Label 'Arlo Web and Mobile Apps' is now just 'Arlo Mobile App', so...

[Macahi]

Was I right when I predicted last fall that you're going to drop the web portal?  How about an official answer this time?

[jguerdat]

Web's working fine here and will continue to do so.

[JamesC]

Macahi,

As jguerdat mentions, there is no initiative to stop supporting the web portal.

JamesC

[Macahi]

@JamesC 

Thank you.  Honestly, I pay very little attention to anything the superusers say regarding company direction.  I assume they have absolutely no insight into future plans and directions of the company.  When he says the web portal is 'working fine', it's actually not.

Now that there's an official statement from you that you're not going to be dropping the web portal, can you please address the existing bugs and the bad design changes.  The biggest issue that makes the portal unusable (except for DLing videos) is that it's logging us out after ~30 minutes.  It takes waaaaaay too long to log back in.  By the time we do, any real-time event is long gone. 

@JamesC Please answer here to let us know that this will be fixed and when. Please let us know that the previous functionality (which still exists in the mobile apps) will be restored.

Finally, if the web portal is not going away, why is there no longer a web portal label when we create a new post here?

Thank you

[JamesC]

Macahi,

While the super user group does not have insight into the future plans and directions of the company, the information they share here is often very informed and in most cases I would encourage other community users to read their words with the same level of insight as my own.

Regarding the behavior you describe above, the web client automatically logs out after 30 minutes by design, this is a security measure. After 30 minutes of inactivity, the session is closed. This behavior is deliberate. To keep the session open, you must maintain activity (navigate to a different screen, play a recorded video, reopen a live stream etc.).

The purpose of labels is to help consolidate the discussions here into different "buckets". In an effort to prevent too many labels from existing and overloading users with options, we've recently reduced the number available and homogenized these across each board.  If it becomes necessary to have a label specific to the web client, i'll take that into future consideration but for now, these don't need to be too granular for their current purpose.

JamesC

[Macahi]

@JamesC 

Superusers: Unless the superusers are employees and employees with access to company plans, then no, they aren't going to be a good source for that information.  I expect they have a lot of experience with using the systems and maybe navigating helpdesk-type resources, but not more.

Web application: We all understand the change was made by design.  That's our issue with it.  Arlo has not only not applied that same level of 'security' to the mobile apps, you've actually made it even easier to stay connected and to not have to continuously log in on the mobile apps.  You're apparently making an assumption that mobile by default is more secure than desktop.  That's incorrect.  You allow mobile-app-users to be responsible for the security on their device, but you don't afford the desktop users the same level of self-responsibility.  The web interface used to allow us to stay logged in, even if I closed all of my browser windows.  We want that functionality back.  This auto-logout makes the web interface useless for anything other than after-the-fact video review and downloading.  We need an interface we can use in real-time. 

How about giving the end-user the option of allowing the portal to auto-logout?  It would be an easy code change.  Put a checkbox on one of the settings pages.

Labels: The previous label was: "Arlo Web and Mobile Apps".  One label.   Now it's "Arlo Mobile App".  One Label with half the value.  You haven't removed a label with this change, you've removed our ability to categorize these posts properly. 

[JamesC]

Macahi,

We appreciate your feedback. The suggestions made here are noted and I'll pass them along to the development team.

JamesC

[Macahi]

I'll believe it when anything is actually fixed.  Until then, I am making sure that no one I know even considers buying your product.