Serious security flaws

[WilsonFamily]

I have this camera (wire-free doorbell), as well as the arlo q and the arlo pro 3 floodlight camera. The reason I have all of these cameras is because I live in a townhouse next to a lunatic, who likes to torment my family by waking us up all night with loud noises. I got the cameras to try to prove what is going on. They worked great at first. I was getting videos of someone blaring Nascar soundson a subwoofer in the middle of the night, banging on the side of the building with what sounded like maybe a broomstick, etc. Then I stopped getting any kind of videos at all at night. There are like 50 other townhouses around me, and if you think nobody is coming or going between 10pm and 8 am, that's crazy. When I would log into the arlo app, sometimes both my flood light and doorbell would say they were offline. If they were online, I would be unable to access the cameras through the live stream option, it would just say "connecting..." the arlo q, however, stays online and gets videos of my neighbor going in and out of the house at midnight every night.

Then the camera (doorbell, not the arlo q) would start turning off whenever the neighbor who terrorizes me would walk by, and back on when they were out of view. This is the only person who this happens with, as I have my motion sensitivity all the way up and the videos set for 2 minute increments. 

Can anyone tell me what's going on? My flood light is on the back of my house and when my neighbor is blaring a subwoofer back there, the camera is shut off and isn't recording. Same with the one in front. There are alarms and subwoofers going off everywhere at night and I can't get my cameras online when it's happening. 

I finally realized that I can gain control of my cameras back by Uninstalling and reinstalling the arlo app, but it goes back to what was previously happening once I leave my house. When I want my cameras to be on, they are turning off (at night when I'm sleeping). They turn back on when I get up in the morning. Also, when I leave my house, i stop receiving notifications from my arlo app, but if I uninstall it and reinstall-- I will have multiple notifications of people outside my house. It is almost like something is intercepting my notifications until I reinstall the app. 

Also, one night before they started going offline every night (this has been going on for over 2 years now), I kept going audio alerts from the camera below my child's room and when I listened to the video it sounded like something hitting the wall and then falling on the floor really loud. I got 5 videos like this in the middle of the night. When I got up in the morning to play it to my husband, I opened the arlo app, I was logged out and had to login again, which is unusual. When i went to play the videos, they were no longer in my library. There were other videos there, just the 5 videos of things hitting my wall at night were gone. 

What can I do about this? I've tried changing passwords, putting on 2 step verification, uninstalling and reinstalling the app. Nothing seems to work. 

[jguerdat]

I'm not sure there's an easy fix. While unlikely, the neighbor could be using some sort of WiFi "blocker" which could simply be a portable hotspot that has a stronger 2.4GHz. signal than what your cameras get from your router or hub. I doubt this is the situation.

Are you connecting the cameras directly to your WiFi or using a hub for some? Are you using either a schedule or geofencing? If so, can you confirm they're working properly? Based on some of your comments, it sounds like geofencing is in use but I'm not sure. Be sure to check your modes and rules for proper settings, remembering that the Q, or any other camera connected to your WiFi, has its own setup. Are you changing motion sensitivity there or in the motion test? The latter is the wrong place so use the rules. You might also want to enable audio detection.

[StephenB]

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@jguerdat wrote:

While unlikely, the neighbor could be using some sort of WiFi "blocker" which could simply be a portable hotspot that has a stronger 2.4GHz. signal than what your cameras get from your router or hub. I doubt this is the situation.

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I doubt it too.  But this is pretty easy to check - just see if you can livestream the camera when you think it ought to be recording.

I am wondering - how far away is your neighbor from the camera(s)?  Are you using audio detection, or just motion detection?

[WilsonFamily007]

Hello,

Thank you for responding. I am connecting directly to my router due to compatability with the smart hubs and all of my devices. It appears as though I may have a stalker who has cloned my phone, which I didn't know was possible. I am having activity in all of my devices and accounts at night while I sleep, starting with my arlo cameras turning off. I have changed my passwords, and enabled 2 step verification on all accounts. I'm getting notices that I have been logged out of accounts on my phone because i have completed verification on other devices, but it isn't me. I think I may need to refer to the authorities on this one.