HomeKit, tempHomes & Uncertified Accessory

[Cwmmmm]

Arlo homekit official update by anyone at arlo??

[Adrian97c]

Go into Arlo app “armed” settings & you’ll notice Motion recording gets unchecked for some reason... check the Circle & save it again. It’s been doing ever since I added HomeKit.

[Expedy]

Ok, thanks. It's checked. I'm probably missing some obscure setting somewhere 

[Expedy]

Yep, agree. Apple fought against battery only cams for two years, so I doubt they would approve too.

[ziggie]

Any idea how to stop these tempHome from constantly being created and Arlo app asking me if I want to delete it?

[Adrian97c]

Let me guess, you are on ios 13 beta? The temp home bug will not go away for me. I even tried deleted Arlo from HomeKit & the temp homes refuse to be deleted! Sucks

[AncientGeek]

This is weird crap.

I had managed to add two base stations and their Pro/Pro2 cameras to HomeKit on my 11” iPad Pro the day 2.7.13 was released.  These systems are owned by the account into which I am logged in on all of my iPads.  One base station and attached cameras all appeared as Not Certified when viewed HomeKit, but they were all there and the Arlo app reflected their existence in HomeKit appropriately.  The devices all showed up on my iPhone Xs and three different iPads.

I have another location with many cameras.  That system is owned by a different arlo account into which I am logged in on my iPhone Xs and to which permissions are granted to my second account and two accounts I use on my wife’s iPhone X and iPad Air 2.  When I visited that location today, I checked HimeKit and saw that I could successfully access my cameras at the first location, remotely.  I then proceeded to add my location 2 cameras to HomeKit on my iPhone Xs without any problem.  I created rooms, named devices, placed them in rooms, etc.  Cool.

So I checked HomeKit for both locations on my iPhone Xs and after tweaking rooms and names at location 1, everything looks great.  I then look at my 11” IPad Pro and discover that none of my devices at location 2 are visible on my iPad.  Also, one of the cameras on one of my base stations at location 1 has disappeared even though the motion sensor for that camera seems to be there.  Ironically, this camera was the only one (along with the base station to which it attached) that appeared as “Certified”.

I tried rebooting the mobile devices, but that didn’t change anything.  They all show up in HomeKit on my iPhone Xs and only Location 1 Devices show up on my 11” iPad Pro.  At some point, opened the Arlo app to check the HomeKit settings there and to my amazement, the setting set “Set Up” as if I had not yet done so.  Yet, those devices show up in HomeKit on the same iPad.

I give up.  I’m not tearing my Arlo systems apart limb from limb in the hopes, it might al, start to work at some point.  I have zero confidence that it will.

[Paul_FCCL]

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@tls5 wrote:

In Advanced Settings, there was a big red "Reset HomeKit" button.  I thought, sure, maybe that'll trigger the process.

Nope.

My entire HomeKit configuration is gone.  Both houses, gone.  All devices, gone.  Not just the Arlo stuff.  In the Apple's own "Home" app... all gone gone gone.

I advise that nobody should touch that button.

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I wish I had seen this before........did exact same thing and lost all my existing home configuration. Can’t understand why resetting Arlo homekit setup should affect existing home settings. Has to be a bug.

Paul

[Expedy]

Finally got automation to work in HomeKit by simply removing battery on cams and putting back in.  

[illuminous]

@The_Ricky 

Homebridge does nothing extra to "create" arm/disarm function. The arm/disarm of security devices is a standard feature in Homekit. Homebridge simply ignores the rules Apple sets for certified devices.

When a company adds a product for Homekit certification, they are required to specify the device type. Arlo is being added as a "camera device" and a camera device cannot have a arm/disarm. I understand Arlo has provided feedback to Apple on this. As soon as Apple allows a product to carry multiple device types, they will be able to add the base station and arm/disarm.

[AncientGeek]

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@illuminous wrote:

@The_Ricky 

Homebridge does nothing extra to "create" arm/disarm function. The arm/disarm of security devices is a standard feature in Homekit. Homebridge simply ignores the rules Apple sets for certified devices.

When a company adds a product for Homekit certification, they are required to specify the device type. Arlo is being added as a "camera device" and a camera device cannot have a arm/disarm. I understand Arlo has provided feedback to Apple on this. As soon as Apple allows a product to carry multiple device types, they will be able to add the base station and arm/disarm.

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Isn’t that ridiculous!  I think every IP camera has arm/disarm or at least on/off.  Only the old clunky CCTV cameras were always on.

[illuminous]

@AncientGeek 

Sure is ridiculous, but in the end, Arlo's hands are tied on this one.

