Three cameras - no motion detection

[ohiocamguy]

I have three Arlo cameras (original model, had them for over a year) and one base station.  Motion detection isn't working on any of the cameras.

Like many others I started having problems about four weeks ago

- all the rules under Mode were suddenly gone. Had to recreate the rules.

- all three cameras stopped communicating at the exact same time.

Here is what I have today:

- rebooted the base station.  Verified it is running the firmware released yesterday, version 1.10.0.7_21310

- recharged the batteries in all the cameras

- re-synced all the cameras to the base station

Now the cameras are communicating.   Even the Live video works.  Also the Motion Detection test utility, and the Camera Positioning utility both work.  Thats right, the Motion Detect utility works.  But once I exit from the Motion Detection utility I can't get any of the cameras to detect motion! 

In the Arlo web site I deleted one of the cameras.  Re-synced the camera, setup rules for it in the Mode section, but still no motion.   

Any ideas how to troubleshoot this?

[gattaca]

I'm sorry you continue having issues.  I felt the same way the first time my cameras acted up after a firmware update after having worked so well for a year plus. So I started hunting and trying different things and even considered scrapping the whole setup.

I'm not sure why but when a camera loses its connection to the base unit, it will drain the batteries quickly.  I suppose it is  trying to reconnect and goes into a higher power mode searching for its base.  I've learned to recover from that quickly by resyncing the camera to the base especially since I have the original Arlo's which use the CR123A Lithium batts.  It took a couple times of draining brand new batts in 2 weeks to figure out I need to check the status daily.

I stumbled onto the CUSTOM mode after having issues in January similar to what we are seeing now wth the cams not detecting motion after a firmware update.  I was livid with 10 cameras in all states of disarray.  I'm guessing this last FW update did the same thing and my CUSTOM mode got hozed this time too.   I do not trust that default mode, mainly b/c I want certain cams a bit more or less sensitive and it's the only way I got all of the cams working again.

I hope this helps.  I (and I'm sure many others agree), a set of security cameras in this price range from a reliable company like NetGear should be super stable and not have firmware updates breaking things like this.  

Maybe the support teams will determine what's happening soon.  What I posted earlier got my cams working again and frankly, IDK why, but it did.  Later.

[Teejayjay18]

that is same issue that i am having.

[imStealth]

And you can see how much tech support has helped! Appalling really! 

[ShayneS]

Teejayjay18,

What is the exact issue you are experiencing with your system? Can you please provide more details.

[gattaca]

Bottom line:  The cameras stopped detecting motion period.  If you read my earlier posts, we went into details.  I went from a very stable set to dissary.   I outlined what I had to do get restabalize the cameras.  It worked very well.  With firmware and code updates to the Arlo systems, something things will not play nice and I think those "custom" profiles thru a monkey wrench into the system somewhere.

Good luck.  I tried to post all of what we tried which did not work as well.  Later.

[ArloProOwner]

December 5, 2018

I do not use SmartThings, or IFTTTT or whatever it is, but I did notice just yesterday when going through all the settings on all the cameras and taking all kinds of time to do this, I noticed that while in the Activity Zone settings, if I deleted a previous Zone setting so there was no zones at all set  I noticed everytime I did that, it would "deselect" or "disable" the box to Motion is detected in the Edit Rule and Edit Mode section.  (you start trying everything when you're cameras aren't working the way they should, and it takes entirely too much time to figure this stuff out on your own and to not have your cameras working as they should.)  These cameras and this Arlo Pro/Pro2 systems are entirely too expensive to not work.  Lucky for me I have 10 cameras, and also a Blink system, so, USUALLY what one doesn't catch, another will.   And that's how I realize my Arlo cameras aren't working properly all the time.  Again today, I am trying to figure out why now a different camera will not pick up my vehicle leaving the driveway, when yesterday it did and last night it did.  Yesterday I had a problem with a different Arlo Pro not RECORDING the motion detected or several of my cameras.  It would alert me to motion, but then I would go back to see the video and there was no video!  This happens at least once a day with one or more of my Arlo Pro & Arlo Pro2 cameras.  There's no rhyme or reason to any of it, all the settings are set properly.  I  have this system for practically a year now, and sometimes these cameras are awesome and too many times they are just unreliable and can't detect a person walking directly towards the camera, and do a dance in front of the camera.  I do believe that the Arlo Team who makes changes to these systems, don't actually use the system themselves.  

