Geofencing Beta / IFTTT Integration (mostly) useless

[jordy5]

Alright so let me start off by saying. Great you guys finally found some time on your hands, besides working to get new things setup. Kudos for that!

Now let me think.. the time to market for new features is like... months / year(s)... so you guys must have a family with some more adults in it.. you use camera's at home and would like geofencing to get things nice and automated.. Check! Now... why can't i select multiple accounts which need to be gone from home? It's just the main account? So the "main account" in your house goes away .. and let's change the recording mode. Please.. you didn't even think about more people? Just 1 phone? Or am i missing something?

So.. Ok.. Netgear developers are all single.. and they just have tons of times on their hands.. and just do other stuff during working time, but hey.. they have IFTTT integration working.. Kudos again! This is what we need. We can use Life360.. and other channels.. to get real great stuff working! Until... you see you can only choose... uhh Arm and Disarm.. all other modes.. well.. no.. 

Are you going to remove all modes in future upgrades? What is the use to have only "Arm" and "Disarm"? How much time does it cost to let me select .. which mode.. I mean... ohh .. my ...*** .. god

Please Netgear tell me I'm wrong and your developers are just playing with us? 

[Schorschi]

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jordy5 wrote:

So.. Ok.. Netgear developers are all single.. and they just have tons of times on their hands.. and just do other stuff during working time, but hey.. they have IFTTT integration working.. Kudos again! This is what we need. We can use Life360.. and other channels.. to get real great stuff working! Until... you see you can only choose... uhh Arm and Disarm.. all other modes.. well.. no.. 

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Good point. Been wondering that myself.

Well, here's the thing: developers/engineers don't specify requirements. Product Managers do. So, one would think that if the developers are all single, spend the night at work in sleeping bags under their desks, order out for Pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner, that at least Product Managers have a spouse, kids, a dog, and work from nine to five (or six maybe).

Yeah, you're right. Baffling.

Something doesn't match up here. Is Artificial Intelligence already that advanced that it can compile a halfway decent list (at first glance) of product specs, but be so dumb that in reality they make little sense? Are they outsourcing to India, to China (Foxconn?)? Which one is it? Or maybe they are just too cheap that they can't afford focus groups to test their product specs ahead of development.

I wonder if it's possible to profile the department of a company behind their publicly available product solely based on the feature history of the product itself. I'm sure there is tons of research that could be done on this. I think they could even create a professorship at an ivory school that researches this field.

[Retired_Member]

hey guys,

this feature is marked as beta and so you should be fair and be reserved with critcism.

I am very happy about this feature and i am confident that will be fully developed in future.

And in my optinion this is a good starting point and enough for my needs. I am not single but my cameras are all outside of the house and i want the cameras are working if the family are still in the house and only i am left.

p.s.: sorry for my bad english..

best regards, oezkanp

[jguerdat]

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oezkanp wrote:

p.s.: sorry for my bad english..

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Ha! If you read these forums, you'll see your English is as good as, or better, than some folks who claim English as a first language.  😛

As for the new update, here's some thoughts:

- I've had some app crashes - maybe not fully baked yet? Android 4.4.2 on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus won't let me into Settings - it crashes every time.  6.0.1 on a Nexus 6 generally works fine but it did FC on me once so far, not when selecting Settings (I don't recall what I was doing).

- Geo-fencing will need some work.  I set it up while upstairs to use the medium range, schedule when home and a custom mode while away on one camera.  Moving downstairs alerted me that I was now away.  I went outside without the phone and, yup, recordings.  Got back inside and opened the app which seemed to cause a location check because then I got the alert that I was home.

- WiFi and battery percentages now seen in Settings while the Cameras tab seems to have updated icons since now my batteries show partial discharge and WiFi is 2 bars compared to yesterday's full on everything. Browser still shows all full.

- Browser doesn't show geofencing, just what mode is set by it.

[Glyrenden]

I would also like the geo fence to turn on when both my phone and my wife's phone leave the fence.  This is all I really need and I thought that I could get around it with the IFTTT support but because I can't select my custom modes it not as good a work around as I hoped.   I get that this is a beta that is why I wanted to leave a comment. I'm really hoping that with the next update you can include these features:

geo fence activation when all active devices leave the fence

custom modes in the IFTTT channel 

please please please. With a cherry on top!  🙂

Thanks!!!

[EarlyAdopter]

Geofencing was a swing and a miss on day one.  Here is what we need (as some stated above)

• Geofencing activation when all active devices leave the fence
• Geofencing deactivation (or revert to schedule) when all active devices arrive within the fence.  
  • I want to record from 10p - 7am, even when I am home.

