Arlo|Smart Home Security|Wireless HD Security Cameras
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No picture or pic is nearly all black or nearly all green

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asvan1w
Guide
Guide

I have recently purchased the Arlo wire free and am about ready to return it.  The setup appears to be OK.  By that I mean, if I sync or resync the camera with the base, I get a moving pic while I bring the camera back to the place it is installed.  Once installed, the camera seems to then, upon the first motion detect, take a video.  From there on, though my phone will 'beep' a dozen or two times per day saying that 'motion has been detected', the video never changes and nothing is added to the library.  At night, I my phone will continue to notify me of motion but zero pictures.

 

In the alternative, occasionally the first pic after being synced, will have a narrow top bank of pic, say maybe 5%, with the remainder of the pic being either total black or total green.

 

 

The camera and base are the Arlo wire free.  The router that the base is cabled to is my CenturyLink router which supplies my signal to my TV and my internet access via fiber optics.  My phone is an iPhone with the latest OS.  My computer is a Toshiba and I use Firefox V50.0.  The camera is located about 95' from the base station and I use a Netgear wifi extender plugged into a socket about equidistant between the camera and base.

 

It seems to me that if there is a message to my phone saying that the camera has detected motion, there should have been a video taken of the number of seconds that I have set in the device settings and that that video should be added to the library and labeled with date and time.  It seems this should happen each and every time without fail rather than one time, after being synced, only to fail repeatedly thereafter.  Seems like a hefty price to pay for 'one time action'.

5 REPLIES 5
steve_t
Master Master
Master

Is the camera quite far away from the base station? How many bars of signal does it show in the app?

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru
95 feet is stretching the real world usage for WiFi. What happens if you move the camera closer?
steve_t
Master Master
Master

Oh, I didn't see the 95 feet part. And you say you've got a wifi extender half way between the camera and the base. The wifi extender is doing nothing here as the camera only connects to the base. Can you move the base to be plugged into the wifi extender?

asvan1w
Guide
Guide

Thank you for this suggestion, Steve_t.  Since the product is advertised as "WiFi" I didn't realize that there were actually two tracks - base to and from computer & phone via the wifi router and base to and from camera via some other signal method.  I assumed all the comm was via the wifi/router.  I have relocated the extender to a place where I can also place the base and hooked the two together vis ethernaet cable and then re synced the camera to the base and relocated the camera to my desired outdoors location.  Will let it work for a day and night to see if all is OK and report back.  Meanwhile, with my new understanding (assuming imy understanding is correct) I believe you've solved my problem.  If so, I'll be comfortable to order more cameras and complete my outside surveillance system.  Hopefully I'll then catch the SOB on video and be able to get enforcement on my TRO.

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

To be clear, the base and cameras communicate via their own dedicated WiFi connection. Think of the base as a limited router. The base uses your router to communicate with the servers. You never talk to the base, just to the servers. The app and browser use the servers to communicate back to the base with any commands.

 

Any questions?