Arlo Not working consistently with Amazon Show

[eric-m]

Hi,

I’m using regular Arlo Cameras and basestation, and an Amazon Echo Show.

I recently setup my cameras, and they work great with the arlo app. However, they are extremely inconsistent when I use them on my echo show. When I say “Alexa, show me the back yard”, she replies “okay” and the “waiting for Netgear...” shows up. After about 3 seconds, it returns to my home screen. No error messages at all (most of the videos I’ve seen while trying to troubleshoot display some sort of error message).

To let you know what steps I’ve done so far:
- Restarted Arlo base station
- Restarted Echo Show
- Restarted cameras
- Uninstall / reinstall Arlo Skill on Echo Show
- Devices have been synced (each camera has worked exactly once with the Echo Show).
- The first camera showed the live feed after the second attempt
- The second camera showed the live feed after about 20 attempts
- Each camera has now failed to show the live feed after ~30 attempts, but works fine in the arlo app

What at am I missing? Any help is appreciated.

Eric

[Gsun17]

Seriously?! It’s been 5 months of complaints and no official response from Arlo?’!!

[CashMoney]

Night vision is working now. However, I still get the random can’t connect right now and will have to keep trying or open the app on iOS to get the echo show to connect.

[Ruskin]

Having exact same issue

[Ruskin]

Alexa tells me it can’t connect. Says it took too long to respond

[ScottcSmith]

Amazon Show: I am getting waiting on netgear

[ddalder]

Consistent integration with the Echo Show has been poor at best for a very long time.  I find that once it times out following the "Waiting for netgear" message, if I ask again to see the same camera, it will usually appear.  There have been times when I've needed to ask three or more times.

I've tried deletng the cameras from the Alexa app, disabling the skill, re-enabling the skill and discovering new devices.  This hasn't yielded any improvement with reliability.  Whatever the problem, it appears to be common.

[RChobby]

Interesting thread, I was going to buy a fire stick but now I’ll wait and see.

[Frank1234]

Yes this is still a problem. The Arlo app brings up cameras instantly. The Alexa show only works 10% of the time and takes 3-5 minutes.

[tlathbury]

Same problem here.  Just bought this from BestBuy yesterday.  set up fine.  Upgraded firmware on base and cameras fine.  View cameras and video on app fine.

Enabled skill on Alexa Show and discovered all cameras.  Speak command to Alexa to “show driveway camera”.  She cheerfully says ok, but then I get “waiting for netgear” and after about 30 seconds times out and goes back to home screen. Did all the resets enable/disable etc.  

- Then after 10 trys suddenly one camera came thru.  Ok progress I thought.

- So then tried a different camera, but back to same problem.

- Then went back and tried the camera that worked before......but as with others on this thread, that camera no longer worked....back to the “waiting for netgear” time out then back to ho e screen.

If this doesnt end up,working I think the cameras go back to best buy.  I already own older logitech cameras that are functioning well, but I like the Echo integration feature for these Arlos.  

Also Arlo e-mail notofication function is lame.....there's no way limit frequency of notifications....its either on or off.  You can reduce trigger sensitivty of camera, but then you may miss somthig important.  So if leaves blow on a windy day you get hundreds of emails.  Logitech Alert allows you to limit emails to once an hour, or other sensible options.....and the result is effective, I mostly get worthwhile notifications when people are on the property.  Disappointing and very easy software fix.

[tlathbury]

As a follow up, my product is the Arlo Pro 2 - 4 Pack.  Model # VMS4430P.....tried to enter this into the “model” input field above but it does not accept.

[Ruskin]

So clearly there is an issue here. But does netgear or the Arlo folks read this or are we just bringing the issue to the attention of those having the issue?

[Man1ak]

Same problem with a plugged in Arlo Q.

I'm assuming this thread is heating up because of the big Alexa device sale a few days back. I'm moving soon and want to expand to have 3-4 cameras, but without trustworthy integration I won't be choosing Arlo for this expansion.

