AVD1001-100NAS - can't fit my use case with Echo Show

[mcnurs]

I bought and set up an Essential Video Doorbell for my grandma. She's in her 80's and doesn't own a cell phone, but has two Echo Shows, which will be the only ways for her to interact with it. (My mom lives with her and the Arlo app is on her phone, but she leaves for work during the day.)

This is the use case I envisioned when I bought it for her:

1. Echo notifies her that someone is at the door, and/or someone has pushed the doorbell. (She can't hear the regular doorbell chime everywhere in the house.)
2. Echo allows her to see and hear the person at the door.
3. Grandma can choose to ignore the door, answer it, or tell the person to come in through the two-way audio.

But this is what actually happens:

1. Echo notifies her that someone's at the door.
2. Person pushes the doorbell - which starts an incoming video call on mom's phone, but only announces that the doorbell was pressed on the Echo.
3. Grandma says "Alexa, show me the front door."
4. SOMETIMES, the video shows up - other times Alexa says "Hmm. The camera is not responding."
5. If the video does show up, the audio doesn't work in either direction. (I'm guessing this is because the camera is already in a video call or "answering machine" mode when she asked to show it.)

To make matters worse, the default behavior for showing the camera is to mute the microphone on the Echo side. I can't find a way to change that, and the icon to unmute it doesn't show up unless you tap the screen. So even when the two-way audio works, it's likely to end up with grandma talking and not realizing she's on mute, or having to get up and walk across the room to unmute it.

One idea I had was to have the Echo automatically display video when it detects motion, then just turn off the doorbell video call feature. Echo would tell her that someone's there, chime from the doorbell being pressed, and already have the video up for her to see and talk to. But I can't find any way to turn off the video call feature, and that would also still have the mic mute problem. (Unmuted by default might actually be worse in that case, because the doorbell would immediately start broadcasting her conversation to the porch when someone walks up!)

I don't feel like this is a very complex use case. It's literally just "let me know someone's there, show me who it is, and let me talk to them." All the things that a video doorbell is meant to do. And I feel like if I'd just bought a cheap wireless camera, and a doorbell that does nothing but ping Alexa when it's pressed, everything would work just fine. But with the two combined, I can't find a way to make this work. Is there something I'm missing here, or do I need to return it?

[ShayneS]

Please reach out to the Support Team to further investigate this issue you are experiencing. You can find several options for contacting support though the Arlo Mobile App by navigating to Settings/System/Support.