Ultra delayed alert notifications and slow to connect

[mauijer]

Yep, me too.

Push alerts either never come (unless withing 5 feet of center of camera view) or come 17-30 seconds later.

Hoped Ultra smarthub would have faster connection but live stream often fails and says camera is disabled or takes sometimes 30 seconds to connect.

[JamesC]

FrankLew, mauijer

Are you still seeing the same behavior today? What is the signal strength showing for your cameras?

JamesC

[mauijer]

Thanks for the followup.

The past few days my cameras have seen a lot of traffic so I have been able to observe a bit. The notifications seem to be faster than last week; I will need to time them when I get home but I would guess around 10-20 seconds at worst and 5-10 seconds at best. I have had a few missed events. I did have to move a camera from near a corner to a flat wall and it seems to be doing better.  I was using the live view a lot more initially during camera set up than I have lately, but connection to live view is averaging 8 seconds right now on all 4 cameras. I have only had one episode the past few days when I tried to connect to live view and received the disconnected error window. However, it appears that today one of my cameras that typically only has 1 bar signal now shows 2, (Yay!). The other camera location still only shows 1 bar.  That being said I don't think I am missing many triggering events due to poor signal per se. I have seen a couple missed recordings but I suspect that is due to distance from the camera and lighting. Its perplexing how sometimes the camera picks up a car (which it sometimes identifies as a person or animal lol) on the far street but won't detect a person walking toward the house until they are half that distance. 

[KingBowser64]

I also either receive delayed notifications or no notification whatsoever (but when I check the cloud, it shows a recording) with Arlo Ultra.
Another issue that I am experiencing is that for the first 1-3 seconds of a video, the video is a frozen frame, then the video normalizes and shows the rest of the video properly. This would be problematic since the first few moments catching an intruder would be lost and by the time the recording works, that person could be out-of-sight for the camera. I have supplied videos with this problem to Arlo, so hopefully that will be looked into and fixed. I do believe that the recent firmware updates have made Arlo Ulta usable, but they still could use a lot of work. I truly appreciate Arlo working on these fixes, and I look forward to the addition of HomeKit.

[LandJS]

the alerts are still inconsistent even after the update.  Sometimes they are instant as should be and other times it takes ten min.to get an alert.  That is on the same device, same location,same signal stregth and same day. Just totally inconsistent meaning a crime could take place before an alert is recieved.  Even though the video is already in the library and I have watched it out of curiosity before the alert comes in.

[JamesC]

LandJS,

How often are you getting alerts that are that delayed? Are you seeing delays like you mention of up to 10 minutes often? (Some delay is expected for Smart notifcaitons as it takes time for the cloud to analyze the video). 

JamesC

[mauijer]

I think someone else mentioned this under a different model, but when trying to play earlier clips from the day only the newest one keeps showing. 

Is there a fix for this?

[LandJS]

Every day this happens to some extent.  I can go out to my car and receive an alert beforeI can get in it or walk around all 5 cameras and get alerts as I pass each one.  Now then 2 hours later I can go out get in the car and drive 5 min. uptown before getting an alert or go outside and walk past 3 cameras do something and go back in the house pour a cup of coffee sit down and receive 3 alerts.  One to three times a day it might take 10 min,  this is where I say out of curiosity after not getting an alert, I can go watch it in my library and then a bit later get the alert.  My only other concern is that the cameras are not recording until motion stops, they record 13 to 20 secs. and stop even though activity continues.  I am going to try setting them for 30 secs. to see what happens and if they record beyond 30 if motion continues.

[jguerdat]

The phone being in sleep mode will delay alerts. It may be that you've recently used your phone when leving the house the first time but not later on. Sleep makes a big difference in alrt timing.

As for recording until motion stops, remember that motion has to be detectable by the camera, not your eye. People detection maxs out at about 25 feet at best. If the Ultra is like th ePro series, motion can only be undetectable for about 5 seconds before recording stops. You can test this yourself by wlaking back and forth close to the camera and slowly moving away from the camera to see where detection stops.

A powered Ultra uses pixel detection so supplying power would be a useful option.

