Arlo|Smart Home Security|Wireless HD Security Cameras
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garryf
Tutor
Tutor

I have an R7000 that I had to downgrade the firmware in order for the arlo base station to connect. However I hear there are security issues with that router and the later firmwares do not support ARLO PRO Base station...(WTF)

 

So since I live in a large house with 6 cell phones, 8 computers, 3-4 laptops, ipads etc I thought I would updgrade the router to the R8300 but I need it to support the Arlo Pro system with 4 cameras and base station. Will this work? What wifi router do you guys recommend for my situation? 

 

What is this Orbi system I see? Is that some sort of extender? 

 

Thanks so much for your help and assistance...garry.

21 REPLIES 21
TomMac
Guru Guru
Guru

garryf wrote:

I have an R7000 that I had to downgrade the firmware in order for the arlo base station to connect. However I hear there are security issues with that router and the later firmwares do not support ARLO PRO Base station...(WTF)

 

What is this Orbi system I see? Is that some sort of extender? 

 


As to the Netgear routers...TBMK, there are none that currently support Arlo/Arlo Pro cameras  ( Jeff will expand here )

 

As to Orbi;  I currently am running one with the Arlos..

It is a main router with a satellite unit  working as a star network system.  The nice thing is the Sat does work as an extender with 4 ethernet ports.

The main difference is that the syste has a separate 5 ghz channel as a backbone to support high levels of data thru put to the satellite units.

Also the system on both/all units have the same ssid and pw , so moving around the home is seamless.

More info here;https://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/orbi/?cid=wmt_netgear_organic

OR do a search on the Orbi... there are many reviews.

 

It's really nice to plug in a second base to the Satellite and really expand the area coverage of the Arlos.

Feel free to ask in any questions.

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Morse is faster than texting!
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manofice
Virtuoso
Virtuoso
I can't see why any router wouldn't support Arlo's base station. Are you referring to the actual router being used AS a base station, instead of actually buying one? If so I believe Netgear discontinued that and removed it from their routers. I'm sure they will patch any security issues with firmware so I wouldn't really worry about that.
TomMac
Guru Guru
Guru

manofice wrote:
I can't see why any router wouldn't support Arlo's base station. Are you referring to the actual router being used AS a base station,

Almost any router with an ethernet port will support an Arlo base.

The OP was referring to using the router as ( in place of ) a base for the Arlo cameras ( like the 7000 use to do but was discontinued )

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Morse is faster than texting!
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jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru
The R7k should not be used for Arlo connections. It was a good idea but the execution was lacking for whatever reason. There are no other routers that will directly support Arlo cameras. Use a base station with any router to get them to work.
garryf
Tutor
Tutor

Hi--Let me explain further..I bought the Arlo VMS4430 which comes with 4 wireless cameras and 1  base station. The cameras sync with the base station

and the base station plugs into my R7000 router (like their directions say) so that I can remotely control the cameras i.e. turn them on and off, look at recorded events, etc. Almost immediately I was losing internet connections to the base station via my router. Upon further investigations I found that the Netgear R7000 has to have an arlo firmware update BUT the later firmwares removed arlo support so I am using the one with arlo support but then I find that the R7000 has a securtiy hole in it which I am guessing the later firmware will fix the hole but still leave out the arlo addon. 

 

What i am finding out from this site is that the base station from arlo is a router designed to just connect to their cameras..fine but why all these problems connecting the base station to the internet via a router any router? So since I want my wifi to wrok seamlessly with all my cell phones, computers etc I thought I would upgrade the netgear router to R8300 or thereabouts but want to make sure it will connect aok and work with the arlo base station.

 

Hope I am a little clearer...thanks for all your help in this regard.

 

garry

 

manofice
Virtuoso
Virtuoso
You're definitely more clear now. I don't see any reason your R7000 router is having issues providing internet to your Arlo Base station...you don't need any special firmware on a router to be able to provide internet to the Arlo base.
garryf
Tutor
Tutor

Hi--There are several posts concerning the netgear R7000..if one upgrades to the latest firmware 1.0.7.2 netgear warns you that support for the arlo is dropped and previous firmware that did support the arlo was removed from their site...don't know why and no one else does either from what I can tell.

 

So was hoping the later models R8300,R8500 or R9000 etc worked fine? Anyone have any experience with the arlo pro and higher end netgear routers ?

 

Thanks.

 

jcwrks
Luminary
Luminary

You should not have to upgrade to a different router to get your Arlo to work properly. Update to the latest R7000 firmware and ignore the reference to the Arlo since it does not apply to your situation.

manofice
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Jcwrks is correct, don't get the two confused. When people mention Arlo support, that is in reference to using the R7000 AS A ARLO BASE, not connecting your Arlo Base to the R7000. Just upgrade to the latest firmware and connect your Arlo Base to it, should be good to go. If you are having issues with connectivity, i woulod contact support. As to your question if some of those newer routers would work, sure they would.

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

I have my Pro base station plugged into my R7000 router with no issues.  Update your router to the latest firmware if you haven't already (V1.0.7.2_1.1.93).  If you do upgrade from firmware that actually has Arlo support it would be best to factory reset the R7000, update and then reset again, just to clear out old junk.

 

The Arlo support for the R7000 was intended to eliminate the need for the base station since whatever was needed was included in the R7000.  It just needed firmware to support it.  SInce it was never made to work right in conjunction with normal router needs, the Arlo part has been dropped.  Now it's just a router and doesn't act like a base station.

