Red blinking light on the Arlo hub

[mikend]

I have the Arlo hub with a single led. It would start out solid blue and then it would change to slowly blinking red. Although I added some cameras recently, it didn't start happening until I updated my router.

I did a web search and couldn't find any mention of what to do with a blinking red light. I did find this link but it only talks about blue and amber lights.

https://kb.arlo.com/000039100/What-do-the-LEDs-on-my-Arlo-SmartHub-or-Base-Station-mean

After some trial and error, I found that a red blinking light means that the hub is having trouble reaching some of the cameras, which is what a blinking amber light is supposed to mean. The light is very red, not amber.

I moved the hub to a more central location and that solved the problem. Luckily, I had a wired port in a different part of the house. The new router, which I installed when I finally got 1gb internet, may have changed the dynamics of the signals in the house.  I also could have moved a camera a little closer but I prefer the location that it is in.

There is no question to be answered for this forum. I just wanted to post this so that people searching could find it. When I called support, they told me to remove all of my cameras and put them next to the hub for 3-4 hours to see if that changed anything. That would have required removal of six cameras, which seemed like overkill and a lot of work. It allowed them to end the call and keep me busy. Instead, they could have just told me that 1 or 2 cameras may be out of range and either move the bad camera or move the hub. 

[StephenB]

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@mikend wrote:

I did a web search and couldn't find any mention of what to do with a blinking red light. I did find this link but it only talks about blue and amber lights. 

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I also find that the amber LED often looks very red to me.  Not sure why that is - but in the case of the hub, there is no red LED.

Troubleshooting is tricky with only the one LED - the older hubs have three, which makes it a bit easier to tell if you have an ethernet problem or a camera connection problem.

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@mikend wrote:

When I called support, they told me to remove all of my cameras and put them next to the hub for 3-4 hours to see if that changed anything. That would have required removal of six cameras, which seemed like overkill and a lot of work. It allowed them to end the call and keep me busy. Instead, they could have just told me that 1 or 2 cameras may be out of range and either move the bad camera or move the hub. 

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Often their advice does require a lot of work.  

Though many people really can't move their hub, so moving the cameras is often the only option.  Still, I'd have suggesting moving one or two, and not all.

[jguerdat]

FWIW, I also occasionally see this but it doesn't last long. In my case, the system shows as offline until the LED turns solid blue again after a short while. When it's blinking amber again, check to see if all cameras and the hub are shown as offline or if only 1 or so are offline.

[mikend]

I'm guessing that it is supposed to be amber but, no matter how I look at that LED, it is very red.   If someone has the same type of LED, they'll know what to do now.

[mikend]

I get an occasional red blinking light but it used to always come back to blue. In my case, it stayed blinking red. It never came back to blue. I checked the app and I still had connection to all of the cameras. That's what was confusing. Everything seemed to work but the hub was always blinking red. 

I agree. It's difficult to move the hub normally. However, I could have moved the farthest camera to another location that's closer as well. It would have just required the removal of one camera.