Arlo video doorbell keeps going offline

[One4blue]

Just purchased an Arlo video doorbell 3 days ago. I already had the Arlo wireless security cameras (1st generation). Day 1 got it connected and running. I could see and hear from it all day. It worked fine. Day 2 showed offline when I woke up in the morning. Went to my porch, reset it and followed the process to set it up again. It worked fine for the rest of the day. Day 3 showed offline in the morning again! Anyone know how to fix this? Help please.

[jguerdat]

How is the WiFi signal to the doorbell? Is there anything near the doorbell that also uses the 2.4GHz band (not just WiFi)? Can you move the base closer to the doorbell without causing issues with the other cameras? Sometimes just moving the base away from the router helps. What is your house construction? How many walls must the signal pass through? Any metal objects in or on the wall that could be blocking the signal?

[Charmed79]

We're having the very same issue, keeps going offline, we've reset it numerous times, still goes offline several times. Our signal strength to camera is 71% so I would hope that would be sufficient, also it was working fine for 2 months, this just started about 3 weeks ago, it's getting very annoying. Nothing else is having an issue loosing connection, just the video doorbell. Maybe they need to push an update?

[JamesC]

Charmed79,

When this happens, does it reconnect on it's own or do you have to do something specific to get it back online?

JamesC

[Charmed79]

I have had to kill the power to it a few times, but that's a pain, usually it reconnects on its own, but the past few weeks has been more and more frequent, and the past few days it reconnects after several minutes, and then it's gone again. I just restarted everything we have this morning, router, doorbell camera and anything else connected. Trying to see if that helps, I wish the app alerted me when the camera went offline, it's a pain to open the app to check camera, only to find out its not working. It worked beautifully for literally the first 2 full months.

[Charmed79]

Ok, so something is really screwed up, so far camera seems ok, but I'm no longer getting rich notifications, I'm only getting alerts that there was motion, but no thumbnail, and we are subscribed to the plan, I just made sure it was still active, when I go to settings, it shows the camera as not active and won't let me active it for the notifications. Those were working as of yesterday,at least for as long as the camera stayed connected. Any idea what's wrong? Edit: uninstalled the app, reinstalled, it then let me add the camera back for the notifications, but why did they just turn off? 

[Pesdel01]

I am truly disappointed with this unit and am about to send it back. Installed for 5 days and it hasn’t stayed connected to the network for more than 5 hours. The only way to get it back on the network is to pop the cover and go through a full install. It loses everything. All the advisories start with the problem being my network, but it has 20 odd devices connected to it all without issue. And if they do disconnect they don’t lose all their data and do reconnect automatically. I sure wish I had read these blogs before buying as it seems I am not alone.

[JamesC]

Pesdel01,

Losing connectivity is generally a symptom of poor signal strength or interference. What does the WiFi signal strength indicator show for the doorbell when it is connected?

JamesC

[Charmed79]

It's not the signal, we've covered that, everything has full connection and is at most 20-25 feet from our router, nothing else on our network ever has connection issues, and there is nothing close to our camera or the security light hub. It's definitely arlo. 

[Pesdel01]

So, I can confirm 3 full bars on the home screen. Signal is very good. The doorbell is actually just 15 feet from the router. So, I deleted and re installed. It lasted 2 days then dropped off line. What I don’t understand is why does it lose all its settings every time it disconnects. It is truly a useless device if it drops from the network and then loses its SSID settings forcing me to reset it and re configure the network every time. There are TV’s, phones, laptops all working fine. Seriously disappointed . A $300 doorbell.

[JamesC]

Pesdel01,

This is not typical behavior for the Arlo Video Doorbell and could indicate a deeper issue. Please contact the Arlo Support Team to further investigate. You will find several options for contacting support in the provided link.

JamesC

[Charmed79]

I've tried support 3 times now with absolutely no help whatsoever. All they did was tell me to do the exact same things I had already tried, and then they stopped replying all 3 times. I thought this was a place to help without needing to contact support? 

