Geofencing. not working

[kimskev]

I would expect this from other companies but from netgear????  Think it's time to get my money back!!!

OK so we finally get Arlo which we were excited about.  We have 3 people in our house and well this system should be able to be armed and disarmed when anyone of us comes and goes.......or so you'd think.

 NoHelp, SayWhat?

Set up IFTTT:

IF first family member arrives HOME then disarm arlo (Using life360 and arlo)

IF last family member leaves HOME then arm arlo (using life 360 and arlo)

3 IPhones set up with life 360 which have been working for the last 2 years 

Member #1 comes home alone - Arlo disarms

Member # 3 comes home alone - Arlo disarms

Member #2 come home alone (the member that set everything up) and we have motion alerts going off left and right.

Yes, I set up everything the way it should have been set.

Search for Support number.... can't be found but find "Live Chat"

First support person is of no help and disconnected

Second support person gives me phone number and advises me to set up Geofencing and walks me through steps.  Tells me THIS WILL WORK!

Call Support (Speak to someone in the Philippines ....... WHAT?? No USA Support????) And after being on hold get disconnected

Member #1 comes home alone - Member #3 gets 14 motion alerts even though the app says that member #1 is "IN THE ZONE" which means the system should have disarmed.  Nope, Not my Arlo!

Look online for the Support chat and it's nowhere to be found but today, the phone number is there (crazy)

Call Support again.... yes, another person in the Philippines (nothing against Philippines but why no USA support???)  This person knows nothing about how to fix this and suggests that I (member #3) remove myself from the system all together (Take my name, number, everything off the website, take the app off my phone) and this should help...... Ummm..... WHAT????

So I have to completely remove myself from everything just so I won’t get any alerts on my phone? Instead of someone coming up with a way to arm and disarm this system when different members of the family come and go???  Nope, not working for me!!!!!  Support person asks me if I mind being put on a 5-7 minute hold?  Um.... again... WHAT????  No. Im not going to wait 5-7 minutes.  

Yes, Support person puts me on hold anyway and there I sit for about 15-20 minutes listening to some horrible music when CLICK....... Disconnected!

Can you even imagine how happy I was at that moment????  Yea, not very happy.

So here I sit, with all three members in the house and my phone flashing on and off.

GEOFENCING AT HOME IS NOW HOME MODE

GEOFENCING AT HOMOE IS NOW AWAY MODE

MOTION DETECTED ON PORCH

MOTION DETECTED IN LIVING ROOM

MOTION DETECTED IN BASEMENT

GEOFENCING AT HOME IS NOW HOME MODE

GEOFENCING AT HOMOE IS NOW AWAY MODE

MOTION DETECTED ON PORCH

MOTION DETECTED IN LIVING ROOM

MOTION DETECTED IN BASEMENT

MOTION DETECTED ON PORCH

MOTION DETECTED IN LIVING ROOM

MOTION DETECTED IN BASEMENT

[avanvliet]

Good to see some sort of acknowledgement, although I feel like everytime theres a post about this, it's the same answer. "Engineering is currently aware of and investigating an issue with Geofencing".

Are they? Are they doing something? Is there a timeline for this fix? Will there be an announcement? These post on geofencing issues go back how far?
If it doesn't work, don't advertise it. Many people wouldn't have bought if we'd known how annoying it is.

I don't want to have to change the name of my phone just to get this to work.

I don't want have to change modes to something else and back to get it to work.

I don't want to to restart the app everytime I need Arlo to do what is supposed to do passively and recognize whether I'm in it or if the zone. What is the point of geofencing, if I have to do something to trigger it each time? I'm better off just manually changing the mode at that point..

[TrailMtnBiker]

I've been having the same problem for 2+ weeks, too.  Started right after the worldwide outage.  I then updated to version 2.4.7 and it totally stopped working.  It will not fully track location.  Sometimes it tells our two devices (iPhones) we've left or entered the area, but it won't change the in-zone/out of zone, so it remains either armed or disarmed.  If I go to the location and press the "find me" icon in the lower right of the map, it will show my location.  If I then close and reopen the app, it will update the in/out of zone and arm or disarm the unit.  Totally worthless, in my opinion.  Manually arming/disarming is not an option, as we have 3 people in the house with different schedules.  I wanted to add the 3rd iPhone, but why bother?  This is the 1st, and last, Arlo I purchase, eventhough I like the cloud storage and video quality.  If they ever decide to make geofencing a priority, I may change my mind.

[RChobby]

There is a solution until Netgear fixes, if you are willing to install two apps. Mylife 360 and IFTT. I posted some instructions in the Pro 2 forum.

[snowboardjoe]

@RChobbywrote:
There is a solution until Netgear fixes, if you are willing to install two apps. Mylife 360 and IFTT. I posted some instructions in the Pro 2 forum.

---

We have those installed, but I have multiple modes and IFTT can't cope with that.

[Ray650]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one and we shouldn't have to work around a previously functioning mode. The app and geofencing was working great until a few weeks ago...the update really messed everything up. Please fix this soon!

[Jeem]

Starting to get annoying having to toggle to disarmed then back to geo, and that sometimes doesn’t work!

@JamesC, any word from engineering?Don’t get me wrong this is an awesome product, but the geofencing is severely compromising the experience. Without reliable location detection it’s basically useless to me and many others here.

At least give us some hope and post there’s a release in 1w, 2w, 1m....never

iOS 11.2.6
Arlo 2.4.7
Base f/w 1.9.8.0_16666
Camera f/w 1.092.0.8_17203

[Yank555-lu]

Hi,

Just to add that here's one more customer that has now a totally unusable expensive camera system.

