New System Review

[MikeBravo]

Just completed the installation of an eight Arlo wireless camera system for our home. We were lucky to find out that Costco was discontinuing the basic Arlo in favor of the Arlo Pro and we were able to  get three-two camera systems for about two thirds the cost of standard and then scooped up  to more cameras a bargain basement prices on eBay. Setup really is very easy with only a bit of the usual number of redos to get everything up and running. 

Observations after two weeks:

1. Optimized video setting gives a pretty good picture as is the camera connection range.

2. IR works pretty well although as with daytime usage, detection and recording range is disappointing though I guess         you can't ask for too much from a battery system.

3. PC control is very good, iPad-Android tablet access is pretty good, cell phone app is not very good at all.

4. Motion detection sensitivity control is practically useless. At least in my case there is no rhyme or reason why some         things record and others don't even when the things that don't are quite large and moving within the optimum range         direction and others such as a butterfly at a distance seem to  trigger the recording. 

5. The magnetic mounts are so damn convenient, but outside the squirrels love to knock the cameras off.

Other general thoughts and experience:

We already had to power down the base station and power it back on when we lost all connectivity on all cameras which is not a very good sign. 

Already, often, particularly with then tablet or cell phone app, you can't get the camera's to go live the first time and then when you  can it seems to take forever. 

We're running a Nighthawk R7000 with the latest firmware and yet the system response seems a bit slow which is a pretty big disappointment considering that the Nighthawk is right near the top of the router performance scale.

The first camera we mounted suddenly displayed a pink picture which we found out only needed a couple of good raps to get to go back to normal.

Netgear Arlo accessories are too expensive. Beware of plastic mounts as compared to the Netgear metal ones. The plastic ones suck.

Despite the shortcomings we're glad we got it.

[steve_t]

Thanks for your review.
The Arlo Pro is significantly better in all aspects and is worth the premium IMO. I would like to see the original cams either updated or phased out because the Pro cameras are that much better
I have all my cameras, original and Pro, set to Best Video. I'm not worried about battery life. I just want the best quality video these cameras can give.
Night vision for the Pro cameras are one of the most major improvements. The IR illuminators border on unnecessary but obviously are still useful
What do you find poor about the phone app? I find it equally as good as the web browser interface though find it weird that the layout is different.
Motion sensitivity adjustments work well for me. I set my cameras at 100 and drop the sensitivity by 1 each time there's a false alert within 30 mins of a previous false alert. This has fine tuned the cameras to record what I need without recording when trees sway or trucks drive by. I think most are in the low 90s for sensitivity. One key point is that the save button for changing the motion sensitivity is on the previous page! This is a flaw.
PIR motion detection works best when the IR signature moves across the field of view. Objects moving directly towards the camera are difficult to detect. The same applies to house alarm PIR sensors.
Other problems you note sound like they're a result of your internet connection speed. Your router makes little difference if it's not a bottleneck and since there's no wifi involved for the base station connectivity, even a basic router should perform well as long as the internet speed is adequate.
Note that from here, you are able to purchase Arlo Pro add on cameras and add them to your original Arlo base station. It gives you all the benefits of the Arlo Pro camera but without the Arlo Pro base station, you miss out on the siren and also the USB recording

[MikeBravo]

Getting sufficent cameras for our use of the Arlo Pro was beyond our reach financially although at some distant point in the future if there are no future firmware updates that improve the basic Arlo cameras, we probably will replace them with Arlo Pros on at a time until that's all we have and then we'll work on getting an Arlo base.

Using the mobile app on both a Galaxy S6 and my old Galaxy S4 is nearly useless if you are trying to view the cameras in a timely fashion. In both cases when you try to go live on any of  our cameras it almost always times out the first time and often the second time as well. As both phones are connecting on our 5 GHZ band as are our PC's, it doesn't seem likely that it is the router WiFi unless possibly the phone WiFi cards are that bad, but we have no other issues with the WiFi for either phone.

With out Nighthawk R7000 we have our phones and main PC's on the higher throughput 5 GHZ and everything else in the house set on the slower but longer range 2.4 GHZ. As the Arlo base is connected directly to the router via the Gigabit eithernet port, with our load balancing lag should be non existant considering that Comcast is providing is with typically 125 Mbps so that can't be an issue.

For several of our cameras. adjusting the IR sensitivity has been an utter failure. One camera mounted in a tree  facing the front of the house with  no leaves anywhere except on the extreme periphery is already adjusted down to 10 and still activates several times a day with nothing showing in the recording.

As we have eight cameras which means thirty two batteries, we have  to leave the video setting on optimized especially with the extra motion recordings where nothing is seen wasting battery life or it will quickly get too expensive to maintain.

Glad to hear that Arlo Por really is that much better. We'll look forward to it.

[manfredz]

fortunately my experiences with the Arlo basic have been better than yours.

You might want to invest in the recommended Tenergy rechargeable 3.7V batteries for when your batteries are due for replacement

[MikeBravo]

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manfredz wrote:

fortunately my experiences with the Arlo basic have been better than yours.

You might want to invest in the recommended Tenergy rechargeable 3.7V batteries for when your batteries are due for replacement

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I had investigated that possibility once I saw how my battery usage was going with the amount of motion detection that we were comfortable with, however all the reviews we read about on Amazon for example claimed that the Tenergy batteries in particular lasted much less longer than the standard batteries and didn't fully charge up so that pretty much scared us away.

[manfredz]

3 of my 4 cams use the Tenergy rechargeables, the other Nitecores.  Both seem equally good and about the same price.

Yes, the rechargeables dont last as long, maybe 80-90% as long before needing 2-3 hour charge.) they quickly go from 100% to 85-90% but after than drain about the same rate)  Unless your cams are hard to get at this factor is unimportant.

At least thats my experience/  Might want to order one set (w/charger) to see how goes for you.

[MikeBravo]

That's interesting. Half my cameras are high up and fixed in screw mounts which is pretty inconvenient. Maybe I'll check some prices and try what you suggest.