My Arlo camera system has not worked since September

[terrier412]

I have five cameras on my system, which was purchased over several months in the summer of 2016 (I kept adding cameras).

I have been going back and forth with customer service. I have done a factory reset. I have changed the setting on my router. I have moved my base station away from the router. I have replaced the ethernet cord. Customer service then sent me a new base station. Still not working. Then they said it was a problem on their end and it would work the next day after they did an update. Nothing. Same problem. The cameras either won't sync, or if they do sync, they only stay connected for a few minutes -- the MOST a day. Then they each evenutally disconnect/"un-sync" from the base station.

I finally asked to speak to next-level customer service, who said they would send me batteries. More days waiting for that shipment to come and more days with NO security system. I have only EVER used Engergizer non-rechargable batteries in my cameras. I highly doubt it will solve the problem.

There was a really scary push-in robbery in my neighborhood two weeks ago, and today my neighbor texted me that her car got broken into last night. One of my cameras would have caught it -- if it were working!! I feel like a sitting duck not having cameras since September.

Now I'm reading all of these messages about problems this weekend. I wonder if this system if worth the trouble. Maybe I should give up Arlo and try Google's Nest or Blink or Canary or something. It's just hard to give up after I have invested so much money in the system, extra cameras, skins, wall mounts, etc.

[steve_t]

Not a fix as such  but do they sync OK and stay connected if you turn your home wifi off?

[terrier412]

Thanks for your reply.

My Wi-fi router and my cable modem are one unit (provided by my cable company). Is there an easy way to shut off only the Wif-Fi and not the modem? I would have to do it on a weekend in order to keep the wifi off for an extended period of time...

If the cameas stay synched with the Wi-Fi off, what does that mean? Interference from the Wi-Fi network? I have had this Arlo system since June 2016, and this was never a constant problem until September 2017. I have always had Wi-Fi.

[steve_t]

Yep. Interference. You said you'd tried moving the base station further away from the router so you've probably seen the threads I have suggested that in and seen that it has worked for me and for others. With this, I do believe there can be an interference problem. I guess the easier thing to try first is to manually assign the 2.4Ghz channel. 1, 6, or 11, whichever is the least crowded and furthest away from the base station's current channel. Unfortunately, the base station will change to be on the same channel as the strongest 2.4 wifi near it rather than be something that is user selectable and Netgear have said they have no intention of changing that in the near future

[terrier412]

Yes, I have tried to change the channel -- 1, 6, or 11 -- per the Netgear rep's suggestion. That didn't work either.

The only thing that changed was that I switched cable providers in July and I got a new router/modem combo from them (I previously had a seperate router and modem).  But my Arlo system worked after that for about two months.

[steve_t]

Have a look at on site with a wifi analyzer app on your phone. Maybe 6 of your neighbours suddenly got super powerful routers and you need to be on channel 3 or something. If for example, channel 3 was the least crowded, you would need to change your router to channel 3 and then either restart your base station or wait for it to change over to channel 3 itself before you might notice a difference. If the interference is from outside, you changing your own wifi router channel may not have an effect until the base station changes channel itself