Doorbell USB storage

[jw48165]

So from looking at the communities, It would appear that there is absolutely no way to view video doorbell recordings through the app that have been recorded locally on my hub. It appears that I absolutely must have a subscription to the cloud just to view my local recordings. That is insane to me. Can someone confirm that? If that is indeed the case then I am going to rip out all of my Arlo equipment. There are other options on the market that allow you to record locally and view anywhere. Had I known this was the case when I purchased the doorbell I never would have bought it. Furthermore, it enrages me that I have had to do so much hunting and work to figure this out. Arlo appears to be quite good as a company at angering customers by confusing them. It is basically false advertising to say you can record locally and get functionality out of the doorbell. That is utterly untrue, forcing people to eject the USB drive in order to view the videos is insane.

[jguerdat]

All cameras starting with the Ultra require a subscription for cloud recordings - only the Pro 2 and older don't. This is the purpose of the trial subscriptions as well as the various docs and announcements.

As for local recordings, no subscription is needed. You just need your cameras to be synced to a supported base or hub - I suggest the VMB4540 since the 4000/4500 require the drive to be safely ejected so you can view videos on a computer. Only the 4500/5000 are supported by the app to view without ejecting the drive.

[jw48165 · Accepted solution]

I COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT CLOUD but thank you.  Notice the title - "Doorbell USB Storage".

YOU ARE INCORRECT - I have a "VMB4540r2" that I wasted money on because of people like you saying it would fix it.  It DOES NOT support viewing USB storage for the doorbell.  It records the doorbell video - but I have to take the USB drive off to view them.  After hours and hours of wasted time and working with Arlo support (they're worthless), I'm ripping it all out.  Hopefully others see this post and it saves them some time.  My conclusion based on abundant evidence is that Arlo is purposely sabotaging the doorbells so as to force cloud subscriptions.  If the hub scan stream video's recorded to the USB storage from my 7 other cameras, there's absolutely no reason for it not to stream the doorbell feed via the app.  They're all there on the USB - 7 other cameras + the doorbell.  The app simply doesn't give me the option to view the doorbell videos.  

[jguerdat]

Maybe if you shouted less, your blood pressure would drop.

I am well aware of your subject line. I try to give complete info regardless since you or others that read this may not know it. Deal with it.

As for not being able to view the doorbell video from local recordings, I am correct and you are not. This would seem to be a local problem since it works fine here. I have no magic to make it happen. One thing you could try would be to temporarily reduce the recording resolution to see if that makes any difference.

[jw48165]

I happen to have an enterprise-grade Cisco network at home - there are no speed / connectivity issues.  Existing cameras record to USB fine and play through the app fine.  The doorbell records video to the USB storage fine - it simply won't play through the app.  Resolution changes, removing / re-adding / resetting the entire Arlo stack and rebuilding from scratch / etc. have no impact.  Arlo support has been useless.  I have no explanation for your working configuration vs. mine other than to chalk it up to buggy Arlo.

As for my all caps shouting, I've read a dozen community posts by people hitting terrible USB support.  The consistent reply of "do you have a cloud account" is maddening.  

[aad7122]

I have spent the last few hours trying to figure this exact thing out. I couldn't figure out why the doorbell wasn't recording but all my other cameras were fine. After jumping through all kinds of hoops to figure this out I gave up and found this thread.

Mind you I did have a smart subscription until about a week ago.  But this is insane. All other cameras record fine to USB and I can view in app but the doorbell cannot. If this is the case I will be getting rid of this. Been an Arlo fan for a long time until today. This is unacceptable.