Arlo Cams coming in few weeks

I don’t particularly want the SHM to control the cameras completely, I just want it to change camera modes. I also want to make sure that the video is saved to Arlo’s cloud and not to Smartthing’s.

Hi,

Here is my setup.

Routines turn the cameras on and off
SHM uses the arlo motion sensors to trigger alarms
Arlo records the video and notifications and is stored in Arlo lbrary

Hope this helps

Step by Step instructions for setting up.

In smartthings link to your Arlo account by adding Arlo cameras and entering your ARlo account and password
You will be given a list of camera you wish to add, select all of the cameras you want and then add.
By default the cameras are set to active, this means they will detect motion and record video even when smartthings is disarmed. Go to Things and set each Arlo camera to inactive.
Configure SHM to use whichever Arlo motion sensors you want to trigger an alarm. For me I have 3 that are internal that I want to trigger but I also have 2 external that I dont want to trugger the alarm. So I have added the 3 I want to trigger to SHM and left out the 2 I dont want to.
Configure the routine for Goodbye and select the switches you want to turn ON when away is selected, select all the Arlo cameras (including the ones you didnt include in SHM)
Configure the routine for I’m back and select the switches you want to turn OFF when you are back. Select all the Arlo cameras.
Go into Arlo through the ARLO app and go into Mode, there is now a new Smartthings mode, click edit mode and configure all the cameras as you want them when they are armed, so if you want motion detection and what to do with regards to video recording and duration and also notification.
Make sure that Smartthings mode is selected and active in the Arlo application.
Test it
That should be it, works for me. This should activate all your Arlo cameras when you arm your smartthings, only the cameras configured in SHM will trigger an alarm, the ones not in SHM will still alert (if you set them to alert in Arlo app) and record video but they wont set off the alarm. For the ones set up in SHM they will trigger the alarm, notify and record.
When you disarm smartthings the arlo cameras should be set to inactive to conserve battery.

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I understand, in that situation, the ST integration is not useful for you. If you are happy with how Arlo app manages the cams, then your only option is to continue to use IFTTT.

What people need to understand is this:

What Arlo has done here, they allowed ST full control over their devices. Except for fine tuning the motion sensor (which can easily be requested as future enhancement). So, everything needs to be done in ST. If you don’t like that idea, then you will hate Arlo integration. Think of it as integration of the DEVICE not of ARLO MANAGER APP.

For those of us who are more comfortable managing ‘things’ from ST side, this integration is awesome. For those who are more comfortable managing the cams from Arlo side, this integration sucks.

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Nice write up. My set up is similar except for who keeps the video. I like ST to do it. My reason is that I don’t want both clouds to have a copy of the clip. Plus, accesing the clip and/or live feed when the notification pops up, is much faster on ST app than Arlo app.

So, in Arlo app, under ST mode setting, I unselected ‘record video’. Because you need to select at minimum to record or to be notified (hopefully this will change in the future) I selected notification. I saved the rule, exit the Arlo app. Then walked in front of the camera and when Arlo notification came through, I went in settings on my phone and muted notifications from Arlo app. Now I only get ST notification. Enjoy, this integration really rocks, if you can think outside the box!

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Almost the same as what I did except I have no SHM, plus when I go into the Smartthings mode in Arlo, nothing was set up to record. I dont see anywhere in the SmartThings app to turn recording on/off or view recordings or anything of that ilk

You need SHM for that. BUT you don’t need to use SHM modes, I don’t. Instead you can create ‘custom’ SHM instance that activates cams regardless of mode. The nice thing about SHM, is that you can pick ANY motion sensors as trigger for your cams and then which cam to record, for how long (up to 120 sec).

If your Arlo set up can do this, then you cannot see the advantages of ST integration. My Arlo manager was not able to record the whole thing. With Arlo, I could barely catch the legs of the ‘intruder’ (due to recording delays).

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So overall I am happy with this integration. I think others should try it this way (forget about Arlo modes/schedules) and see if it meets your overall needs. I am leaving the cameras on for now (as I did with Arlo itself I think); I don’t see why to turn them off in routine (save a little battery?). My Arlo SmartThings mode is still missing rules since I tried to turn off notifications in each, but it is still working okay (door open with SHM/alarm armed triggered recordings on all Arlo cameras). I guess I will turn off Arlo notifications in Android app settings for now at least.

Going forward this will help me use my SHM arm stay/away more. I tried to set up a CoRE piston to run good night and good morning routines, but I can’t tell if it worked last night/this morning. Then next issue will be minimizing false alarms from Arlo motion sensors and inside GoControl motion sensors.

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SBDOBRESCU thanks, Yes It works either way, it’s seems to be a great integrations.
I only have a Windows Phone and the Smartthings App doesn’t support video playback of the recorded arlo cameras I have no option other than to use Arlo to record the video. I know there isn’t a Arlo Windows app either but the email notification sends me an email that I can click on and view in the Windows Phone.

My other concern with the video in Smartthings is that it clearly states that it is a premium feature of Smart Home Monitor and enjoy whilst it is in Beta. At what point will this stop working and you be asked to pay. With Arlo at least you have 1 week of recording always at no extra charge.

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Netgear Arlo should be under Things (rather than SmartApps). There are still a few random integrations that appear in the app as devices but show up on the SmartApps page (e.g., Life360). This is from an old set up of the Marketplace, and should will be changing soon.

