Geo Fencing + Multiple User Support?

[jasonr704]

Very happy to see Geo Fencing supported in the latest app update!  However, the biggest missing feature in this beta release is the support of multiple users.  If I setup the account under my email address and then grant my wife access with a different email address, the Geo Fencing needs to consider the location of both users devices.

Here's some real world scenarios:

1) If I leave the house in the morning for work, but wife is still home, then Geo fencing should not arm until she leaves the house. Then whoever comes home first will trigger geofencing to disarm.

2) If we both take a walk in the evening, but I'm the only one to take my phone with me and she leaves her phone at home, I'd like to be able to have the system arm itself somehow, maybe through a notification asking if I'd like to arm or ignore.

Also, I'd love to be able to turn on the sprinklers through my Rachio app if motion is detected at night from my arlo cameras to deter potential intruders.

Finally, really wish Arlo would allow the ability to outline or draw motion zones with lines instead of having to zoom into a motion sensing area.  I'd prefer Arlo record the widest field of view, but only detect motion within a defined area.  This would prevent so many false alerts.  Imagine Arlo in a front of house setting with multiple cameras.  You'd like to be able to record your entire driveway, walkway in front of your house and the road, but I only want Arlo to record if motion is detected on my driveway or grass, not the walkway or road.  Currently, it's not possible to define these areas.  Nest Dropcam has this feature and it works great.  Arlo need to add something similar!

[C-M]

I agree 100%. The only sensible logic is "if any of the enabled phones are 'in zone' use Home Mode". "Use away mode when ALL devices have left the zone". Why on earth would you have 2 enabled devices, but ignore one of them?

I recently got the cameras & was considering returning them beause the unit didn't have Geo Fencing. I'm hanging onto them with the hope that they fix this bug quickly.

[EarlyAdopter]

Agree on the multiple users.  Alarm.com does this nicely with their platform.  It should be as simple as creating an "Or" or "And" operator.  Husband OR Wife leave the geofence.  Husband AND Wife leave the geofence.  And could certainly expand for 3rd, 4th, etc users as needed with this framework.

Geofencing was a swing and a miss on day one.  Here is what we need (as Jason stated above)

• Geofencing activation when all active devices leave the fence
• Geofencing deactivation (or revert to schedule) when all active devices arrive within the fence.  
  • I want to record from 10p - 7am, even when I am home.

I attempted to set "schedule" when Geofence was Home, but it does not appear to be working.  My schedule cutoff at 7am, but the Arlo recorded at 8am when I was leaving the house.  I assume it ignored the "schedule" that I pre-set in this mode.  I'm sure that is why Netgear put a Beta brand on this.  They knew the shortcomings and wanted to get this out to market.  I just hope the next update to improve this is shortly adhead.

[Pavlova]

I also 100% agree on Geofencing with multiple users and devices.  I have a family of four.  We would love geofence activation when each of us have left home with our phones (left the fence) and geofence deactivation when any of us return home with our phone.  This would be a fantastic feature.  Unfortunately, the way geofencing seems to be operating now, geofencing is of no use to us.

In the multi user environment, I'm not sure how you should handle a user that is not active (e.g. have fully closed their Arlo app or logged out).  Should this be treated as inside the fence, outside the fence, the user's last know position (inside/outside of the fence), or just ignore that user for activation/deactivation decisions?.  Perhaps this should be a choice that is given to the individual Arlo Administrator because different people will have different thoughts on this depending on their circumstances and their preference could also change through time.  So, I suggest giving the Arlo administrator of each household the option to choose how geofencing should handle inactive users.

[howarmat]

I want to say that this kind of works if you log into both devices with your account. I am trying this with the wfie and I right now but having mixed results. I think it worked fine yesterday but today when i went to work while the wife was still in bed it set the mode to away mode when just my phone left the zone.  I then switched to another mode of GEO and back to GEO and this time it detected the "home" mode and not away which is correct since the wife is still home.

I do agree though with all of the above.  You should be able to add the device from the shared account instead of using the same account logged in on all devices. I also dont want to send her all the notifications, just my phone.

[JamesC]

I have escalated this topic to be reviewed by the Beta team. We appreciate the great feedback you have provided and encourage you to continue to do so throughout the Beta process.

Thank you for your contribution,

JamesC

[Zrooster]

I spent an hour on the phone today and your tech support couldn't explain this, please fix this problem ASAP it really is a deal breaker, 29 days left before I can return to store, hoping for a simple patch to resolve this before then

[jasonr704]

Hi JamesC,

Thanks for escalating this Beta feature to support.  I believe this issue is easily resolved by adding a conditional rule that allows the user to set the feature to trigger based on 1 user device location, 2 different, but linked user device locations, or more.

Jason

[BBoy]

I agree with the need for multiple iphone support before automatically Arming or Disarming, but what happens when you have a guest staying, I guess you would need to manually Disarm each camera during their stay.

As I wanted the Cameras primarily as Security when we are away from the home I have temporarily solved the problem by depowering the cameras via an output from my Burglar Alarm System. When I Arm the Burglar Alarm it powers up the cameras in the Armed State, during the power up interval I have time to exit the house without getting Emails & Push Notifications.

It works for now but the Geo Fencing when finally tweeked should hopefully overcome all those issues.

Brett B

[arlooo]

+1 for the absolute need for Geofencing multiple devices and the ability to select, or draw your own zones. I had some of these basic features when i was using a free app to turn an old iphone into a security CAM. A FREE APP..  I truly hope The arlo team considers these options. They are so far behind on their software. i currently regret purchasing the Arlo line of products, unfortunatly I was holding out for updates so now i am past my return policy. Please help us Net gear!!

