New SmartThings Schema Integration for Arlo

Thank you to the SmartThings community members for the feedback on the latest Arlo/SmartThings integration! We continue to take your feedback and feed it into the integration.

This updated integration provides support for the majority of Arlo products and enables a large set of key features. This week, we added the on/off capability which we hope provides a richer set of functionality for all users. Over the coming weeks, we will continue monitor community feedback and provide updates as best as we can especially in the area of sound sensor alerts.

Thanks again for supporting this integration and the valuable feedback.

-Adam
Engineering Manager, Arlo

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Thabks Adam.

If you want to fix ONE thing and make us happyā€¦ Remove the requirement for an Arlo mode to have an action.

Use case: I use my arlos as both motion sensors and recording devices. As you know if the camera is not ā€˜armedā€™ in Arlo it doesnt even report motion. But i cant afford batteries for these things to be constantly recording whenever motion is detected. I want motion detection but only record if my security system is ā€˜armedā€™

To do this currently i had to create a custom mode that did jot trigger record but did either send a push or an email. (really i just need the motion detection signal but thats not possible) SO I end up creating a profile that sends an email on motion and i went through hoops to swnd that to a dummy account and toss the email. So if there were a way to have ā€˜no actionā€™ or ā€˜active with no recordā€™ and then let SmartThings trigger a recording event if STHM alarms. (basically on request through the integration) It would be perfect.

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@shravan Yes I have 2 Arlo accounts. One for Home and the Other for location (camera).

However I should have to do this. I shared the second arloā€™s hubā€™s camera to the first one, and can view all cameras in one account.

A third party app has managed to view/access all the camera on the main account along with the shared cameras. @SmartThings should be able to view cameras shared with the linked account. @arlo_eng your input on this would be nice as well.

@nathancu, thanks for the feedback and I understand your concern. Our goal has to provide a more seamless, out-of-box solution for our customers, so these default rules/settings are for that purpose (i.e. makes it easier to setup). However, in our scenario, if you turn off SmartNotifications for that particular camera and then go back to create a custom mode, it should allow you trigger an event for motion without having to record or send email and also wont sent notifications for specific event types. Let me know if that seems to work for your scenario. I will also inquire within the team for other possible configurations.

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I can assure you that it doesnt. I spent nearly a week to do just that.

If you turn off record, push and email yhe save button for the mode grays out. One MUST be selected tonsave the mode. If thats not the design intent you have a bug. If it is the design intent i respectfully ask for a design change referencing the use case stated.

Note the save button top right is grayed out the moment you deselect the actions.

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Ok thanks for the update. This setup is by design to ensure motion events are being meaningfully used for a purpose, but I will circle back with the team for a possible workaround.

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Solving this one item - to the best of my estimates solve almost all remaining issues brought up here.

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@Jake_Mohl, thanks for the input. Our current integration does not cover shared devices since there is currently no toggle for users to propagate those sharing privileges to any partner integration. But I appreciate the use case and we will explore it further.

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Thanks @nathancu, I will explore it with the product team. Again, part of the reason to centralize mode config in Arlo is to ensure that it remains consistent regardless of which surface or partner you are using. If the mode is only controlled in one partner, then there may be inconsistent behavior if you are using the native app or even another integration. While I understand the challenge you face, the tradeoff for ensuring consistency (and not propagating meaningless modes) was the design benefit. But, considering you spent a lot of time on it and itā€™s useful, I will certainly review it with the product team for future consideration. The temporary ā€˜dummy emailā€™ solution works ok for now?

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Right now, mode control is not an available feature in the partner integration. The intent is to drive it via automations. But it may be something we can explore in the future.

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It worksā€¦ But I had to eventually configure it on my email provider. You guus donanlot of work to make sure theres a valid email in there. I obviously cant use push notifications because i cant intercept thwm abd turnthem off.

What I did, basically equates to flagging your outbound SMTP sender as Junk.
Its easy for me to do on my endā€¦ THeres other ways to do this, because I administer my own emai on O365 (drop into an other folder, transport rules, etcā€¦) but this was the easiest. Its also the most problematic for you guys.

Reason: I flag you as junk. Cool, it solves the issue. No inbound email. But Iā€™m on Office 365. Guess where youā€™re flagged? Exchange Online Protection. That covers ALL of Microsoft properties. It wont take too many more usefs doing the same before you guys get blacklisted. :wink:

Sorry.

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RFC2606 addresses seem to be accepted.

Thatā€™s a change they used to validate it.

Still its bad form for them to force a bogus email to send to.it just clogs thier SMTP sender.

I understand what thsybwere trying to accomplish. Its just a very ham fisted way of doing it. If they just allowed it to accept no selection there it would be fine. Edit:ot a better way to say it. Motion alone should be a valid selection.

