Outside Recording Delay

[DanGuillermo]

I just installed my system yesterday and I am disaapointed because of the delay in recording.  The camera faces my backyard gate.  I can open the gate walk about 25-30 feet to my back door and walk in my house.  When I checked the recording you can see my backdoor closing after I have already walked in.  That is not acceptable.

It also does not record anything at night.  I have a motion sensor light in my backyard whcih goes on when I walk my dog before bed.  We went to the back yard I stood there about 3-5 minutes while the dog did his business and the camera did not record us at all.  There is plenty of light after the lights turn on but I guess not enough for these cameras to sense motion and start recording.

I think I will be returning this system to Costco and will have to go with a wired system.  It is a shame because based on the features described this system was exactly what I wanted. 

[JamesC]

DanGuillermo,

It’s important to understand that due to the battery-powered design of the cameras and their requirement to conserve power when not in use, there may be some small amount of delay while the cameras wake up from energy-saving mode.

Camera position can also be a factor in motion detection performance. It can sometimes take some trial and error to find optimal conditions for your Arlo system.

Take a look at the tips in this article to be sure your cameras are positioned for best performance: How do I optimize my Arlo Wire-Free camera’s motion detection performance?

JamesC

[NoEatGreens]

I would give most anything to be able to return my system. It is named Slow-Sucky-Arlo. The system worked much better when purchased but I think they off load the free account to foreign soil servers [just a guess] now it never works properly. AND to beat all one camera has a battery drain and last about a 1/3 as long as the others...even with no recording.

I'm the kind that refuses to give up, and now have a new outlook on saying Uncle.

RETURN it while you can. I've wanted to throw the whole mess out on the steet for some other sucker, but my wife can only think of the $500 bucks spent on it...to me it's already down the drain.

I have always purchased Netgear products in the past, was actually all stoked when I first saw Arlo...no more Netgear for me, I've wasted SO MANY HOURS on this project. Don't waste yours.

Hey Netgear! Do you read? 

[Hula_Rock]

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JamesC wrote:

DanGuillermo,

It’s important to understand that due to the battery-powered design of the cameras and their requirement to conserve power when not in use, there may be some small amount of delay while the cameras wake up from energy-saving mode.

Camera position can also be a factor in motion detection performance. It can sometimes take some trial and error to find optimal conditions for your Arlo system.

Take a look at the tips in this article to be sure your cameras are positioned for best performance: How do I optimize my Arlo Wire-Free camera’s motion detection performance?

JamesC

---

You guys, NETGEAR, should really think about printing what you just said on the retail packaging:

"due to the battery-powered design of the cameras and their requirement to conserve power when not in use, there may be some small amount of delay while the cameras wake up from energy-saving mode."

This would save so much heart ache and save you some time from cutting and pasting that statement all over this thread.

Just a suggestion.......

[TomMac]

Placement is important.... good placement over comes the delay in start-up to where it's not critical.

What i still see a lot of users trying to cover to large an area, and this is bound to fail due to the PIR.  ( not so much with the Q )

IMO, a good placement, which covers a smaller area rather than to much works well.

example of what Arlo can do is below and as stated, small coverage, targeted area, great location, not to high or low...;

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Caught-in-the-Act-Videos/Amazon-package-thief-caught-in-the-act/m-p...

[Paul_FCCL]

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Hula_Rock wrote:

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JamesC wrote:

DanGuillermo,

It’s important to understand that due to the battery-powered design of the cameras and their requirement to conserve power when not in use, there may be some small amount of delay while the cameras wake up from energy-saving mode.

Camera position can also be a factor in motion detection performance. It can sometimes take some trial and error to find optimal conditions for your Arlo system.

Take a look at the tips in this article to be sure your cameras are positioned for best performance: How do I optimize my Arlo Wire-Free camera’s motion detection performance?

JamesC

---

You guys, NETGEAR, should really think about printing what you just said on the retail packaging:

"due to the battery-powered design of the cameras and their requirement to conserve power when not in use, there may be some small amount of delay while the cameras wake up from energy-saving mode."

This would save so much heart ache and save you some time from cutting and pasting that statement all over this thread.

Just a suggestion.......

---

Agree 100%

We have all read those lines over and over......it's become embarrassing to keep repeating them.

[Paul_FCCL]

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TomMac wrote:

Placement is important.... good placement over comes the delay in start-up to where it's not critical.

What i still see a lot of users trying to cover to large an area, and this is bound to fail due to the PIR.  ( not so much with the Q )

IMO, a good placement, which covers a smaller area rather than to much works well.

example of what Arlo can do is below and as stated, small coverage, targeted area, great location, not to high or low...;

https://community.netgear.com/t5/Caught-in-the-Act-Videos/Amazon-package-thief-caught-in-the-act/m-p...

---

Tom:

Don't know about everyone else around here, but I'm guessing many of us have tried many "placement" options trying to fix this issue to no avail. Yeah you could shave off a sec or two, still a prob with 4-6 secs.

I have spent countless hours (many days) trying, retrying and then some more trying various locations and camera angles. Delay is there, end of discussion.

It would be encouraging to hear that Netgear has acknowledged this and tell us they're seriously working on a solution. Instead of downplaying the issue.

[TomMac]

Paul,

Sorry but I don't see a 4-6 sec delay... as to why I can't answer... as mine is more like 2 secs. I can only answer as to what I see in my location.

