WiFi Jammer

[OscarHouri]

We have spent thousands of dollars on adding to our Arlo camera system - between two bases, over a dozen cameras, solar panels, etc.  But what good is this system if a criminal uses a WiFi jammer and we get zero notifications or recordings. We came home after a night out and took our dogs out only to notice our patio chairs were moved up against our fence. Walking the perimeter of one side of the house, we noticed the 3 of 5 cameras were moved. Yet not a single recording or notification. Zero. If it wasn’t for our dogs… Talking to our neighbor who has Simplisafe cameras (also wireless), she showed us that her camera system detected and notified her of internet interruption and kept reconnecting on different wavelengths (or whatever it’s called) to capture video. We had NOTHING except for some shadows on an inside camera that was out of their WiFi jamming reach. Does Arlo not have any way to detect and notify and prevent this??

[StephenB]

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@OscarHouri wrote:

what good is this system if a criminal uses a WiFi jammer and we get zero notifications or recordings. Does Arlo not have any way to detect and notify and prevent this??

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There is no way to prevent jamming if the jammer has enough power.  This is an inherent risk with any wifi camera.  

The base could potentially look for jamming.  Not sure if its hardware is capable of it or not.  The cameras can't, since it would take too much power for them to be continuously scanning the wifi.

[OscarHouri]

If we cannot get to prevention, what about notification that it’s offline? How does SimpliSafe manage to get their cameras to reconnect on other frequencies? How about the base? 1 of those jammed cameras was on the base. 

[StephenB]

Honestly, the best way to protect against this kind of attack is to use a Power-over-Ethernet camera that doesn't use wifi or mobile data at all.   Unfortunately, Arlo doesn't have any PoE cameras in their product set.

It is illegal to use a jammer, so you might want to notify the police.  It is odd that nothing was damaged or stolen - and that makes it unlikely that the police will do anything right now.  But if this happens again (to you or someone nearby), then it might be good to have the report on record..

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@OscarHouri wrote:

1 of those jammed cameras was on the base. 

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I was thinking they all were connected to the base. If the connection was to your home wifi, then the base wouldn't be involved.  

Your router could potentially change to a different wifi channel, but that wouldn't make any difference to a wideband jammer (as it would cover all wifi frequencies).

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@OscarHouri wrote:

How does SimpliSafe manage to get their cameras to reconnect on other frequencies? 

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We don't have any hard information on what jammer was used, or how close it was to the SimpliSafe camera and your neighbor's router.  And that distance does matter, as the signal strength from the jammer drops off with the square of the distance.  For example, doubling the distance reduces the jamming signal strength by a factor of 4.  So it is possible that your neighbor's camera was too far away for the jamming to really affect it.

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@OscarHouri wrote:

what about notification that it’s offline? 

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Lots of folks have asked for this, and I think it would be helpful.  

[OscarHouri]

Hi Stephen.  Thanks for taking time to reply.  I'm sorry I am not good at quoting.  I tried, but failed.  

So I totally get that POE is the way to go to avoid issues with wifi, and we will be augmenting our security cameras with POE.  

Super aware that use of a jammer is illegal and we did file a police report - but they would only say "trespassing" and wouldn't add the wifi jammer to the report as there is no "proof".  There is a lot of this crime in the Los Angeles area - it's rampant, and the police are too busy with "real crime" to help us with this.

Thanks for the potential explanation as to why the SimpliSafe cameras functioned. I think the thing that was most impressive was that it actually told them there was an interruption in their wifi.  Honestly, that would have been sufficient for me to be concerned enough to investigate.  But Arlo doesn't do anything - there's no evidence of the tampering.  

Sometimes I think that Arlo isn't as into "delighting" their customers as they are in selling hardware, which is disappointing.  

@Arlo are you listening?

[BrookeN]

I appreciate you providing this feature request. I have let the development team know. 

[Arlouser5555]

This feature would be wildly useful!

I do get notifications when a battery is low, so if a camera goes off line for more then 2 minutes I would like a notification.  If two or mote caerma’s disconnect within 30 sec, I would like a notification for sure. 
Also PoE would be a nice feature!

[jhf12]

Yes, please at least add a notification that an attack is detected.

I'm using Abode and they at have a notification when jamming is detected. Consumer Reports indicates it takes about a minute to realize it and send the notification. Better than nothing, which is unfortunately the case with ARLO right now. Otherwise, I think I'd make a switch.