I attempted to set "schedule" when Geofence was Home, but it does not appear to be working.  My schedule cutoff at 7am, but the Arlo recorded at 8am when I was leaving the house.  I assume it ignored the "schedule" was recording.  I'm sure that is why Netgear put a Beta brand on this.  They knew the shortcomings and wanted to get this out to market.  I just hope the next update to improve this is shortly adhead.

[jguerdat]

You can add devices that are available to be monitored for geofencing by editing the geofence "mode" in the Modes tab. Any device that has the app loaded should show up in Enabled Devices. Exactly how it works I haven't tested - do all phones have to be away or just one?

[EarlyAdopter]

Correct, the devices (wife + husband phones) will show up in enabled devices.

However, the functionality to select one phone or both phones to drive the recording rules does not exist. That is what the complaints are about.

At this time thru my own testing, if one phone leaves the Geofence area it will alarm away. That has no value if husband leaves and wife is home with 4 kids during the day - the system is armed and will record all of the outdoor activity during the day (a lot of activity!) and will drain the batteries.

The need is to drive rules if two or more phones leave / enter the geofence area.

[jguerdat]

Gotcha. I was wondering about that...

[P_J]

So this new update with Geofencibg has caused me alot of issues. So now even when I have my Schedule mode selected the system changes it to Disarm. This is very frustrating that this is happening and causing me to have cameras not working. Please get this fixed. 

[Johnboy17]

I have the same problem, since the new software was installed the other day my system keeps changing my system to disarm, leaving me withput protection.

Following this post

[JamesC]

P_J, Johnboy17

This is a known issue. Engineering has identified the cause of this issue and are working toward implementing a fix as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience and will provide an update once the fix has been implemented.
 
JamesC

[JamesC]

Update: A fix for this issue was deployed over the weekend resolving this issue. Please let me know if you are still experiencing any related issues.

Thank you,
JamesC

[EarlyAdopter]

James,

This thread is about multiples issues - can you confirm which one was corrected? And I don't have any App updates since the original launch on Tues 5/17 - so assume something was done without an updated App push to users?

Thanks for the info!

[JamesC]

EarlyAdopter,

The issue I am referring to is described above by P_J and Johnboy17. No user action was needed to receive the fix.

JamesC

[Retired_Member]

I had this problem, too, but seems to be fixed now.. No problems any more 🙂

[Rufaro]

I have geofencing set up Armed when away from home, and armed by schedule late at night 23:00 - 7am. However I find that Arlo often doesn't detect that I am at home, so the cameras are armed during the day when I am at home (I work from home).

So it doesn't seem to be working as intended at present.

[Rufaro]

Is it necessary for the app to be running on your mobile device for Arlo to detect that you are home or not?

I just went into the Arlo app and got a notification that I am now home!  (been home for hours!)

[jguerdat]

Not necessary to get recordings but you need to be logged in to receive app notifications.  Don't log out - simply swipe/go home which will background the app instead of closing it out.

[Rufaro]

Okay. Thanks. I was wondering if the app needed to be open for Arlo to actually detect whether I was home or not, for the Geofencing arming, because that isn't working properly for me. It arms the cameras when I am home and the schedule says they should be disarmed.

[jguerdat]

Ah.  For geofencing, the app has to be working so never log out.  Folks have been mentioning that it seems like the app goes to sleep after some period of time but it's not really proven to be true since there may be things going on to just make it look that way.  Keep an eye on it and let us know what works for you.

[Rufaro]

Thanks jguerdat.

Although I leave the app open (Android), whenever I go back into it I find I have to log in again - it does this automatically because it has saved my login details, nevertheless it has logged out, or the previous login has expired.

I will try to pay a bit more attention to this/ 

[jguerdat]

It's tough to say exactly what's going on under the hood.  I certainly understand that nearly every time you open the app you have to "log in" although it may actually be a check to see if you've logged in via another device which has to be logged out first. And then there's the issue of the log-in timeout that exists.  So, what the "log-in" is actually doing is kinda unknown.

Apparently, especially with GF, the app continues to consider you to be logged in or doesn't care for the purpose of monitoring location (and push notifications of all sorts). Exactly how this works, and how well, may be the question.

[Retired_Member]

Unfortunately I have to backtrack: It is not working without problems for me.

i setuped the following:

Home --> schedule

Away --> active

The problem is that the schedule sometimes do not work correctly if i am at home. (But maybe it is just a schedule problem and not because of the GF)

[JP-MV]

Geofencing is working perfectly for me. I have the app loaded on both my iphone and my wife's. When either one of us is home Arlo follows my regular schedule (most cameras off during the day, all on at night). When both of us are gone all cameras arm automatically. Using the small zone it arms/disarms once we are about 150ft away from the house. It's been running perfectly all week. I have both phones signed in to the same master account, not a shared account. The only drawback is that you can't both watch recorded videos or stream at the same time but that isn;t really a problem at all.