[LittleEndian]

The way the app is setup right now it appears that multi-user is supported. I created an account for my roomate and enabled his device in the geofencing settings but he did not get a single popup to approve location sharing, nor is any of this seeming to work. Whenever I leave home with my own device it turns on motion detecting and keeps getting triggered by him at home. His device always says "Unavailable" and I'm not sure how to fix that. On his device I can't go to any settings for Geofencing. He only has the ability to turn it on. I checked and I show he has admin rights.

[Remlam]

You need to enable Arlo to access location on his device (iOS). My wife's decor shows up reporting her correct location "most" of the time but only works like 70% right now. Quite often it shows her correct location but picks wrong mode. Weird. Need a patch from netgear to iron out the very obvious bugs.

[Proxiton]

I activated Geofencing yesterday. I added my wife and assumed the system would automatically stay off as long as one of our devices remained in the home zone. However, as I left the hourse today - my wife still at home - I received a notification that the system was now active. Additionally my wife does not get the notifications.

The activation/deactivation needs to function for both devices for this to make any sense. The system should only be active when both devices are out of the zone, and deacivated as soon as one device is in/enters the zone. The second user should of course receive the exact same notifications as the primary user. I assume this can be made customizable through Rules, so that Geofencing meets different needs. 

I love the idea of the Geofencing functionality, but in its current state I cannot use it. Fix asap please!

[arlooo]

I activated mine for my wife and I yesterday. It looked promising, but when i left for work this moring it armed the system. Even though on the App it clearly marks her as "IN Zone".

[nratter]

+1 for first-in last-out support

[Trak]

+1. Maybe it could be as simple as adding device rule options for each phone based on location.

[FlaLove]

I just activated my geofencing today, and after seeing your post along with a few others, I had an idea. Instead of adding my wife's phone to geofencing from my phone, I logged into the Arlo app using my account (not using grant access, but with my account) on her phone and added her phone to geofencing using her phone. Her phone then prompted the location tracking approval dialogue (I noticed others mentioning they did not receive this on phone #2) and now on my phone it says both my phone and her phone are in zone. No unavailable status like many others have reported. 

I'm wondering if the 2nd phone has to be added to geofencing via the 2nd phone for the location tracking approval to initiate. I can't confirm this works yet, but I will test tomorrow morning. I just started toying with this too, so maybe this is already obvious and been attempted. 

[EarlyAdopter]

I'll jump on board and try this.  I am deleting the Arlo App from my wifes phone and deleting the invited friend (my wife) so I can reinstall fresh and enable her device on her device, but with my master account.

I'll report on my experience as well.

I also called support last week to ensure they have this documented and increase the trending.  The rep said they were aware and were working on.  I asked her when this would be roll out and she couldn't tell me.  I asked how I would be notified and she said an App update.  Who knows if that is accurate, but that is what she was scripted with.

[JamesC]

For those of you having issues utilizing multiple devices with Geofencing I will be reaching out to you in a private message to collect and escalate more information to the Beta team.

Also take a look at the latest article regarding Geofencing and multiple user support: How do I add and manage multiple mobile devices for geofencing?

JamesC

[EarlyAdopter]

Reporting back from yesterday:

As a summary, I setup the Master Account on my wifes phone and added her phone to the enabled devices.

In short, this does not work - I experienced the same shortcomings of the App functionality with multiple users.

1.  Within the App, the Enabled devices are being recognized correctly by location (in zone, out of zone).  Good News.

2.  Within Geofencing Selcect Mode is set as the following:

--Away Mode = Armed

--Home Mode = Scheduled

When both phones left the zone this morning, it did Arm the system so that was a good sign.  However when the wife arrived back home, it should revert to Home = Scheduled.  My schedule is set from 10p-7:30a.  My wife arrived around 1pm and the calendar would have disarmed the the mode, however it remained Armed and started recording all afternoon anytime the wife / kids were out and about.  Bad news there - battery drain and unessecary recordings.

It seems that the coding / functionality is not Looking at the calendar at all when that mode is selected.

I'm reverting back to schedule until Netgear Arlo can get an update on correcting this.

[jasonr704]

Great!  I'd be happy to help assist the beta team.

[marsval]

Hi all,

I'm having the same challenges as others have described in this post. I enabled the feature for mine and my wife's phone. Unfortunately, whenever one of us leaves home and the other stays, Arlo goes to 'away mode' even though, one of the phines is still in zone.

For me the default behavior should be:

- If any enabled device is in zone -> home mode

- if all devices are out of zone -> away mode

Ideally, the behavior should be tunable in case users may want to have a different beharior in terms of how the systems should react based on the location of the devices.

Is there any news from Netgear on what is being done on this and if there is any ETA to see some changes on the feature?

Thanks

[FlaLove]

Sorry for the delayed response, got super busy over the past few days. I also experienced similiar issues, in particular the battery drain.

[Mikeesf79]

Any idea when there might be a fix for this? I installed my system last week, and the Geofencing is the only logical mode to use considering battery life.

Should set to AWAY mode (Armed in my case) when the last enabled device leaves the area, and set to HOME mode (Scheduled in my case) when the first enabled device returns to the area.

This isn't working at all.

This has got to be resolved within the next 21 days, or I'll be forced to return the system. $800 is way too much to spend on a system that is virtually unusable with the current limitations.

[EarlyAdopter]

No one has been able to provide an ETA.  James on the board is now collecting information for the team, so I double it would be within the next 21 days before a fix is provided.  

Same experience with the Scheduled Mode - the system is not working when in this mode.  Big issue for sure.  As a result, I am having to use scheduled (non Geofence) until they can fix this.