Thanks for the patience!

I agree. And then there is the lenght of the clip, in ST you are limited to 120s. And when the premium comes out of beta, I have no problem paying 5 bucks per months for 30 days video history. This integration makes Arlo cams so much more useful.

I don’t see its usefulness, turn the cams on or off instead of motion on or off (would prefer both options) is my pain point. I need live streaming to remain available but motion off which for some reason this integration doesn’t offer.

Plus they could have offered some instructions and information on functionality instead of letting people waste their time figuring this out themselves. There is a lot of confusion in this thread and if they stated what is and isn’t available I could have decided it is worthless to me and not even set it up. Now I lost a mode in the Arlo app which will need to be recreated.

I would like the on/off feature with the Q’s but need motion on/off with the wireless as to keep live streaming more quickly available. Either way I’d like to know the reasons they did what they did. All have been uninstalled from ST and I’m back to using IFTTT, all because ST can’t give people options. Glad some love it, I think it’s a typical ST piece of …

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You can request enhancements on current integration on this thread. And keep in mind, that is not what ST can give people, but what Arlo allowed ST to handle. This is Arlo’s integration not STs product. I am impressed by how much control Arlo gave to ST members. Let’s not forget, that just couple of months ago all you had was the Arlo piece of…manager app. Arlo is moving in the right direction!

I set the Arlo app to Email notifications to a mailbox that doesn’t alert me and has filters to delete mail after a few days. Seems to work fine but it’s just a work around. It doesn’t address the multiple alert issue.

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Great idea and what I’ll do. Many thanks.

But I’m totally unhappy with this situation (the fact that we have to do this workaround). Not sure who dropped the ball on this one (I’m guessing the Arlo folks) but the mandatory dual notifications does not make sense. I’m fine if it’s set up as the default setting but at least allow us to change it if we don’t want it!!!

Yes, I wish there was a little more detail about the effects of the integration and some key hints.

However…

One of the strengths of ST is the community and getting answers from users is the MO for most things.

I only just got the Arlo’s and did not get into a full blown rules setup with their Mode feature, so it’s not killing anything for me. And I do very much like the way the ST folks have adding how to work with the cams on their end because it is how I had envisioned using them in my particular setup. I realize I can avoid one of the big negatives with the cameras (the lag time to view) by using other triggers besides their built in motion sensor.

Has anyone else seen what I call the “Overlap Cascade” problem with ST Arlo integration? In some cases, due to the way motion activation works with Arlo cameras, I want motion on one camera to activate recording on multiple cameras. This works reasonably well in the native Arlo app, but there’s an issue when trying to do this with ST integration.

Here’s the situation. If there’s motion detected by one camera, I want to activate recording by multiple cameras to cover routes of ingress/egress. This way I don’t just have a video of the back of someone’s head as they walk away. I have four Arlo cameras outside; Garage Door, Driveway, Front Door, and Kitchen Door.

For example, I’ve set up the following rules:

  • When motion on the Driveway > activate recording on the Driveway and the Garage Door
  • When motion on the Front Door > activate recording on the Front Door and Driveway
  • When motion on the Kitchen Door > activate recording on the Kitchen Door and Front Door

Doing this in Arlo requires setting up multiple rules within a custom mode and seems to work reasonably well. In the ST integration however, while it’s possible to mimic this with Custom rules in the Smart Home Monitor, you end up with an “Overlap Cascade”.

If motion is detected on say the Kitchen Door, ST will send motion alerts, and kick off recording, on the Kitchen Door and Front Door, but because the Front Door was part of another Custom rule in ST, it also gets kicked off, and sends an alert, and kicks off recording. In the example above, motion at the Kitchen Door cascades into push Alerts for all three custom rules and kicks off recording at the Kitchen Door, Front Door, Driveway, and Garage Door. This is an Overlap Cascade ™. :grinning:

So… motion at a single location kicks off a chain of multiple alerts and recordings. The recordings all happen at once in Arlo, and there is only one set, so some of the entries in the ST Smart Home Monitor past events have invalid video links in them. No bueno…

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What people need to understand is, it’s not a matter of comfortable of using ST side alone or not. There are a few things simply can’t be done on ST side alone. For one, as you mentioned, from ST side you can’t control the motion sensor sensivity, which is important because if I can’t adjust it during different time of the day, I’d either get hundreds of false triggers during the day (especially before sunset) or get 0 triggers at night. This makes the integration simply useless to me.

@Lhaffinatu,

You can create custom monitoring rules in SHM to do just what you are wanting. Choose the trigger devices and then choose which cameras. Then you just create another rule for the next circumstance that you want to trap on. Try it out. It’s pretty cool.

Twack

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I understand. Definetly not allowing ST to control the motion sensor was an oversight on Arlo’s part, which I hope will be corrected with future enhancements, along with picture taking. There were a few things that ST did correct before the launch, but obviously motion fine tuning is not one that was on their radar, perhaps.

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Not sure, but you may be able to replicate what you really want in something like CoRE. Since there you can have one uber rule that has nested “or” conditions. Something like the three rules you have listed. Not saying this will work, just know CoRE has what are called “groups” in their IF statements so you might be able to nest those together to get what you want.

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