But in the video link I posted, that appears to be a pretty good response.  The subject is recorded about 4 feet into the active picture while still allowing a great pic of subject. Walking the distance of 4 or so feet doesn't take 4-6 seconds.

Not going to say the delay isn't there, just that I don't see as much as others.  ( as a PS, more than half my cams are inside and start recording < 2 seconds into FOV, outside are similar to video... Cover a small area in my opinion makes a big difference )

[Paul_FCCL]

Tom,

Thanks for your comments and sharing your experience with the Arlo system.

I know motion delays vary from user to user, mine are just awful I guess. Even after trying so many variations of camera location or angle. I got it "down" and optimized it at the average of 4-6 secs. It used to be much worse.

Often it's even more than 6 secs. In many videos I either get to see the back of someone leaving my driveway (after delivering flyers to my front door) or just blanks without any image.

I firmly believe it's all caused by the speed and availability of Arlo servers. I'm absolutely sure it's not caused by my wifi or internet connection as they're very high speed services.

It is what it is, delay is there due to the system design. Yes it will vary depending on where you are and wether there are servers available with high speed connections.

Upon motion detection, a camera needs to wake up, record video and transmit the event to base station, which has to connect to available server to relay video.

Any time this happens, any of the required actions may be delayed unless it all works flawlessly. Haven't been that lucky yet to experience that.

Thanks,

Paul

[nngnng]

All i can say is these camera are JUNK...........

[jguerdat]

As are your responses.

[TomMac]

"I know motion delays vary from user to user, mine are just awful I guess. Even after trying so many variations of camera location or angle. I got it "down" and optimized it at the average of 4-6 secs. It used to be much worse.

Often it's even more than 6 secs. In many videos I either get to see the back of someone leaving my driveway"

I also had the "back" problem of someone leaving my door ..... but was lucky enough to be able to place the one camera 15 ft away facing the door and extended the record time... now I get them walking in and face when the turn around and leave.

I agree that the vary in response trigger/record time of cameras can't be all local equipment differences... be it local interference and or building materials that vary so much in diff locations/homes ... cause many that have good data thru-put show a larger variance in response than I would think ( in the normal bell curve).

[Paul_FCCL]

Thought about doing that as well, but can't due to lack of available camera placement spots. Now working on a motion-trigger camera possibility.

However Netgear servers response is ridiculous.......hope they don't use same servers for motion video relays as the "live" camera view requests. It's outright outrageous how long it can take to get a so called live view, not only it's mighty slow getting it but it often takes half dozen or more tries before succeeding. Wow that is sooo bad at times, I honestly think it's offensive to us the users having to deal with something like that.

Big questions remain, where are the servers located.....how many are there and how fast are they. Also servers' overloading might be an interesting issue. Has Netgear over-sold their servers' infrastructure capacity? Hope not, but always skeptical based on what I've seen so far.

For all it's worth......

Paul

[alligatorseyes]

Well not sure why you would be saying that - we are very pleased with the camera's.  unforutnatleuy we had a "proffesional" install them..should have done them our selves as we needed to shift the camera positions once to better trigger and record... but no i see reading the instuctions on here .. its all part of the deal...

the biggest problem i am seeing on here is people trying to do more than the cameras are designed for.. but for the cost and ease of installation these cameras are brillant for renters... if you want the to do more - get out  your wallet - you need to pay the big bucks:-)

we experianced recording delays too -but as soon as we moved the camera to give it a bit of lead in and some side to side view - it was spot on... so its all in the set up:-) as far as we can see..

really ilke the interface and the neat little tricks like getting one camera to trigger another or set up more modes for different times.. well done

[Hula_Rock]

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alligatorseyes wrote:

Well not sure why you would be saying that - we are very pleased with the camera's.  unforutnatleuy we had a "proffesional" install them..should have done them our selves as we needed to shift the camera positions once to better trigger and record... but no i see reading the instuctions on here .. its all part of the deal...

the biggest problem i am seeing on here is people trying to do more than the cameras are designed for.. but for the cost and ease of installation these cameras are brillant for renters... if you want the to do more - get out  your wallet - you need to pay the big bucks:-)

we experianced recording delays too -but as soon as we moved the camera to give it a bit of lead in and some side to side view - it was spot on... so its all in the set up:-) as far as we can see..

really ilke the interface and the neat little tricks like getting one camera to trigger another or set up more modes for different times.. well done

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I will explain why he said that........

This system has a difinate line drawn between satisfied users and users that expected this system to work as advertised but ran into a brick wall, like myself.

It is evident that Alro works in VERY SPECIFIC applications, if you dont chose the right spot during installation performance is dedragated.  You see this is where the fun starts. If you dont get the the performance that you expected, you start punching holes in your brand new house trying to find that magical spot.  Up and Down the ladder, Putty here, putty there, until you get frustrated. THEN you call Netgear and ask for help only to find out they want you to do what you just spent the last 4-5 hours before calling them.  After that is done and your even more frustrated, it gets better and they shift the blame on other things.

-  Your Wifi network....e.g. interference, channel, speed.

-  Weather:  "As the ambient outside temperature gets closer to the human body temp of 98.6 degrees, performance suffers."

You see this system was marketed as Plug and Play, install it anywhere.  You see Cameras installed in trees behind branches, behind a glass window, etc in advertisements and Netgear twitter feeds all of which are big NO-NO's.  

We have the right to feel ripped off, just count your blessings that you were afforded that magical spot......