Feature Enhancement Request: Arlo / Arlo Pro Camera device type - Audio Sensitivity setting

Hi Community,

I have a small request for the SmartThings developers to slightly change how a particular setting is handled for the Arlo / Arlo Pro device type. I apologise in advance for being verbose in my following description; I merely want to ensure that my issue / requirement / request is completely outlined and understood.

If you navigate to the settings page for an Arlo / Arlo Pro camera device, there is a setting entitled “Audio Sensitivity (1-5)”. This obviously sets the sensitivity for the Arlo camera’s built-in microphone, to detect audible sound changes (as opposed to visual motion changes) in its installed environment, and can be used to trigger a video clip recording event.

My issue is that the “Audio Sensitivity (1-5)” setting for the Arlo / Arlo Pro device type in SmartThings forces me to set a value within the 1-5 range, which I don’t want to do, as I don’t want to utilize the microphone at all on a particular camera to trigger a recording event.

I am unable to enter “0” (zero) as a value for this setting, as it obviously falls outside of the defined 1-5 range, and it doesn’t permit me to do so. I am also unable to set a null/blank value for this setting (by tapping the X next to the setting), as this results in ignoring my null/blank value and the device type defaulting back to a value of “3” when I go back into the settings to check.

This forces me to enter the lowest permitted value of “1”, which, again, I do not want to do, as I do not wish for any value to be set for this particular setting at all. Effectively, it is forcing me to set the lowest level of audio sensitivity required / permitted by the device type, which in turn is forcing me to use the microphone on a given camera to trigger a recording event (despite also setting the value of the “Microphone” setting to “Off”).

For a particular camera, I only wish to utilize the motion detection capabilities, and not the audio detection capabilities in addition, as the camera in question is mounted high up on an outside wall, and is susceptible to detecting the slightest atmospheric sound changes due to wind noises outside. As the device type forces me to choose the lowest value “1” for the audio sensitivity (as opposed to “0” or null/blank/nothing), this causes the ruleset - as part of the automatically-created “SmartThings” custom mode on the Arlo side - to include audio detection as a trigger for recording video, again, with the “Microphone” setting additionally set to “Off”.

As you can imagine, in my scenario, this results in the slightest breeze of wind causing a change in sound outside, which the camera detects (as it is forced to detect the audio, due to the forced device type setting, even at the very lowest sensitivity setting of “1”) and therefore starts recording video, which eats up the camera’s battery fairly quickly due to sometimes continuous audio changes (due to outside wind noises) constantly triggering the camera to record video.

Because of the forced setting of this value to “1” in the SmartThings device type, this results in the following trigger rule on the Arlo side, as part of the custom “SmartThings” mode:

‐‐‐
If the following

<Arlo Camera name>

:ballot_box_with_check: Detects Motion (set to 80% Motion Sensitivity)
:ballot_box_with_check: Detects Audio (set to “1” Audio Detection Sensitivity)

Then do the following

‐‐‐

It doesn’t seem possible to override the trigger rule for Audio Detection (i.e. to uncheck / disable / remove it) in the custom “SmartThings” mode within the native Arlo app, as attempting to do so just gets overwritten again by the settings defined for the device type within the SmartThings app. In other words, whatever is set in the SmartThings app for the device, is fed through to the Arlo side (as expected really), and any attempt to override the unwanted trigger rule (for Audio Detection) on the Arlo side is simply ignored and overwritten by whatever is set from the SmartThings side.

I believe if I wasn’t forced to enter a value for “Audio Sensitivity (1-5)” on the SmartThings side, and could set it as null/blank/nothing/inactive setting (in addition to “Microphone” being set to “Off”), then this would feed through to the Arlo side, and Arlo would hopefully honour the lack of value being set and subsequently not automatically configure the audio detection to be part of the ruleset for triggering video recording for that particular device.

Is this something that could be looked at as a slight change to the device type code for Arlo / Arlo Pro cameras?

This slight change would allow people more control over the rules that are automatically created (and unable to be overridden / changed) on the Arlo side for their individual cameras. In my particular situation, it would allow me to properly disable the audio detection capability for a given camera (and have only motion detection enabled), which would prevent battery wastage due to uncontrollable outside noises such as gusts of wind.

Name-dropping @tslagle13 in the hope that he can get the right people to review this request.

Many thanks in advance,
@frazzlegod

Good idea! Unfortunately, Slagle doesn’t work for SmartThings any more and staff has said the forum isn’t the proper channel to submit enhancement requests. They say email or an app store review are better channels to submit requests.

Hmm, and there was me thinking that the Community was the “go-to place” for such things… :confused:

Maybe back before the Samsung acquisition and reaching a million+ users. Now the SmartThings staff rarely engages here and has posted the above regrading submitting requests. This is mostly a place for users to help other users.

Anyway to get ST SHM alerts to record less than 30 seconds?