I want to say thank you for the SmartThings and Arlo for handling the Schema integration pretty well. You communicated, you listened, made some of the requested changes and communicated about why some were not possible, at this time.

This was very refreshing. OTHERS AT SAMSUNG could learn a lesson about how to respond to customers.

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Ok, it seems that most of the SmartThings/Arlo integration features that I use are available in the new Schema.

On/Off Privacy Mode: Check

Motion Detection: Check

Record Triggering: Check
In the current Arlo Connect Schema, record triggering is only available natively in the STHM and wasnā€™t available in Automations. If Iā€™m reading all of your responses correctly, then Iā€™d like to thank you for making record triggering available in Automations and Scenes the new Schema.

Sound Detection: It is being looked at it for integration at a later time.

That leaves a few features that I havenā€™t mentioned yet.

In the new Schema, can I still put the Arlo cameras in SmartThings Camera Groups where all four cameras appear in a grid ā€˜and live stream automaticallyā€™ when opening the camera group?

Is the Arlo camera battery level available in SmartThings using the new Arlo Schema?
ā€¢ Itā€™s just the Arlo low battery notifications have been inconsistent at times and itā€™s nice to have SmartThings backing it up and alerting me too about low camera battery levels.

Does SmartThings monitor the Arlo cameras for device health in the new Schema?
ā€¢ If so, then Iā€™m hoping itā€™s less than the 6 hour window you mentioned above for the ā€˜periodic state checkā€™.
ā€¢ If not, then are the Arlo camera RSSI level events still available in the SmartThings IDE (see below)?
ā€¢ I just need something to monitor the Arlo cameras since Arlo does not have the ability to notify me when an Arlo camera (or the Arlo Base Station for that matter) goes offline. So right now under the current SmartThings Arlo Connect Schema, Iā€™m using a 3rd party Device Monitor SmartApp set to a one hour device inactivity timeout. This SmartApp apparently monitors SmartThings for the Arlo camera device events. Currently the Arlo camera device RSSI level events appear at least once an hour which I can see in the IDE on the Arlo camera device Events page.

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@DaWeav Link to the Device Monitor SmartApp?

Interesting comment on the SmartThings app screen when I went to the section to add Arlo cameras to SmartThings. I wonder what they mean by ā€˜not certifiedā€™, especially after all the work they are putting into this new Schema.

Yes, currently in Android the camera groups work well with 4 cameras at once in a group. In IOS, we have an issue with camera groups not working but we already have a fix ready with the next app release which is occurring this month. The exact date is TBD as it goes through Apple approval etc.
We also have stability improvements with the live streaming occurring in the upcoming release of the ST app for Android and IOS.

Yes, the cameras will get the battery events consistently. Every 6 hours, the battery state will be updated if there is an update required. Low battery notification should successfully be triggered for cams when automation for it is sent in ST. Please keep us posted if you see any anomalies.

Does SmartThings monitor the Arlo cameras for device health in the new Schema?

ā€¢ If so, then Iā€™m hoping itā€™s less than the 6-hour window you mentioned above for the ā€˜periodic state checkā€™.
Yes, the deviceā€™s health is monitored. if the camera goes offline in the utmost 6hours the device should be marked offline in the ST app. At this moment, with the Arlo eventing mechanism architecture, the offline and online events are received every 6 hours once.

ā€¢ If not, then are the Arlo camera RSSI level events still available in the SmartThings IDE (see below)?

We will take a look at if such events are surfaced via schema.

ā€¢ I just need something to monitor the Arlo cameras since Arlo does not have the ability to notify me when an Arlo camera (or the Arlo Base Station for that matter) goes offline. So right now under the current SmartThings Arlo Connect Schema, Iā€™m using a 3rd party Device Monitor SmartApp set to a one-hour device inactivity timeout. This SmartApp apparently monitors SmartThings for the Arlo camera device events. Currently, the Arlo camera device RSSI level events appear at least once an hour which I can see in the IDE on the Arlo camera device Events page.

in the new ST schema, with every 6-hour device health check, the device will report the offline/online state. Also in the schema, we rely on the Arlo event to indicate the health of the device. In the older integration, the mechanism for determining the health state was different and it was based on polling. So the events that are shown in IDE could be different from a device health perspective

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We have launched the integration currently as ā€œCompatible With SmartThingsā€. Our main goal initially has been to listen to our valued user feedbacks, apply fixes where required and continue to provide the ebst experience possible.
In the background, our certification team has been all hands on deck certifying the devices supported by the integration. We are on track to complete the Works With SmartThings certification upon which the status will be changed accordingly in the catalog.