[LandJS]

Don't know about the effect of sleep mode or to what level of sleep it goes to, I just use it to look at a text or whatver and put it back in my pocket.  But today after getting home with it just stting in my pocket for 4 hrs the alert was instant as I pulled in the driveway but had not got an alert yet for when my daughter left our house an hour earlier from the back door or driveway cameras but they were in the library.  As for the motion it will pick up on something, person or animal comming and then stop as they pass to about 10 feet past.  Still I'm happy with the cameas and just hoping the bugs are worked out faster than windows updates lol.  Now I just need to figure out how my wife can look at her phone or computer without it logging me off because we're not always in the same place but use the same login and password.

[jguerdat]

Sleep mode is a difficult thing. You may get a very delayed alert due to sleep and then get an immediate one because something else (email check by the app or some other app that does background operations) wakes the phone sufficiently to allow the alert to come through. I've had exactly your situation. On my Android phone, I find that the phone will stay awake for about 2 minutes (not sure how exact that is) allowing alerts to come through immediately and then go to sleep, delaying alerts.

To let your wife check without logging you off, use Settings, Grant Access to her email address. She needs to follow the emailed directions carefully. A person using a guest account won't know you off.

[LandJS]

Thanks for inf. on sleep mode.  So I did some online research on Samsung Androids where others had notification issues and the suggestion was going into the battery settings and add the app to un monitored so giving this a try.

[leonilo2]

The server response for Live view is 1:30 secs or not at all. I relate my expectations of this system to 4K streaming of cable network service. My reality experience has been like a 56k modem service to and from the Arlo network. The cameras are one two and three bars but the communication from camera to base and base to network to my phone can no way utilize the included live features effectively. Where do I start with troubleshooting!

It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all try something.     
Franklin D. Roosevel

[jguerdat]

I just tested and my live view response time is ~7-8 seconds. 90 seconds indicates some sort of communication issue, whether between the camera and base and/or your network to the server. I'm going from Rochester, NY to somewhere in Ireland with ~100ms response times once it leaves NYC so hardly the fastest connection.

[LandJS]

thanks for the info. but though I've tried that twice the e-mail never comes and it's not in graymail

[jguerdat]

Since you had originally stated that alerts came through immediately, I thought you were talking about push notifications. You now say emails aren't coming through. Fill us in with details since the issues are pretty much completely different.

[LandJS]

Well found the problem with adding the wife, seems two people can't use the same e-mail. Really people, you have to create a whole new e-mail just so you don't log each other off if you access arlo from two different locations.  Just called to be sure you weren't on Arlo so I can check it.  

[jguerdat]

You are using Settings, Grant Acces, right?

[LandJS]

yes, when done on my computor I would input the info. and send the request which said to follow the recieved e-mail instructions but the e-mails never came.  So I did it usung the android app on my phone and it told me I was not allowed to send the request with the same e-mail.  So using a different e-mail for her it sent it right through with no problem and set up was easy.  Point is, in this day and age when I can look at and transfer files between 3 computers at the same time that are part of my group, I should be able to let two people be part of my Arlo group without forcing one another off.  That being said, I am still learning the Arlo thing.  I loved things like knowing that it was person, vehicle or animal for two weeks anyway but now it has called people walking vehicles, told me I have a vehicle (my RV) which hasn't moved in a month and called the exhaust from my heat pump a number of things.  The best though was a vehicle alert for a hummingbird lol.

[jguerdat]

In the Bad Old Days of Smart, my wife kept getting identified as an animal.

Not going any further with that...  🙂

[LandJS]

LOL that just made my day

[LandJS]

thanks to inf from jguerdat I spent time researching the notification delay and it is in fact a phone not an Arlo thing. At least with androids, it depends on when your phone does a notification check which will depend on how your using your phone and so it may be instant or delayed until your phone checks.  On google play there is a highly recommended free app called push notification fixer ( root app or normal app )  it can be set to check as often as you like.  Comes set for every 5 min. but can be set for every min if you wish.  Probably abit of overkill.  Hope this is helpful

[jguerdat]

I'll check that app out myself - thanks!

[LandJS]

Latest firmware and reset everything but push notifications are still an issue, even though there have been a dozen triggers in the last ten hours, not one notification on my phone.  They are in e-mail and the library but not getting through on the phone which did work fine yesterday.  They need to work on their program of identification to, only people, vehicles and animals are checked, no other motion but the steam from the heat pump always triggers it and it still calls humming birds vehicles.  It's a poor program in this tech age that can't distiguish between the two, needs some tweaking