Upgrade to 4K cloud storage.

[Craig-S]

Hello After spending over 2 hours on 2 phone calls with Arlo customer support I’m at my wits end so I’m bringing my problem here. I’m UK based and have recently bought the Arlo Ultra x 2 camera system. Everything set up and running. Things still a little glitchy but I’m hoping the creases will continue to be ironed out with updates. All I’ve been trying to do is upgrade/add on to my free 1 year Arlo Smart Premier plan by buying the 4K record to cloud remote view premium add on that is $1.99 monthly or about £1.50 gbp monthly per camera. I can live stream on same home network 4K but I would like the quality of 4K to be recorded and then if needed remotely accessed on my mobile. I don’t have zoom/tracking turned on. On both of my calls I spent 20 mins trying to convince the customer support people that 4K recording to the cloud was not included in my free 1 year premier subscription as per there website. Then a further 15 mins convincing them that they offered the ‘premium smart 4K ‘ add on as per there website for $1.99/£1.50. After spending the remaining hour + with 2 people who didn’t have a clue what they where doing I’m absolutely no further forward. Can someone please help as the customer support so far in my personal experience has been a contradiction in terms.

[JamesC · Accepted solution]

Craig-S,

I apologize for the painful support experience. You can do this by amending your current Premier subscription plan. Log in to your Arlo account from a PC using the web client and navigate to Settings > Subscription > Change Plan.

You want to keep your existing Premier subscription, so don't make any changes here, click continue.

Now select Premium Video Recording on the cameras you want the PVR service applied to, click continue and complete the subscription flow.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you experience any further issues.

JamesC

[Craig-S]

Hi James

Thanks for your speedy reply. That’s it, so simple. Although getting that 2 1/2 hours back of my life will be the challenge. Just before I click pay James could you clarify a few things please.

Am I correct once subscribed to the Premium Video recording that my recordings will be in 4K?

Also when I remotely access them when not on home network that they will be in 4K?

How do I cancel auto renew on either of those subscriptions (the upgrade and the premier plan)?

How do I remove my credit card details from my account?

Thanks once again for your speedy and straightforward advice. 👍🏻

[JamesC]

Craig-S,

When subscribed to PVR, your library recordings will be in 4K (a 4K badge will be shown on the thumbnail).

PVR does not include remote live streaming in 4K. For live streams, 4K is only available when streaming locally.

An email will be sent to you as a confirmation prior to the auto renewal. Auto renew cannot be disabled from the UI. For active subscriptions, a valid credit card must remain on the account, this cannot be removed.

JamesC

[Craig-S]

Hi James

Apologies I meant when I view them in my library remotely I will see them in 4K. Is there anyway to remove my card details from my account? I’ve had my details stolen before when a company got hacked and I’d just prefer not to have them available. Thanks again for your help.

[JamesC]

Craig-S,

I'll reach out to you in a private message with more information on the credit card question.

Yes, after subscribing to PVR, your cloud recordings will be 4K when local or remote.

JamesC

[VegemanNZ]

Hi,I was excited to see this thread as I to couldn't find how to modify the subscription to get 4K up in the cloud BUT now I'm panicking, as the quality of the image is worse due to pixelation, packet dropping etc...so now I see even less. Can I drop the quality of the video from 4K back to 1080p to see what the issue is?...is it an uploading issue?

[VegemanNZ]

Also, I did check that it wasn't my Video Player. I got the same image results while viewing from my Samsung Note 9 via the app and then on my Mac using VLC player....and now somewhat annoyed that I can't view on browser without downloading it first. 

I'm thinking binning this 4K add on...and it might be even harder to do this.

[VegemanNZ]

I just had my first dealings with tech Support via the chat...and I was very pleased with the response time and that we got a result. I was going to say resolutions but that would have confused the 4K resolution resolution thingy 🙂

Basically, the issue of the 4K capture to the cloud related to the wifi/internet upload speed. Since the server is also trying to process the image for detection and other smart stuff, I'm guessing it just uploads as best as it can and drops packets etc and my camera range to the base stations is at the limit. 1080p seemed to be fine, but the 4K requirement was too high.

One of the things I noticed that helped diagnose was the time taken for a notification to be sent to my phone/app. Previously it was very quick...with 4K enabled  or premium +premirer video recording...it took forever, which was bad as well.

What I did like though was the abiility to enable the extra service in real-time via the credit card AS WELL AS the ability to remove the add on and return my subscription back to Premier. That was very slick, and once downgraded...it all worked again. 

I'm impressed that the Credit and subscription worked like that, it's not uncommon for some services to take your money quickly, but make the refund and services reversal a pain in the butt. Good stuff Arlo!

[jguerdat]

What are your various speeds and latency as noted by using speedtest.net? Slow upload speeds are certainly a problem with 4K. ALso, were the cameras using Smart after you upgraded your plan? Notifications are sent after the video is uploaded and processed, taking additional time.

[VegemanNZ]

latency is only 19ms and upload varies between 10Mps and 18Mps. Performance from my network is good. Fibre based, close to Telco. Arlo Smart was running both before and after which is why I really felt the difference.

Get this...

After sorting it all out last night, the camera detected motion and 0545 in the morning and sent me a notification that motion was detected on my camera aptly named Driveway. I got up immeditatley and noticed that the normal mains powered sensor lights had also triggered so I went outside and sure enough confronted my crazy neighbour trying to steal my wifes pot/plants. long story short...the speed of processing for me, made the difference in catching that silly old bat. 

I'm pleased I got it working before going to bed, who knew that it would only be 6 hours before live testing!

Note. I have installed a SD card to capture the 4K stream to the base station...I hope that is better.

[michaelkenward]

Do you have an issue of some sort?

You would do better to start a new discussion with full details of what you are trying to do.

This is especially important when you tag on to the end of a discussion tagged as Solved.