Arlo Cams coming in few weeks

Testing is complete. We’re preparing the release, including updated mobile apps to support video streams from the Arlo cloud. Check back next week :wink:

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Holy smoke! We now moved from the cereal aisle to the candy isle. Wait to see now how the kids cry…

Ordering cams!! Now to find a deal…too bad Lowes doesn’t sell and do crazy pricing on those items like Wink stuff. lol

Although I just read about the massive delay in seeing the streams…my Blink cams are reasonable at 8 seconds (but truly I am annoyed even at that). Ponder. Ponder.

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Candy aisle hell I’m in the Rum aisle now. Everything going be alright. Guess I’m going shopping this weekend wheeeeeee :grin:

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My biggest concern is the battery life of the Arlo cams. Sure, you can tweak them, but if I invest in them and I see a 2-4 weeks of battery life, then I will be utterly disappointed. The CR123 batteries are expensive, so I would prefer not to change batteries more than 2-3 times a year.

What is you real life experience with the cameras in terms of stability (Android app and the camera), reliability (ability to detect and recorded motion consistently) and battery life? Are they worth it?

I want an outdoor cam and one indoor, so the two package option would suffice for me.

Thanks
Allan

I’ve had my cams for 2 weeks. I left them on the factory settings and have had them armed the whole time to record 10 seconds when they sense motion. I played with them a good bit the first 24-48 hours live streaming etc. They are currently at 90% and 87%. They haven’t dropped much since I installed them and just let them do their thing. They actually didn’t show 100% when i first installed the batteries. A lot of it is going to depend on where you put them and how much activity is in the area. Mine average about 20 captures a day between the two cams.

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Cool, thanks.
Are they both outdoor, and do they capture what you want them to capture (not a bunch of false positives and missed recordings of real motion)?
Also is their night vision (without external light sources) good, decent or bad?

Bottom line, would you buy these, if you knew what you know now?

Is good.

Had mine for almost two years. I would buy them again, despite the latency. The wire free installation, battery life span, motion sensor, network connectivity are all great.

What is the normal battery lift are you seeing?

And what climate do you live in, I live in upstate New York where the weather in the winter can get into the negatives but normally is well below 32 I am very interested to see how the batteries do in those conditions.

I am interested in one of these for my back yard to look at my shed.

Yes they are both outside. They capture most everything. I had to play with the sensitivity on one to keep a tree branch from setting it off. It’s very dark around my house at night and they do OK. I’ll see if I can post a screenshot from a few days ago of a deer it caught. It’s pretty high up in a tree and the night vision range would be better if I lowered it some but since I mostly have it for vehicles it works pretty well. And yes, I’d buy them again… Just the fact that they’re completely wireless makes them worth it to me.

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First one is the deer at night, second one is a daytime shot for reference.

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Thanks for sharing… Wife almost convinced (battery drain concern the biggest issue), so I might place my order today :wink:

It’s not any worse than any motion sensor placed outdoors. Actually it might be slightly better. I didn’t have the curiosity to record the life span, but is not too annoying. At first I was frustrated because I placed them out of reach, so I had to get up on huge ladder to get to them. I am in VA, I can tell that the hot summer drained the battery faster. And you’ll probably have that issue in the winter. Keeping them on the optimized setting and not armed all the time, you’d probably go for a month or two in severe weather and maybe even six months in less harsh temperatures.

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We bought a 1 cam system on a whim because I had a Dell GC that was expiring. It never made it outside and sat on the mantle for 6 months or so. We liked it well enough that when we found a deal on more cams, we bought 2 more and an Arlo Q. The Arlo Q is now on the mantle and the 3 cams are mounted outside. We’re happy with them. Sure I wish the recording lag was a little shorter, but we’ve overcome that by cross-recording so if one sees motion, the others record too. Battery life hasn’t been an issue for us. We’ve had to play with the motion sensitivity a little to stop false positives from shadows, but it’s not bad at all now.

I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of integration is possible.

The biggest problems for me are the 2-5 second delay between motion sensing and video capture (unlike the ST cameras which have a buffer, so start to record from BEFORE the detection). And the PIR range is very short.

This latter point means that if you use them near your front door you need to mount the cameras quite low in order to get good motion detection distance. But then it makes the cameras very ‘nickable’, as the magnetic mounts (or even the screw-in ones) aren’t exactly secure.

having said that, I do love my Arlo system!

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Ok, you did make me think of how much I get out of a battery set…And you are luck because I know exactly when I changed them last time. How? Because on February 28, 2016 I purchased the adjustable mount for the one cam that is in direct sun just above the back door (see link below). I was just notified yesterday that I need to replace the batteries. So there you have it. Five months or more precisely 160 days on one run!

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TTLGHSK/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1

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I’ve had my Arlos for a couple months and like them so far. My batteries are showing: 100% 74% 92% 93%. The battery life will depend on a lot of things obviously. It’s summer here and hot, also went on week vacation and neighbor watched our dog which caused a lot of triggers. The lowest one is furthest from hub and sees a lot of motion.

One issue I didn’t notice discussed too much is how you configure the Arlos. I am typically running mine on schedule to arm at 10pm and disarm at 5:30am (unless on vacation). Otherwise they will record us coming and going too often. I also adjusted the recording length to help catch more video when something moves, and have multiple cameras record when only one detects motion… all of this to help with the delay problem which can be serious issue. Moving/aiming the cameras helped reduce delay a little. Hopefully they will make improvements or figure out how to buffer some video in the camera until the streaming link is established. Even if it is only a few frames buffered, it could help make a difference in getting a good image of suspects face.

It will be interesting to see how Arlo is integrated with SmartThings. I’m concerned that I will probably need to just keep the Arlo on it’s own schedule because I haven’t been arming SmartThings that often (mostly due to schedules and people in&out of the house). And we have the furball, so doors open late at night for him to go out.

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I am running mine based on my ST modes via IFTTT (night mode from about 11pm to sunrise; in away Arlo is active 24h) . My power management setting is ‘optimized’ and recording length on motion is 10s

I don’t think buffering can be used. The cameras power down into a VERY deep sleep state in order to preserve battery power, and the recording delay is caused by the time it takes for the camera to effectively boot from this deep sleep state.

Buffering requires constant recording, and so it only really suited to powered cameras.

Maybe they need a new embedded OS then :slight_smile: