Arlo|Smart Home Security|Wireless HD Security Cameras

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Boss281
Luminary
Luminary

I've had it with the SmartThings system. I have one door sensor, one motion sensor and one water sensor and am ready to trash them due to lack of real integration with my Arlo Pro Base station (the 4000), 4 Arlo Pro cameras and one Arlo Essential Spotlight camera. For pete's sake, still no mode controls! I have to use that old hack of keeping it armed but turning on/off the cameras. No custom modes. And Arlo Essential cameras aren't recognized by Samsung yet. Jeez.

 

What else is out there?  I simply want to integrate the cameras and third party sensors, and have widgets or one program to control what goes on and off and when. Any thoughts on company products or approaches? I tried IFTTT long ago but it too had limitations. Am I out of luck?

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markmevans
Aspirant
Aspirant

I know you said that you tried IFTTT already but if you use Apilio with IFTTT it's much more powerful.  I use Arlo's IFTTT motion trigger to drive logic in Apilio that in turn uses IFTTT to flash the Hue lights in my house. It works pretty well.

 

Unfortunately Arlo only seems to offer a generic motion trigger, I'd much rather only be notified when the smart "people" notification is triggered. There is a bit a of delay (a few seconds) but all in all it's been adequate for my use case.

Boss281
Luminary
Luminary

I just did a search and I can't quite find what IFTTT can do with the Arlo system. I need to turn specific or all cameras off and on, and I need to Arm or disarm all cameras or only specific ones. That's it. And control them through a button/widget on my Android phone screen. That was elusive when I first tried it...

markmevans
Aspirant
Aspirant

I haven't found any really good documentation for IFTTT service capabilities beyond randomly trying things. But it looks like your options are the arm or disarm all cameras, start a 10, 30 or 60 second recording on a specific camera or trigger the siren on a camera:

 

Screen Shot 2020-09-30 at 9.03.47 AM.png

Lights Off/On don't work for me, maybe they are only for "floodlight" cameras.

 

Not all the things you'd like unfortunately.

 

FYI - I got to that screen via Create -> "If this (add)" -> "button" (in the search control):

 

 

Screen Shot 2020-09-30 at 9.08.36 AM.png

 

Click Button Widget ^^^:

Screen Shot 2020-09-30 at 9.11.23 AM.png

 Click Button press ^^^: Then click "Then that" and type "arlo" in the search window and click the "arlo" button:

Screen Shot 2020-09-30 at 9.14.20 AM.png