This is the reason I've now gone back to Homebridge-Arlo. I get all the features Arlo have implemented with Homekit + Arm/Disarm. Being able to use Homekit Geofencing with Arlo is so much better than through the Arlo app. It's great to be able to arrive at home, have the lights come on, door unlock and Arlo disarm without needing to open any app.

[Expedy]

Arlo app update removed the "Reset Homekit" option. 

[Adrian97c]

Arlo app update removed the "Reset Homekit" option.

- yes but it didn’t remove the annoying temp home pop ups! Wtf

[Expedy]

That was under Settings>HomeKit >Base Station>Home correct? I don't see them anymore.  

[MacSet]

Some questions... after exposing the some the base station and an Arlo pro camera to Homekit I got no more recordings and the camera doesn't show up in the arlo up with images but just with statistics on battery etc...

so...

- When I set a base station and a Camera for Homekit, do I normally loose any connection with Arlo App and web interface?
- If I exclude Arlo and base station from Homekit how can re-gain complete control of them under App and web interface?

[Expedy]

I don't know about other users, but when my cameras would not record in Arlo app, I removed thorn put back in the battery in the cameras

[FriarJnr]

I have exactly the same issue. I already have a Home setup in Homekit that works perfectly fine. Now whenever I access the Arlo app and click on device details for either Base Station or the Pro Camera, I get asked  "Are you sure you want to delete your tempHome...........?". I didn't add this thank you very much, you did Arlo app! Then when I go back to the HomeKit app I have loads of tempHomes that the Arlo app has merily been adding.

App, Base Station and Pro camera are all up to date with no updates available and I am running the very latest iOS 13 beta. I have a feeling Arlo will blame the beta iOS 😞

I also get the Uncertified Accessory error during set up and the solutions offered don't work for me so all in all, a pretty epic fail on behalf of Arlo. A shame as I was really excited to see HomeKit added.

Fail so see how this 'update' can be release when clearly is doesn't work?

Any danger of Arlo replying and/or addresses the numerous issues or do you only get support if you pay?

[Expedy]

Sorry to hear about your issues. After doing all the suggestions on this thread, I'm up and running fine and my 'temp homes' have disappeared. 

There was another app update a few days ago and I can't say for sure if that fixed the temp home bug or IOS13 beta 7, or both.

The suggestions I followed and worked for me were reinstalling the Base Station and RENAMING it other than base station.  Also remove and reinsert the camera batteries.

Hope this helps...

[FriarJnr]

Great post and I've already posted elsewhere here as having exactly the same issue and I've tried everything (as have you) to resolve, and nothing works.

I've reached the same conclusion, it simply doesn't work with VMB4000r3. I wonder if Arlo tested with VMB4000 and it worked so stopped there?

Can anyone here confirm if they've got past the Uncertified Accessory specifically on the VMB4000r3?

To all those posting saying just go into the HomeKit app and allow the Base Station anyway, thanks but this doesn't work as its not even getting to the stage of adding it!

I really get the impression that Arlo have 'rushed' this out as they are so far behind the game with this and they've done very little testing. I'm very disappointed with the whole Arlo system to be honest, for such a large brand to not have HomeKit working after all this time is crazy, especially on their flagship 4K system.

[FriarJnr]

You got it working in a VMB4000r3!

Please, what exactly do you mean by 're-installed the base station and renamed it'? I assume this was in the Arlo app itself?

Thanks.

[FriarJnr]

I don't get the pop-up, see attached.

No option to 'Add Anyway' 

Only options are Back or Cancel, which do the same thing anyway, which is nothing 

App version: 2.7.14 (104) (latest)

Base Station: 1.14.0.2_2776 (latest)

iOS: 13.0 (17A5565b)  (latest)

[FriarJnr]

"He also said that the company isn’t planning on making its cameras work with Apple’s upcoming HomeKit Secure Video for now."

That's it, I'm done!

My Arlo is going on eBay and I'm switching to another brand that can be bothered to:

a) Actually offer support and reply to customer issues

b) Keeps up to date with the latest tech

c) Release even vaguely stable software updates

Unbelievable for such major company to not bother supporting this feature!

[FriarJnr]

How did you remove the VMB4000r3 in the Arlo app? I thought the big red Remove Device button zapped everything, including clearing everything you have setup in the HomeKit, or have I miss-read the other posts?

Thanks.

[FriarJnr]

Interesting. I am definitely ditching Arlo as having a nightmare getting HomeKit to work and they have no plans to support Secure Video either.

Eufy is the most likely one I'll switch to. I'd rather have less features that actually work rather than additional cr*p that seems to breaks everything!

Have you had any experience with their support? Do they actually acknowledge your existence unlike Arlo?

[FriarJnr]

Doorbell was an embarassing joke. How could they even release such a pointless device when your have alternatives such as ring out there!

Seriously, no camera in it 🤣