Anyway, next time you do anything in the "Activity Zone" be sure to go back into yur camera mode to make sure this action did not DISABLE your Motion detection for recording!

I appologize for my rambling on and jumping from subject to subject.  

[imStealth]

Well it sure wasn't rambling, you were putting stuff out there that needs to be said. I can't agree with you more about all of it. I have a question for you.... How do you like the Blink system?? Cause I am about done with this. Thanks in advance

[ArloProOwner]

Dec. 5, 2018:  Well the BlinkXT cameras each run on 2 lithium AA batteries.  The XT's are the outdoor weather proof models, so I only purchase the XT, since if I can move them in and outdoors when I want to.  I have had all of my BlinkXT cameras for less than a year and have had to change the batteries in them all once or twice already, certainly not the 2 year life that they claim, sadly.  Some of the cameras I've changed batteries twice within only a 30 day span.  But the Blink cameras will not record from a live view.  And as with the Arlo's (PRO and PRO2's in my case) they are also unreliable.  Some days you're just can't adjust the alerts from wind or branchs, yet, as with Arlo, it will miss a person or vehicle or animal, so you're entirely too often going into it's settings, (which are much less places to go than with Arlo), which makes me think that Arlo, should just have all their "settings" and "modes" on one screen that you can scroll down to.  Somes you forget what Mode, or Setting you were in to get to a particular spot, as you probably already know.  Anyway, Neither system is perfect, but for the amount of money you shell out for these 2 systems and cameras, they should be much more accurate then they are.  I'm just glad that I have both to HOPEFULLY catch what the other misses, which lost of times is pointing to the same area.  Overall I still prefer the ARLO's, IF THEY WOULD WORK PROPERLY AND CONSISTENTLY AND RELIABLY that is.....sometimes you just want to throw them all in the garbage.

[ArloProOwner]

12/5/18   Furthermore,  I have the maximum # of Arlo cameras for one system (Premier) and I wouldn't think of adding the doorbell (even if I could) to this unreliable Arlo system.  This system and each of the cameras are not cheap AT ALL, and I can't even imagine how much they're going to charge for those new Ultras that they have getting ready to come out with.  And it's one thing if they work consistent without any problems to spend this obnoxious amout of money for these Pro & Pro2 cameras, then we'd all be thrilled with this system.  

The Blink system is nowhere near as nice as the Arlo, and it has it's problems too.  At least with the Arlo you can record on live view.  The Blinks you cannot, and therefore it basically defeats the purpose of having a security camera.  Maybe one day SOON I hope they will change that with Blink.  Fingers crossed! 🙂

[imStealth]

Thank you so much for that info! Now I have to charge my batteries on all my Arlo's about once a month! That's with keeping some of the sensitvity levels lower at certain times too, so it's not like they are recording like crazy. We had them installed high up so we have to climb on a ladder every single time we have to charge them. I sure wish I had known that the battery life is so awful, we would have taken our chances and mounted them lower. 