My current success rate is around 10-15%. 70% of the time it immediately gives up after about 3 seconds. The rest of the time it just gets stuck at "waiting for netgear" forever (literally stayed like that all last night until I saw it this morning).

This is literally the point of Arlo, to show video... You'd think it'd be a priority to fix.

[Ruskin]

So clearly there is an issue here. But does netgear or the Arlo folks read this or are we just bringing the issue to the attention of those having the issue?

[ddalder]

Not sure if Netgear staff read these or not.

I'm at the limit of 5 cameras for a free account and was planning to add one or two more for areas I'd like to monitor.  Unfortunately, I have had so many issues with the Arlo cameras outside of Echo Show integration, I just can't see spending even more money on a system I already know isn't reliable.  What's the point in having security cameras if they don't work consistently?  I'm probably going to forego Echo Show integration and simply go with a wired, professional system instead.  I'm sure there will be some disadvantages compared with what I hoped to achieve with Arlo, but reliability is far more important to me.

[Jbcraig2000]

I saw post after post saying this thing is not working. However, i did not see a single answer for the problems people were having.  Are the post going out to no where and does any one even the techs know or even care that so many are having the same issue with this product?

[RChobby]

Hard to tell. When you call Netgear support the accents are pretty strong, most likely based in some foreign land. From conversations I’ve had they seem relatively clueless to most issues. It makes you wonder if they are competent and/or have a way to report problems (to the company).

[RickUofE]

Still having problems. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does. VERY slow when it does work. Sad.

[JamesC]

Arlo engineering is aware of this issue and is currently working on a resolution. I will post an update when I have more information.

JamesC

[Amgray13]

After the update, Arlo Baby no longer works with any invited accounts. Doesn’t work with my wife’s account, doesn’t work for the dedicated account we made for the FireHD tablet intended to replace a portable monitor. Each firmware update is breaking this device more and more

[JamesC]

A cloud update was released late last night that resolves this issue. No user interaction is required to see this fix. Please let us know if you continue to experience this issue moving forward.

JamesC

[ddalder]

Well, I no longer seem to get the endless "Waiting for Netgear..." message followed by silence.  Instead, the majority of the time, Alexa just says "Hmmm, the [camera name] isn't responding."  When I check my phone app, the cameras appear to be working just fine.  It's a change, but it's not fixed (at least not for me).

[dafryxell]

After an initial "camera not responding," I had success viewing all my cameras more or less promptly. Still not working with Fire TV stick, which says it doesn't support this (even though I bought the stick AFTER Netgear announced this feature would work with it). Thanks for the update.

[Amgray13]

My Arlo baby seems to be working much better with echo show. It intializes video with no problems now and does not seem to drop the signal or buffer over night.

We are still having 1 issue. We have two echo shows, one in the main room and one in the bedroom. We will stream the arlo baby in the main room and everything works fine. At bedtime, we end the main room stream and try to initiate a stream in the bedroom on a second echo show and we get the "sorry, the camera didnt respond" error message. After waiting 15-20 minutes, the stream will initilialize and function properly on the second echo show. Is there some sort of cooling off period that won't allow us to end and start a new stream on a new device? Hopefully this can be fixed as well. Otherwise, much happier with the stability.

[Ruskin]

Mine had started working again and had seemed fine. This lasted about four days. Tried this morning and asked Alexa to show me the driveway and no it’s timing out again. 

[Bill716]

It apears I have the same problem as ddalder.  I get the message "Hmmm, the camera isn't responding" and then takes me back to the alexa show home screen.  This happens about 50% of the time.  The other 50% it works fine.  Also, on occation I will get the audio (I can hear the birds and wind) but no video.  It's almost like there's a buffering/signal problem.  I have a 4 camera system and it doesn't matter if the camera has 1 bar or 3 bar signal strength.