Does the base station have any recording capabilities?

[chandleyj]

Our church group may have done a poor job in buying an Arlo system without analyzing the system specifications in regards to matching our specific needs. Therefore, these are my very general questions. Does the base station have any recording capabilities or, must all recording be accomplished thru use of access to a/the cloud? Also, if true, the system must be attached to the Internet via a router/computer, etc., is that right? As an alternative, could this system be hooked to a DVR (for recording and playback) and displayed in real time on a standard TV/monitor, etc.? Finally, what capabilities require that the user purchase a subscription? Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.         

[Schorschi]

Base station records nothing. You have to have an Internet connection for Arlo to work. Any footage goes straight to the cloud, from where it can be streamed to view or downloaded to keep. If the Internet is out, Arlo is out.

You not necessarily need a router, just a plain old Ethernet socket that you connect the base station to. But without a router you'll only be able to hook up one device to the Internet at a time.

No DVR. Everything runs through the Arlo app/web login. You can live-view, but since the cameras are battery-powered, that'll run them down fast. Motion-triggered, brief video clips is what this system was built for.

To buy a subscription you need to be in a country that offers (paid) subscriptions (not all do) and you need to have a credit card. The basic (free) plan is available in all countries; at least from Netgear's side; some countries block Arlo.

The free basic subscription plan keeps your footage for one week in the cloud, after that it gets deleted automatically. So, if you want to keep video clips, download them before they're gone.

Premier (paid) subscription extends the retention period of the video clips to 30 days, Elite (paid) plan to 60 days. Also, basic (free) subscription allows you to hook up a maximum of five cameras to one account, Premier's limit is ten cameras, Elite's 15.

You can completely avoid paying a subscription fee if you set up multiple accounts on the free plan for a maximum of five cameras per account. You'll need at least as many base stations as (free) accounts. Making one account the “master“ account and setting up all others as friend accounts to the master account saves you from having to log in and off to do basic tasks like mode changes or activating the schedule.

Setting up the modes and rules needs to be done by logging into each account separately, but that usually only needs to be done one time.