[Jk4453]

Hmmm, mine worked exactly 2 months also. Then I got message the battery was almost dead. Didn't know it had a battery. Spoke with tech and he said there is a battery inside and wiring keeps it charged. My doorbell eventually died altogether. They are sending me a new one. We will see how it works. Keep fingers crossed. Kinda worried after reading these posts.

[Charmed79]

I wasn't aware either, they never mentioned it having a battery, because of it needing to be hardwired. Good luck with the new one! 

[Pesdel01]

OK, after much research I think I resolved it. The house has a router at the back and an access point at the front, where the Doorbell sits. I suspected some form of conflict occurring between the access point and the router, which whilst very weak would still be delivering a signal to the doorbell.

I had the Router manually set to Channel 1 and the Access Point to Channel 6. General rule of thumb is keep 3 channels between the 2, but I thought I would try a bigger spread, configuring the Access point to operate on Channel 12.

So far, 4 days without any hitch.

[Charmed79]

Good luck, hopefully that works for you. Unfortunately we only have the router and still having issues, ours worked fine for months before our issues started. 

[AdrienneA]

My doorbell takes itself offline randomly throughout the day. It’s annoying. I have to go to modes ad re-arm it.

[Pesdel01]

Hi AdrienneA,

I too had this problem and I believe it was conflict on my home network. The Doorbell was connecting via a WiFi Access point even though I had the Access Point operating on separate channels from main WiFi router I think conflicts were still arising. I suspect it would drop from the AP and try and connect to the main router which was obviously quite a weak signal, then it would disconnect from the network. The fix for me was to replace the WiFi access point with a much higher quality AP.  This fixed the issue and have had 100% stable and connected Doorbell since.

[Charmed79]

Ok, so on the recommendation of someone from another site, I have turned off band steering in our router settings. So far it's been 5 days with no drops, no restarting, and the video feed also comes up much faster with less lag. I don't want to jinx myself, so hoping that has been the issue all a long. To anyone with a router that has band steering turned on, try turning it off and see how it works. I wish someone from Arlo would have mentioned that, I even told them what router we had and the settings that were being used. We should not have to go elsewhere for help with their products. 

[PaulRun]

Mine disconnected 1 hour after set up. Set it up again and same thing. 20 feet from router. full strength wifi. Worked good when it worked. I hope I didn't get a piece of junk.

[AdrienneA]

I finally talked to someone at Arlo, who recommended I reload the software and reboot my phone at least once/week. I did, and now it goes offline, or says it appears to be offline, but it arms itself up again pretty quickly. I think their software is buggy.

[AdamLa]

I have same issue, installed doorbell 3 days ago, it worked perfect for 2 days, now I see this message on the app: "Your doorbell is not connected". Full wifi signal, and nothing nearby to interfere with. Is it only a full reset which could help? 

[Charmed79]

You could try restarting your modem and router first, it's easier, that never worked for us, so we had to reset ours back to factory settings. 5 times in 6 months. It's such a pain.

[Pesdel01]

My problem turned out to be the house WiFi. Mine was connecting via an access point. For some reason it seemed to be having conflict between the main router and the access point. I couldn’t config the access point to get rid of the problem so I replaced it with a nice new one and let it auto configure itself. Perfect ever since.

[EloiseB]

I have the AVD2001 (Arlo Essential Wireless Video Doorbell. This morning it showed offline in the Arlo App. It was powered on (LEDs lit up) but wouldn’t respond when I pressed the button. I reset the wireless gateway but no joy. I checked in the Wireless settings and it was showing online! I read many articles and was on the verge of resetting it but first I thought I would delete and reinstall the Arlo app. When I clicked and held to delete it I saw there were a couple of options and just for fun I selected the “Arm All” option and miraculously, the doorbell is back online and armed! Posting this in case it works for someone else. Note to Arlo - please add a notification if devices go offline - I wouldn’t have known the door bell was offline without opening the app.