Arlo camera system - Pros and Cons

BrendanRambo

Hi folks,

Posting this for anyone who might be considering a Wi-Fi camera system. In my experience the Arlo 'security' camera system is both amazing, and terrible.

The good: For 10 euro a month you currently get 30 days of cloud storage for motion-triggered video and a notification system that will send an alert to your phone, usually within 10 to 15 seconds. You can have notifications enabled or disabled at different times of day or if you're at home or away from the house, independent of whether the cameras are armed for recording or not. It will tell you with around 95% accuracy what triggered the camera - person, vehicle, animal or some other 'motion'. Reviewing video in the app is very easy and efficient, as each video clip has a tag and thumbnail which shows you who or what triggered the camera. The Arlo system integrates with IFTTT, which integrates with pretty much everything else including home automation hubs like SmartThings. This means you can do things like switch on existing outdoor light fittings, turn on a lamp, or activate a chime if a person (not an animal, 95% of the time) is detected outside your house at specific hours of the day. (Arlo -> IFTTT -> SmartThings -> Z-Wave light switch). Automations are usually triggered within 5 to 10 seconds of a person walking within 20 feet of a camera (can occasionally take as long as 20 seconds).

The bad: There are numerous bugs in the wider system and with specific camera models and Arlo are very slow to fix them. These are Wi-Fi cameras, which have obvious limitations as regards security, but if you imagine Arlo would go to every effort to address these limitations you'd be very, very wrong. The 'SmartHub' that works as a base station for the cameras is deeply flawed, to the point where Wi-Fi issues are very common with this system. So common, that if you contact Arlo support to report a bug or a problem with a camera you will (in my experience) get two weeks of copy-and-paste 'it's your Wi-Fi, your Wi-Fi is the problem, not us, your Wi-Fi' type responses before you get anywhere with trying to solve problems you might have with the system (if you ever get anywhere).

The potential for Wi-Fi problems means these cameras are very tricky to get working well on a concrete house in a dense suburb, but will likely work fairly well if you don't have too many other Wi-Fi networks nearby. If you're considering buying this system, or if you have one and are having problems, I've created a YouTube video which describes Wi-Fi issues with the Arlo system specifically. This system has some amazing features for a relatively low monthly price, but buyer beware!

I can't post a link to the video as this is a new account, but if you google 'Arlo wifi interference' it's currently the top video result. Title on YouTube: 'Configuring Wi-Fi for an Arlo camera system'.

Higgins5473

Hi Brendan, thanks for the detailed review. I bought one to try, any idea if discount codes on the subscriptions are a thing or not? So far experiencing the wifi issues you describe and camera is only 10 from hub. May return. Thanks again.