Debating on arlo

[aslii]

I'm debating on whether to purchase arlo cameras or not. My biggest question is saving and viewing recorded video. Does arlo require a monthly subscription?

For instance, at night, I like to have my cameras on and recording for security purposes. If I want to view the nights footage, can I do that? If my family is on vacation and I want to watch what's been happening, can I view previously recorded footage, or do I need to purchase a plan to do so?

[jguerdat]

Generally, you need a subscription for easy access to videos (cloud-based). If you create a system that uses a SmartHub and have the cameras connect to that rather than your home WiFi, local recordings can be set up and can be accessible remotely. To view remotely, you need to set up either a router-based VPN or port forwarding. The VPN is preferred for security but not all routers support this (I happen to have a Netgear router which uses OpenVPN for remote access).

Local recordings are not as slick as cloud recordings but get rid of the subscription.