Arlo app should enable independent and time specific enabling and disabling of cameras

[lacapaneus]

I have a number of external camera's on my house which are always enabled.  I recently bought some essential internal cameras for various rooms of the house.  Many of the inside cameras I don't want detecting and sending alerts for the vast majority of the day just at specific times.  As far as I can tell there is no way to do this except for manually doing it with the app.  The current time sensitive enabling and disabling is on the base station which does the entire system.  If I can't find a solution I'm likely to going to return them and go a different direction.  Any advice from anyone?

[StephenB · Accepted solution]

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@lacapaneus wrote:

As far as I can tell there is no way to do this except for manually doing it with the app.  The current time sensitive enabling and disabling is on the base station which does the entire system. 

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The schedule does affect all cameras connected to the base.  But that doesn't mean you can't set up a schedule that arms/disarms your cameras at different times.  Here's how...

Here's a simple example.  Let's say that you want the outdoor cameras enabled all the time, but only want indoor cameras armed between 9 am and 5 pm. 

What you do first is figure out the combinations of cameras you want simultaneously armed. You have only two combinations in this case - all cameras armed, and outdoor-only armed.

Next create a custom mode for each combination.  In this case, Armed already works for all the cameras.  So you just need one custom mode for outdoor.  Note that any camera that is missing in the rules is disarmed when the mode is active.  So the outdoor mode just includes a rule for each outdoor camera, and has no rules for the indoor ones.  https://kb.arlo.com/42/What-are-modes-and-rules-and-how-does-Arlo-use-them

Now schedule those modes.  One small catch - the schedule won't let you cross midnight, so in this case you need to enter two entries for "Armed" - one between 5 pm and 11:59 pm, and the other between 12 am and 9 am.  So you end up with "Armed" from midnight to 9 am, "Outdoor" from 9 am to 5 pm, and "Armed" from 5 pm to 11:59 pm.  

Once the schedule is set up, select "Schedule" for the mode of the base.

FWIW, if you also wanted the indoor cameras armed at night whenever you are away, you can add geofencing into the mix.  You'd set the geofencing "Away" mode to "Armed", and the "Home" mode to "Schedule".

Though this can be confusing, if you have groups of cameras you want to arm/disarm together, it actually is a bit easier than setting up a separate schedule for each camera.  

If you still don't quite get it, you can post the details of the schedule you want, and we can provide more specific help.

[lacapaneus]

Very helpful! Maybe I can use IFTT ounce I do that as well

[lacapaneus]

Actually when I go to create a custom mode it just allows me to use motion or sound triggers. I’m probably missing something

[StephenB]

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@lacapaneus wrote:
Actually when I go to create a custom mode it just allows me to use motion or sound triggers. I’m probably missing something

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What are you finding confusing about that?

For each custom mode you add a rule for each camera you want to simultaneously arm, setting the desired motion/sound thresholds and recording time.

Then you schedule each mode for the time period you want that combination of cameras armed.

[lacapaneus]

So I assumed that the individual modes let you set a time so when I didn’t see any options I thought maybe there was a mistake. I finally realized I had to edit the schedule mode to reference the other custom modes. It’s pretty ugly but it works! Thanks again