 

End result is that there's no need to change routers since you're using the base.  The only thing the R7000 added to the mix was the ability to act as a base.  That's gone so it's just another router.  Mine works fine with either the original or Pro bases.

arlobro
Apprentice
Apprentice

To be clear to the original post, older R7000 firmware versions had Arlo support built in. It allowed the R7000 router to act as an Arlo base station in addition to being your main router. You did not have to use the supplied base station if you owned an R7000. I almost purchased the Arlo system at that time, but then found out that the later firmware releases removed this functionality and the Arlo base was/is now required to use the Arlo cameras. Since the Pro was right around the corner, I waited.

 

R7000's and some other NetGear routers (even with the older Arlo supporting firmware) suffer from a security flaw that allows attackers to take control of your router without need of your admin password. It was released to the public last week which guarantees attacks using this exploit will be occurring more frequently.

 

It's recommended that you update your NetGear router to the latest firmware version no matter what, even if it means losing the built in Arlo functionality.

 

NetGear has released a beta firmware that patches the security hole in the R7000 and other NetGear routers that are also susceptible to this exploit. http://kb.netgear.com/000036386/CVE-2016-582384?cid=wmt_netgear_organic

 

If you want to keep the latest (non-beta) firmware on your router (or the older firmware with Arlo support) without having to use the beta release:

 

Put this link in your browser:

 

http://192.168.1.1/cgi-bin/;killall$IFS’httpd’

 

(assumes your router IP is 192.168.1.1 - use your router IP in place of 192.168.1.1)

 

IMPORTANT: After visiting the above link your routers web interface will no longer be available to you, as it's been terminated. You can not login to your router with your admin password @192.168.1.1, and this means that nobody can use the exploit to assume control of your router either.

 

This quick link fix does not solve the problem, as the latest firmware (when released) will. In order to use your web interface to make changes to your router you will have to physically reboot it so the web server starts back up, and you can login again.

 

Once it reboots, you are again vulnerable to the exploit until either you use a future released firmware with the fix, the beta firmware that has the fix, or click the link above again to stop the web server after making any changes to your router.

 

I hope this helps others with this issue, and which solution is best for them. Know that stopping the web server is the least of your worries when wondering about what else one clever individual can make your router do instead:)

garryf
Tutor
Tutor

OK thanks everybody..I think I understand now..I had just bought the system and it was losing the internet connect to the base quite frequently..since I upgraded to the R7000 version that said it had arlo support it was consistently staying connected so I thought that was what was meant by arlo support. But it really meant bypassing the arlo base station and just connecting the cameras (which on the PRO version you cannot do) Perhaps my router firmware was too old hence I was losing connection to the base?? 

 

Thanks for all your help and all your suggestions also concerning the router hack. I will still look into getting a better router since we have so many cell phones but will try the latest 1.0.7.2 (or beta version) and report back.

 

garry

 

arlobro
Apprentice
Apprentice

R7000 router is older, but still very very good aside from the vulnerability.

 

No need to upgrade unless your devices can handle faster AC wireless speeds (i'm going to make a guess that they probably don't) 

 

Latest firmware is still vulnerable, so try the BETA (unless you want to disable the web server with the link until official stable is released) just remember to reboot if you need to access your router settings

 

Just FYI your cameras aren't connecting to the router itself, they are connecting to the base station, and the base station may not have the same range as your R7000.  Look into an AC 1900 wifi extender .. something like this:

 

https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-AC1900-WiFi-Range-Extender/dp/B01D6JEMXC/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=14819...

 

You plug it in, configure it, and it connects to your current R7000 wifi network, and retransmits the wireless signal (under a different wifi network name) wherever you plug it in (as long as it can still reach the original R7000 network) so if the signal is stronger on that name where you plug it in, just connect to that wireless network (same wifi password)

 

It has an ethernet port on it so you can plug your arlo base into it. Base will be closer to your cameras.

 

If you have mostly slower N devices,you may be able to get away with cheaper 12.99 dollar one, but I wouldn't connect multiple devices to it wifi, just the Arlo Base. Ex2700 (cheap one) maybe you can get a 3Mbps connection out of it. I think that's enough for the Arlo Base.  The more expensive ones are faster speeds/faster processors to deal with the overhead of multiple devices connected to it @ac speed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru
The new firmware is available. I got an email from Netgear and logged into my router to check for a new update. It's now installed and took the firmware from 1.0.7.2_1.1.93 to 1.0.7.6_1.1.99.
jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

BTW, I've had no issues with the router firmware update other than the Respond to Ping from Internet Port being enabled but grayed out.

kevin4
Apprentice
Apprentice

 So do any Netgear routers have Arlo base station support (so I can remove the Arlo base station from my network)?

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

Nope and it's unknown if that will ever change - I doubt it unless a new model comes out.

 

And my issue with responding to an Internet ping was not a function of the update but of having the VPN server enabled.

NETthisGEAR
Apprentice
Apprentice

If you can afford it the options are the R9000 or the Orbi. Otherwise it is always good to stay in the Nighthawk family with the R7000, R8000, R8500, ETC.

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru
That doesn't solve the initial issue which is that the R7000 supported Arlo but no longer does. It was supposed to be a replacement for the wireless base but technical issues forced dropping of support. No other router ever had that support and likely never will. Use of any router requires the base.
kevin4
Apprentice
Apprentice

NETthisGEAR wrote:

If you can afford it the options are the R9000 or the Orbi. Otherwise it is always good to stay in the Nighthawk family with the R7000, R8000, R8500, ETC.


 @NETthisGEAR Are you saying that all those routers have built in support for Arlo?  I know I can attach the Arlo hub to any router via ethernet, I'm asking about routers that would work with Arlo cameras but no Arlo hub.  @jguerdat has mentioned that this no longer works as it originally did on R7000.

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru
No router currently works as a base for Arlo and it's unknown or unlikely that this will change. The R7k was an experiment that failed horribly and was the only one that was ever compatible in the least.