Just need some advice on purchase

[EODK9Trainer]

Help,

I'm really confused looking at this equipment.  I'm going very minimal to begin with and I hope someone has a suggestion.  I want to place a camera in my garage, one in my basement and one on the main level.  Not going to cover all areas of the home as I do not believe it is needed.  Is this doable?  Can three cameras all be tied in together for my monitoring sakes?  I really just want these cameras to monitor and notify me if someone is in the house if we are not there.  We do have a dog that stays in the house when we are out so this may be an issue. The garage is pretty large and of course can be dark but it does have motion sensor lighting that I can turn off or to a permanent on if need be.  The basement where I want it to record is very dark with no windows but burglars will have to use flashlights and will have to turn on lights.  Main level stays pretty light most of the time.    Any thoughts?

[StephenB]

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@EODK9Trainer wrote:

I want to place a camera in my garage, one in my basement and one on the main level.  Not going to cover all areas of the home as I do not believe it is needed.  Is this doable? 

Yes.  Many people just use a single camera.  If you use the pro cameras, then the wifi from the base does need to reach all three locations - otherwise you'd need a second base.

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@EODK9Trainer wrote:

Can three cameras all be tied in together for my monitoring sakes?  I really just want these cameras to monitor and notify me if someone is in the house if we are not there.  We do have a dog that stays in the house when we are out so this may be an issue. 

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I'm not sure what you mean by "tied together".  You would be monitoring from a single app (phone or tablet) or from your browser (PC).   You can only view one camera's video at a time.  You can live-stream the cameras as you wish, or just look at the motion-detected recordings.

The motion detection range is about 25 feet and works best for motion that is side-to-side in the field of view.  You can also set it up to trigger recordings when audio is detected. 

The dog will trigger the motion detection if it gets within range of the camera (and of course would trigger audio detection when it barks).  If you get a paid subscription, the Arlo Cloud will try to classify animals/people/other motion, and you could filter out notifications for animals.  But IMO that isn't all that accurate - you will still get some notifications due to the dog, and it might misclassify people as animals sometimes.  So you'd need to play around with this if you go with the subscription.

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@EODK9Trainer wrote:

The garage is pretty large and of course can be dark but it does have motion sensor lighting that I can turn off or to a permanent on if need be.  The basement where I want it to record is very dark with no windows but burglars will have to use flashlights and will have to turn on lights.  Main level stays pretty light most of the time.   

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The Ultra and Pro-3 cameras have their own spotlight that could be turned on [or not] when it is dark and motion is detected.  All the cameras have Nightvision (infrared) imaging, which would also pick up images in the dark.  The Nightvision depends on IR lights built into the camera - if those aren't enough to light the basement or garage, then they could be augmented with an IR floodlight.  So you have some options here.

[EODK9Trainer]

Thanks for this info.  I should have said that I recently had to retire on disability so I'm home pretty much all the time with the dog.  I do leave the garage open when he's outside as it is a great place for him to lay down if he needs to get out of the weather so I may need to consider something that does not work off motion.  Or at least does not send me notifications.  Maybe save the two in the house for the motion detectors.  

[StephenB]

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@EODK9Trainer wrote:

Thanks for this info.  I should have said that I recently had to retire on disability so I'm home pretty much all the time with the dog.  I do leave the garage open when he's outside as it is a great place for him to lay down if he needs to get out of the weather so I may need to consider something that does not work off motion.  Or at least does not send me notifications.  Maybe save the two in the house for the motion detectors.  

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You can disable notifications all together (and mute them for a while).  Also if you went with the smart subscription, you can choose not to get "animal" notifications.  While not perfect, that would reduce notificatons when you are home.

You can also set up a schedule, which would automatically disarm/re-arm cameras at set times.

[EODK9Trainer]

Sorry for the delayed response back to you,  Had a family emergency to deal with and then I could not find this discussion.  Thanks for the info.  I'm still unsure how well this will work considering the dog but I'll call Arlo today.