Thanks again for taking the time to reply

[ArloProOwner]

12/05/18:  Just thought of another con about the Blink camera system....you cannot speak through the Blink cameras like you can with Arlo cameras.  I wish though that Arlo's would have a thermometer in them like the Blink XT cameras do.  I can check the temperature of where my cameras are with the Blink, which can come in handy at times.  Also, back to the Blinks, they do not have battery life scale to let you know when the batteries are getting low.  The only indicator get is when your camera keeps sending you an alert every 10 seconds and then you go to find out what the heck is wrong and it still doesn't tell you that the battery needs replacing while this is going on, you just have learned this over the occurences of this happening, but shortly after that the battery does go dead and it will show you (after you open the Blink ap) and it will show a red battery replace icon on that particular camera.   I believe they can be hooked up to AC power, but there's not enough outlets to power all these cameras, unfortunately.  So it's much more basic as opposed to the Arlo.  As I said, I prefer the Arlo Pro/2, but it too is inconsistent, unreliable, undependable and there are too many screens to have to get through to do a single task with the Arlo (Pro/Pro2).  Arlo's "smart detection" would be great if it worked properly and consistently, and it's with any of the ArloPro/2 cameras at any time, one day it's this camera the next day it's that camera that has a problem and you can't get it dialed in.  Very frustrating and infuriating too.  Just make sure if you change the Activity Zones (especially if you delete it) then you must go back and check the Motion detection record box again, for some reason it unchecks it, and only the motion, it doesn't bother the audio.

[ArloProOwner]

12/05/18:  I top my batteries off at least once a week, because you never know when that 50% battery will have lots of action and not record (not that they do when their 100% either). When it's a windy day it's just awful the amount of alerts and how aggravating these cameras are on those types of days.  The moment you put the sensors down so they don't detect that branch or wind spinner or SHADOW blowing across the lawn, then it will certainly miss a person/vehicle/animal.  Again, very inconsisent settings/sensors.  A couple of my cameras are actually plugged in, and they still have problems as if they weren't plugged in, only good thing is that you don't have to worry about charging them.  Which brings me to another thought.  Arlo should make weatherproof OUTDOOR AC Adapters that can be plugged in your outdoor electrical socket.  I know they do  have one, but it's a thick cord, not a thin flat cord that you can put through a window if you wanted to like the ones that hook to a usb port.  Arlo doesn't make enough of their own brand items that are made for their own products.  Many times you have to rely on Wassterstein and other brands to get your cameras to work, then again sometimes the Arlo's won't let you add on something that's not Arlo authorized.  Luckily I haven't had that problem...YET....

[gattaca]

I think the bottom line is with Arlo R/D teams delivering so many changes with each Camera and/or FIRMWARE update, that all the settings we have set may not always get "translated well" to the new firmware. We see this all the time in the computer industry.  I'm not trying to make excuses, just stating the facts. In my case, all my problems in this thread started after a firmware update and in the end, those steps simply wiped all the settings from my account, the cameras and I reset everything else up... So far (knocking on wood) the cams have been rock solid since.

BTW, I saw someone else post about having a battery life of a month in this thread.  FWIW,  I have about 10 cams.  2 or 3 of these are triggered at least 10x a day+ with cars, deliveries etc..  On those get about 4-5 months on average out of the CR123 batts I use in the cams. On the low trigger cams, I get 6+ months.  I know b/c I write the dates replaced on the batts before I install them!   What I have found is that if the cams lose the connection to the base, they will drain a set of batts in about 1 day trying to reconnect.  Most of my cams have 2+ bars.  I have 2 cams with 1 bar and they seem to behave.  I react pretty fast when it shows the cams cannot talk.

I'd consider my battery supplier too.  I only use Panasonics/Everyready/Duracell CR123 batts.  There are plenty of tests out there for those and generics.. some are good, some are so-so.  Sadly, I do not use the CR123 rechargeables b/c they are really rates to less than 1/2 the mAH of the non-rechargeables  (650mAH vs 1500mAH as I recall). That means I too would be crawling up a ladder for at least 4-5 of the cams more than 2x as often as I do now - no-thank-you!

FWIW, to ease my "non-green" conscious, once the CR123s are no longer good for the cams, I put them in the little LED candle we have in the window using a CR123 battery case. You'd be surprised how long they can still run that, so when that goes out, they are truely drained.  

Are the Arlo's the perfect camera, I agree, no. Are the Arlos good enough for my purposes, so far, after several years, yes, my Arlo 1's are doing great!   Later, YMMV.