life not even close to what was promised????

[JamSam]

I am not personally judging battery life until connection issues are resolved. I can’t imagine whatever is/was causing the disconnects wouldn’t affect battery life in some way.

I will say much, much improved performance since the update. I have no missing events today. There are still some hiccups with triggering camera B on camera A motion, live view (which seems better but not perfect, etc. Really encouraged by this quick fix though!

[JamesC · Accepted solution]

New firmware is available for Arlo Ultra and the Arlo SmartHub that resolves this issue. Please be sure you're cameras and base station are on the latest version. Take a look here:

Arlo Ultra VMC5040 - 1.060.20.10_30273 - 15th January 2019

Arlo SmartHub VMB5000 - 1.12.0.0_30255 - 15th January 2019

JamesC

[Cwmmmm]

thank you arlo team for the fast work!

[Gloryrob]

Just received a firmware update on my ultras . What ever it was seems to be working . No connection issues here anymore . Seems to be recording and and not disconnecting my cameras. So far I am a fan of the new Arlo Ultras

[Bigjames83]

Now for the battery drain issues! Put the camera back up 3 hours ago and I’m at 91%

[Dukenewcomb21]

AMEN! The battery is awful right now and yes I’ve lowered resolution and changed settings to attempt to help but something can’t be right!

[Retired_Member]

I have those latest firmware updates and I continue to have problems staying connected.  Maybe not as frequent, but definitely still a problem.

[michaelkenward]

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@Retired_Member wrote:

I have those latest firmware updates and I continue to have problems staying connected.  Maybe not as frequent, but definitely still a problem.

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Did you power cycle after the update?

I find that this can help, especially early on when they are firefighting new products.

[Retired_Member]

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@michaelkenward wrote:

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@Retired_Member wrote:

I have those latest firmware updates and I continue to have problems staying connected.  Maybe not as frequent, but definitely still a problem.

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Did you power cycle after the update?

I find that this can help, especially early on when they are firefighting new products.

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Thanks.  Yes, I did a power cycle as I moved the base station to its permanent home and installed the cameras in their new locations.   I just lost connectivity less than an hour ago and both cameras are showing excellent signal strength to base.

[KGSRETIRED]

Things are better now except when watching live after a while they sometimes go to black screen.

[JamesC]

The development team is still keeping a close eye on these reports of connectivity issues as well as the battery concerns some of you have mentioned. We appreciate your patience in this process. I will provide new information here as I find out more.

A couple things to keep in mind:

-Camera usage plays a large part in battery consumption, the more activity the camera sees (live streaming or motion detects/recordings) the quicker the battery will deplete. If you're experiencing rapid battery drain, take a look at how much activity the camera is seeing.

-Outside of the issue we resolved in the last update, poor connectivity and offline issues can be caused by environmental issues like WiFi interference or poor signal due to range. If you're experiencing this, you might try elevating your SmartHub and moving it away from any other devices that emit a wireless signal (routers, baby monitors, telephones, etc.). These sort of environmental issues can also result in battery drain as the camera has a more difficult time maintaining it's connection with the SmartHub.

While this doesn't cover all bases, this can go a long way in ensuring you get the best performance out of your Arlo system. Please keep providing details of what you're seeing.

Thank you,

JamesC

[st_shaw]

Elevating my Ultra hub (putting on a high shelf) made a significant difference in reported signal strength.

[adammiarka]

Mine as well.  I ended up using a powerline adapter to put the hub on the 2nd floor in a central part of the house.   Works much better.

[JamSam]

My system is working as expected after the update. I do agree the battery depletion is a bit higher than desired, but I find it pretty consistent with other battery powered cameras.

Some of the smart features seem to be getting figured out on the backend as well. No more disconnects and capturing all events makes me very happy!

[Merlins4]

This thread has been extremely beneficial to learn about the issues people have been experiencing and the recent update that has improved some of those issues reported. The feedback I read made me very exciting thinking that it was a good move for me to give it a shot, but after speaking with the support team today, I learned two very concerning things and I am curious if anyone else shares my same concerns. 

1. In order to have any sort of recording function at all, you are now required to subscribe to an Arlo Smart package or insert a SD card for local storage. I understand that the Ultra comes with 1 year of Smart Premier, but after that you need to renew or lose all recording capabilities. One of the main reasons why I chose to go with Arlo Pro 2 was the fact that I had a limited about of free recording. 

2. Possibly the most concerning thing since this camera is advertised as 4K, is that in order to take advantage of 4K capture beyond local live streaming and recording to a microSD card, you need to subscribe and pay for an additional Premium Video recording add-on plan for $1.99 per month / $19 per year per each individual camera. This was shocking for me and it not proactively advertised anywhere on the product pages of the website.

So not only am I no longer able to use Arlo without a paid subscription package, but I am also not able to leverage 4k for cloud-based motion capture video recording without an additional plan.

I would love to hear others thoughts on this as well as better understanding how the recent update has improved connectivity issues.

[Manole831]

Even when viewing live streaming on my local network, I find it hard to believe this is even close to 4K. Zoomed in on the Arlo Pro 2 and Ultra, the images look just as pixelated when side by side. HDR does make a bigger difference but I bought these primarily to see more clearly at distances of 20+ feet and it has not lived up to its advertising at all. Are other folks seeing vast improvements when streaming locally WRT image clarity?