Arlo parents house was broken into

[Retired_Member]

Hi all,

Hard to keep this brief.

My parents house was broken into. Someone else suggested the Arlo CCTV system and my parents asked me to talk to their friend who was willing to install it for free.

I suggested to their friend from the briefest of texts to get the Pro system, but when I returned to my parents house 2 months later I found it was only the basic 4 camera system.

They had bought it for my parents, via Amazon and my parents paid them back with cash. Arrggh.

The people who set it up were so fed up with the notifications, they just turned the system off, rather than turn off their nofifications. Doh. So no recording was taking place even during the night when my parents house was broken into before.

I was sent a share notification and only having only the basic shared settings I could not turn this back on so when I returned I reset the system and resynced the cameras.

My parents are in their 80s and do not have, and refuse, to get smart phones they do use the Macbook Pro I left for them and have set up a web link for them to log in and view anything as I live 550 miles away.

Having reset the system I'm now playing catch up and finding out things about it that confuse me.

Can anyone explain to me the following?

1/Why does the basic system have two USB ports if you can't add an external HD, what the hell are the USB ports for if not for that?

2/ Is there an upgrade path from the Arlo to Arlo Pro base station via a paid firmware upgrade to facilitate question 1 or do you have to buy a Pro Base Station to make this happen?

The system was bought by this third party via Amazon on the 25th of September 2018. Too late to return it.

3/ Notifications were driving the original installer mad as two of the cameras are in a high person traffic area so they would just turn off the system, thus no recording of anything rather and no nofications. Why is there no schedule setting for notifications, i.e. when you want an area your not near (or sleeping) to notify you of stuff happening so you can tell it push notifications and then shedule the push noficiations to be off when you are, but the system should always be recording no matter what?

I realise I can locally (Via phone) turn off the nofications but an automatic timed noficiation system would be better.

4/ Why is there no facility to find the ONIV stream so you can set up an always on stream record via a third party recorder like securityspy?

Cheers in advance for any help given.

[jguerdat]

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@Retired_Member wrote:

1/Why does the basic system have two USB ports if you can't add an external HD, what the hell are the USB ports for if not for that?

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They have always been listed as available for future enhancements and never stated they were available for anything.

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2/ Is there an upgrade path from the Arlo to Arlo Pro base station via a paid firmware upgrade to facilitate question 1 or do you have to buy a Pro Base Station to make this happen?

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You would need a Pro base.

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3/ Notifications were driving the original installer mad as two of the cameras are in a high person traffic area so they would just turn off the system, thus no recording of anything rather and no nofications. Why is there no schedule setting for notifications, i.e. when you want an area your not near (or sleeping) to notify you of stuff happening so you can tell it push notifications and then shedule the push noficiations to be off when you are, but the system should always be recording no matter what?

I realise I can locally (Via phone) turn off the nofications but an automatic timed noficiation system would be better.

That's what modes, rules and the schedule are for. Create new modes with settings appropriate for the time of day and then schedule that mode for the timeframe desired. Repeat with other modes with different settings. Read the FAQs here for full details and directions. Also read the FAQ on camera positioning so you can minimize the false triggers in the first place. You don't need a wide view, just one that covers the areas of real interest.

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4/ Why is there no facility to find the ONIV stream so you can set up an always on stream record via a third party recorder like securityspy?

Because it was never designed or sold for that. There used to be an ONIV Arlo camera system but I don't think it's still around - not enough sales?

[Retired_Member]

Many thanks for that.

A new issue cropped up yesterday and after some research it seems it is a common occurrance.

After spending some time setting up the 5 cameras on the base station and having approximately 8 hours of recordings, all of the cameras dissappeared from the device listings except for the base station.

From all of my research there is no real answer for this, other than you have to resinstall the devices to the base station and hope for the best.

Not ideal, especially when I arrived in Scotland to find none of the cameras were showing up in the device list. Then having to ring my 80 year parents, who live 550 miles away in England, and ask them to remove the cameras and re sync them and then resintalling them all while I did all the computer stuff and spoke to them over the phone to have them roughly place the cameras in the right positions.

There was a lot of left a bit, right a bit, down up and tons of swearing. I hope this never happens again becuase if it does I'll have to write a complaint to Arlo support. Having a security system which randomly stops working is not fit for purpose.

I will open up a case just so it's logged.

[Retired_Member]

I have a theory about this device dissappearing thing.

As the camera system was set up by someone else and I reset the system and re synced everything, is it likely that the other person who shut down their account, which was originally linked to the cameras, caused a conflict on Arlos system and just removed the cameras from the base station from my account?

Or is there no real answer to this situ?

[jguerdat]

Dunno if that's liely but I suppose if the other person had never removed the devices from their account and now has it could cause the issue. The base has to be removed from the other account before you could claim it but the cameras are a different matter.

[Retired_Member]

More problems with this Arlo Pro camera. The camera was bought on the 24th of December. The battery lasted until the 1st of January and then I got a message that the battery was running low. My parents charged it up and we got another message 24 hours later to say the battery was low.

Before I installed it, I charged it for over 48 hours before I put it in use.

I would expect it to last more than two weeks on it's first run, I would definiftely expect it to last more than 24 hours within only two weeks since it was purchased. Not acceptable and certainly not fit for purpose.

As such, I am returning the Arlo Pro to the Amazon seller, because there is no option to discuss this with them and you can't email Arlo support. My parents need a device that will work correctly.