Before a few weeks ago, geofencing was what it was, mostly ok, not totally reliable in the sense that it didn't disarm on occasion and I was okay with this, as it was being rather too much armed.

Now I can come and go and my cameras just stay in whatever state they're in, meaning that most of the time they will stay disarmed even when I'm away from home.

When opening the app it will always show a "session expired" orange message on the top of the screen. Logging back on, it may or may not switch to correct mode, armed / disarmed, although in the geofencing settings my blue dot is within / not within the range. Then all of a sudden it will decide to change the mode correctly, for whatever reason, until the session exipres again (which is not too long after).

Hence for now I have to explitely arm / disarm the cameras when I leave / get back home, hoping not to forget...

JP.

Sidenote, what I tired to no avail :

- I uninstalled and reinstalled the app (Android)

- I unchecked my device (the only one in the list), saved, got back in settings to recheck my device

- I manually started the app when I got home / left home (hoping that would trigger the change), but all it did is show the session had expired

[snowboardjoe]

Ended up going back to SmartThings managing everything. The bugs that were there before have vanished. SmartThings has always detected our presence correctly. I know not everyone has ST, but if you do, try to use it until the geofencing is working again with Arlo. Good workaround for now.

[jgoldste49]

I’m sooooo tired with Netgear/Arlo ignoring this issue of a needed feature not working. Tim to move on and chalk up the money I spent on Arlos to a bad experience with a company that doesn’t care.

[JamesC]

Engineering is aware of this issue and hopes to have a fix available very soon. We apologize for any inconvenience caused, I will provide an update as soon as I have more information on the fix.

JamesC

[jgoldste49]

It’s been over a year!

[Snn5]

I keep hoping that magically I'll check the Play Store and there will be an app update that fixes everyone's issues but alas there is never one.

[Hot4fastcars]

I am relieved to hear that I’m not the only one having this problem. I am getting a new message saying that I have entered and or left the geofencing zone but geofencing still does not engage without manually toggling it.

[RChobby]

I’m concerned that with the sale of Arlo, Netgear may not throw sufficient resources at this problem.

[Cronqvist]

Remember to give really good ratings in App store and Google Play 😉

[Greyhoundmamma]

Geofencing only works for me if I log onto the app when I leave the geofencing area to arm and log back in when I return to within the geofencing area to disarm. Otherwise it doesn’t work and I have tried all the recommended “fixes”. It used to work but somewhere along the app update line it quit working.

[swinokur]

Yep. The app tells you your are leaving or entring the geoferncing zone but then does nothing.

I have startered using 2 IFTTT applets to have Alexa do the job via my Garmin Speak Plus.

Major disppointment -->Netgear.

[BOZGEAR]

I just switched from an iPhone 6plus to a galaxy s8. The geofencing worked pretty well on the iPhone but it is useless on my android. You can clearly see that I am in the radius and it will not do anything until I get the App open and start messing with the geofencing settings. That is if you can even get into the app as quite often it tells me that my session has expired And then I have to fight with it to get to the log out button as the banner telling me is in the way and keeps popping back! The android app is terrible.

[Snn5]

If Netgear is not really going to support Arlo anymore and that begs the question who is going to support Arlo. It also begs the question what happens to even the 7 Day free storage option. As if to say even the plans might change. All of this after buying a multi $100 setup and system and broken app.

[Sblair588]

If Netgear aren’t going to support the app/product, then they should give us a full refund on all of our purchases, so we can go elsewhere.

[Snn5]

I'm pretty confident they will not stop support however they may modify user accounts even grandfather present users and change the rules for new users however I don't believe they would abruptly stop support.

[scottb08]

Arlo is breaking off into its own separate company that will allow itself to focus on what they do. They even filed for an IPO. More details in the link below. Hopefully this will allow them to fix the web site and app.

https://www.digitaltrends.com/home/arlo-separates-from-netgear/

[RChobby]

Ironic that the linked article mentions how Arlo offers geofencing.

[Snn5]

Offers it, doesn't make sure it works.

[nonon]

Hi I have found a workaround solution. It seems this "Logging out" in the background happens when one or more devices are signing into the same account on the app.

In my case, the iPhone for Geo fencing, and iPad which is just used to view the videos.

Logging out on the iPad app, stopped the iPhone app from logging out in the background. Allowing geo fencing to run smoothly.

For those households who use more than one iPhone for geo fencing. I suggest trying what the moderator posted, and Log out of the app on secondary iPhones. Then with the primary iPhone use the "Grant Access" feature (settings tab) to add (invite) any additional iPhones. The name & email address cannot be the same as the primary account holder, but I imagine if it is another iPhone then the owner must have their own name and email address.

In my case since both iPhone and iPad are owned by the same person, I have logged out of the iPad for now, which seems to have corrected the issue. But will be attempting to "Grant Access" from the iPhone, using a different name and email, to see if being logging in on both devices is possible without conflict.

*Update* Using two devices on the same apple account. I have successfully been able to add another device using the "Grant Access" feature to add (invite) another account (with a false name and second email address).

Adding another user, prompts you to create another arlo account from an email link. After doing so (confirming email address etc etc) and logging in on the second device with this new account. Both apps are able to be open and logged in at the same time with no conflicts. *Note: when adding a friend (Grant Access) you will want to scroll down the bottom of the page and press the "Allow Access Rights" button if you want the same flexiblity and access on the second account/device.

Sorry to android users as we do not have any android devices, I suggest you try your best to emulate what I have done with iOS and see if it helps.