USB Ports on the Base Station

[lyricladanichan]

What is the USB ports on the back of the Base Station for? 

Will we be able to use a flash drive/external drive/dvr from those ports? 

[TylerL]

No worries man, your not the manufacturer or office of 1%ers lining their pockets while deciding not to listen or take care of their original product supporters. Just sucks, guess ill try and sell my original setup to fund the "PRO" model.....such BS. You win Netgear, You win....

[Sampy123]

Tom
I would have to disagree with your Apple comment, even Apple supports their older products for a number of years after new releases. Yes you might not be able to get a better camera and change physical hardware (obviously!) but in most cases they still provide new features to their old products.

If the original arlo isn't capable of doing both the cloud and local storage at once then maybe Netgear should enable it just for local storage only/or cloud not both at once.

I'm quite disappointed also and I think Netgear should really reconsider this because if they are not willing to support their products for a longer life cycle, I will not be purchasing a new one when this breaks.

[Ruadhri]

I've just purchased a single camera kit with the base station today.  I'm integrating it with my existing Samsung SmartThings home hub. I needed outdoor cameras in the garden and the Arlo camera seemed the best for what I needed. 

Regarding the USB ports... I have no interest in them, and it puzzles me to think what they might be for.  The puzzling thing is that they are USB 2 ports. Even back when this base station was launched, USB 3 was the norm, and USB C was being introduced. Modern wifi is now quite a bit faster than these old USB ports.  Maybe they're just a design hangover from whent he Arlo idea was still on the drawing board, and it never got retracted through manufacturing.  If there were 'future' plans for them, why use outdated technology?  if this plans are still under consideration, they must be for slow application. Video data transfer rates to Solid state memory or even (now outdated) spinning disks would be an unnecessary bottle-neck. The only thing I can think they could be used for now in the future would be interfacing to other smart-home hubs for the exchange of sensor state data, but not streaming video data. 

Edges and Change is all there is.... and Edges can't be found. 

[TomMac]

Maybe they're just a design hangover from whent he Arlo idea was still on the drawing board, and it never got retracted through manufacturing.  If there were 'future' plans for them, why use outdated technology?  if this plans are still under consideration, they must be for slow application. Video data transfer rates to Solid state memory or even (now outdated) spinning disks would be an unnecessary bottle-neck

The original Arlo base had the 2 usb slots for "future" features....  in what I believe was to be the local record that was used in the PRO Base.

Or it may have been for local input of SW updates...( if you noticed holding the sync button more than 2 secs put the base into another state )... either way a moot point as it was never done.

[jguerdat]

There's no need for USB 3 ports on any Arlo device - the transfer rate is way slower than USB 2 speeds.

[rottielover]

Just purchased the VMS3530 kit from Amazon, 5 camera's and a base station, and part of the advertising was that the USB port was for external Hard Drive for local storage,  however the reply's above seem to indicate that the fuction does not yet work/exist or may never exist ???

Here is a link to the page and the text on that page stating that local storage USB:

http://arlo.com/en-us/products/arlo-pro/default.aspx?cid=us-arlo-srch

Local Backup Storage

Connect a USB drive to the Arlo Pro base station for optional local backup storage.

Is this or is this not a current feature??

[TomMac]

We were dicussing the original Arlo base , not the newer PRO

Which BTW, it appears you have bought the original ! That model does not have local record.

YOUR link is to the PRO model

The regular ARLO base had usb ports but never used ( reserved for future use )

The Arlo PRO base has usb ports that DO SUPPORT a usb drive, up to 2 TB /fat 32 format

[rottielover]

Thank you!

It was a close one but when you pointed that out I immediately canceled the order on amazon.    

Ordering the Pro model now.

[TylerL]

Hey Netgear, are you going to sell just the "PRO" base or not? Would like to update my less than one year old "NOVICE" base...

[wiccawillow]

I think I will be asking Consumer Affairs and my local Attorney General, If a company is promising future features and support for their product and selling items under consumer deceit, I think there may be a conflict.

[TomMac]

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wiccawillow wrote:

I think I will be asking Consumer Affairs and my local Attorney General, If a company is promising future features and support for their product and selling items under consumer deceit, I think there may be a conflict.

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Don't think the 'future' features were ever promised.... the POSSIBLE features were mentioned thru the normal grapevine that always occurs with products and may not have come from Netgear..

[Juggar]

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wiccawillow wrote:

I think I will be asking Consumer Affairs and my local Attorney General, If a company is promising future features and support for their product and selling items under consumer deceit, I think there may be a conflict.

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You cant really go that far with it as it was never touted as a feature.... 

