I was burgled - Arlo cameras didn't trigger

[skatering]

This only happened yesterday so I'm still fairly shaken and probably not giving enough information, but I'd like to narrow down the potential reasons as to why this happened.

I have two basic Arlo cameras, one in my living room, and one in my kitchen. I enabled them when I go out and disable them when I come home. Yesterday, I forgot to disable them when I arrived home (daylight). The cameras worked perfectly, filming me until I noticed and switched them off.

Fast forward several hours, I go out again (night). I enable the cameras. Then, an hour later, I had the dreaded 'Motion Detected...' alert on my phone. A burglar had smashed my door, walked up to the camera, and turned it around. The only thing the camera captured was the very tail end of it being rotated. It missed the rest.

My kitchen door was locked. I call up the live feed of my living room camera, and nothing's out of the ordinary. I close the app, open it again ten minutes later, and that camera's been turned around as well. The burglar went outside, smashed another door, and walked around the living room long enough to find the camera, and it didn't record a single thing.

One notification was all I needed, and I called the police, but I didn't get the crucial image of the burglar. These cameras made me feel very comfortable being out of the house but now I don't trust them, and I really want to find out what went wrong.

What are the reasons the cameras would work perfectly during the day but be so useless at night? I've had them since June and not changed the batteries, and they're at 94%. Is it possible they're flat and it's a faulty indicator?

[jguerdat]

A low battery could be an issue - open and close the battery doors and power cycle the base to see if the indicators change.  The fact that some recording was done as well as the live view would indicate that the batteries aren't dead.

It's possible the burglar came at the cameras from a position that couldn't be detected - you know your floor plan and camera placement so is that possible?  Maybe a screenshot of both cameras would be helpful.  You were recorded earlier so your setup seems to be ok but...

If the perp walked straight at the camera, detection could be problematic and clothing could be an issue, especially if it were cold, masking the IR needed to detect (I'm no expert on this so take this with a grain of salt).  What is the sensitivity level for your cameras as shown in the modes/rules in the Mode tab? 

[skatering]

Thanks.

I powered down the base and reset the cameras and the power level is now 90%, so still very high.

There aren't any blindspots...I tested that when I set them up and checked it again now. However, I did find that walking straight at the kitchen camera meant I was able to turn it around before it triggered. The living room camera is a mystery...I could get close, but not close enough before the red IR flash.

The sensitivity was 80%. I've set it to 100% and re-run the tests and nobody will be able to get anywhere near them undetected again. Whether I get a mountain of false positives remains to be seen.

Can internet speed be a factor? My ping is 11ms, download speed 6.90mbps, upload 0.80mbps.

[TomMac]

It is possible... min upload speed is recommneded at 1Mbs

I would move the camera away from the access point to give the camera a bit more time to react to a person entering