I agree that they should enable the ports for local recording. Clearly it seems they had plans for it at one point but it looks like the Pro model was the path they wanted to go down. If they enabled this on the original units you can bet the Pro sales would tank. 

I could see them enabling local recording as part of one of the paid plans, still a money grab but better than nothing. 

Perhaps if the service ever discontinues they might enable the ports for local recording so people wouldn't be completely screwed. 

Either way it all comes down to a business decision though the USB ports are a painful reminder of "what could have been". 

[Sampy123]

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Juggar wrote:

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wiccawillow wrote:

I think I will be asking Consumer Affairs and my local Attorney General, If a company is promising future features and support for their product and selling items under consumer deceit, I think there may be a conflict.

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You cant really go that far with it as it was never touted as a feature.... 

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It was advertised that it contained the USB features and then upon using it discovered that they werent functioning so it can be perceived as misleading.

[Juggar]

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Sampy123 wrote:

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Juggar wrote:

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wiccawillow wrote:

I think I will be asking Consumer Affairs and my local Attorney General, If a company is promising future features and support for their product and selling items under consumer deceit, I think there may be a conflict.

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You cant really go that far with it as it was never touted as a feature.... 

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It was advertised that it contained the USB features and then upon using it discovered that they werent functioning so it can be perceived as misleading.

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When did they say verbatim "The USB ports exist for local storage"? 

If it was never advertised as that, well, too bad. They dont have to justify some random USB ports to you because they did not advertise it to you as a feature. 

[TomMac]

In effect the usb ports had a possible function ( yes other than charging )..

On the Arlo Base ( if anyone has noticed ) if you HOLD the sync button, the base goes into another state... In my guessing...I think that putting the base into the 'unsync' state the usb port had some function in possible programing via external means...just a guess .

[j1raya]

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TomMac wrote:

In effect the usb ports had a possible function ( yes other than charging )..

On the Arlo Base ( if anyone has noticed ) if you HOLD the sync button, the base goes into another state... In my guessing...I think that putting the base into the 'unsync' state the usb port had some function in possible programing via external means...just a guess .

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I wondered this myself.

Still think it's poor form to force users to buy new hardware instead of giving existing customers the chance to utilise existing hardware.

I've had my system less than a year and I'm a litte dirty about this. Suddenly a whole lot less inclined to recommend the product to others.  

[manfredz]

When I got my system I was surprised to find usb ports on the base station, since I only knew about them on the Arlo Pro for local storage. Little disppointed when they weren't functional.  However since Netgear in no way, shape or form advertised them to be functional I quickly got over my disappointment.

Could be they haven't made them functional to help sales of the Arlo Pro; could be the internal architecture of the two base stations is quite different so its not a simple matter of activating the usb ports on the basic Arlo.  But we have no right to scream unfair for the way things are . Thats the view from here.

[TomMac]

I look at it like phones / computers... an updated version comes very quickly in the electronics world.

Doesn't mean the older model just stops working, there's a longer life left in it. You just don't get the latest do-dads.

And they made it compatable with the older cameras if you wanted to upgrade

[wiccawillow]

Actually they did promise that they were working to make the usb's functional. Your user manual indicates " reserved for upcoming features" page 15.

They promised Arlo consumers usb functionality so I believed them, bought the product and instead of supporting us, they introduced Arlo Pro, screwing us as there has been no attempt to make the usb's functional.

[wiccawillow]

I just want to hear it now from netgear and arlo. Are you going to make good on making the USB on the Arlo VMB3000 functional???

[wiccawillow]

Guardzilla is my next purchase, you don't need a base station. Battery or powercord, magnet, outdoor, cloud, etc .... Wake up Arlo/Netgear.

[wiccawillow]

Keep your promise to make usb functional or loose customers

[TomMac]

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wiccawillow wrote:
Actually they did promise that they were working to make the usb's functional. Your user manual indicates " reserved for upcoming features" page 15.

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No ..they didn't promise.... they always said reserved for future features...they were non-specific.

And sorry to tell you, but it's prob not going to happen on the older base unit due to older/less powerful processor and memory

[manfredz]

wicawillow.

this probably not the place to discuss competitors product but you might want to research the one you mentioned very carefully to avoid a second disappointment.

as mentioned your conclusion that "reserved for future use" means same thing as a usb storage port should have happened by now is pretty far off as i'm sure your consumer protection agency or attorney general's office has told you by now, assuming you followed through your threat to contact them.

enjoy what the arlo does, many of us do, even if it doesn't keep us happy all the time.

[stevepaige]

Firmware updates would easily open recording via the USB port.