[OBSOLETE] Arlo Assitant - Arlo Enhanced management from smartthings

@tweason

I will try your exact scenario in a bit.

When I have been doing my testing with what defines the mode all of my initial testing has been with the Smartthings location Mode. So that should be triggering fine and seems to be since you indicate it did trigger for the other two modes fine.

The lack of recording could be based on the specific camera’s you have as I only have two different models to test with. Which specific cameras and base do you have. The recording routine has been very well validated as I have had it much longer then Arlo Assistant has existed.

To validate this suspicion though I would need log information from someone with the other cameras. If you could create a rule, test it while collecting live logging from the IDE and then share that with me I should get a better feel for what is going on.

My Arlo Pro 2 and Arlo Q cameras record all day long with Arlo Assistant driving the recordings. So there is no doubt it does work. I just know I can’t test every condition. If you can give me that logging information hopefully I can fix it in short order or atleast provide a reason for why it isn’t working if I can’t.

I had something similar happen. I had Arlo Assistant turning off and on different cameras for different modes but was not getting any recordings except for two cameras. I finally discovered that the Mode that SmartThings created in the Arlo App only had 2 cameras in it. I setup the other cameras and all is well now.

Not the issue here. I double checked that when I verified that the cameras were set per the wiki (Kinda anal with my checklists) The cameras are all in my mode, and all are set to detect motion, do nothing, and push notify as you have to chose at least one notification option.

Will give that another try as soon as I get the chance. I have family coming in this weekend for an even, so may not be for a week or two.

For the record, I have a virtual switch that triggers the cameras to record through IFTTT. THAT works. I may just use that switch to use your app and trigger recordings.

@tweason

Which arlo cameras do you have. There are 7 different wireless cameras. The original Arlo, Arlo wire free, Arlo Pro, Arlo Pro 2, Arlo Q, the ARLO Q + and the newest Arlo Ultra. I know not all functions are avaliable on all cameras. Also what base do you have.

@Mavrrick58

FYI

Not really related to your smart app, but I had an issue with my Arlo mode changing by itself. From armed to to disarmed (or vice versa. ) I fixed it by getting rid of my official Arlo integration with Smartthings.

Arlo/Smartthings integration problem

@Mavrrick58

Hello, I try to run since launch but I need help. I have 2x Arlo Pro configured in the Arlo app to detect motions, do nothing and send me an email to a fake address. I created some modes and I receive SMS when there are movements… However, nothing is recorded …

I have the following log:
debug Sending SMS to ***********
debug Alarm Notification., ‘Mouvements Cabanon’
debug 197137
debug Sat Jun 22 03:02:07 UTC 2019
debug Camera is active and recording can not be submitted.
debug Ruleset 1 event

I created my fix with IFTTT because I already had problems but now I am running out of solution. I also have an Arlo Q but I have not tested it yet.

What can I do more?

Thanks

The line below indicates where the issue is.

That line means the camera method has identified that the camera status is still in initiated state and so it will not submit another recording. This is by design because until the camera is back in Completed status new requets to record will be ignored by the device handler in Smartthings. So there are 2 possibilities.

  1. It is valid and you should be able to look further down in the live logging and see a message like “Camera is not recording. Submitting clip to record.” It will also be followed by “Sending cameras message to record with xxx second capture”
  2. The other option is the camera clipStatus state is bad as it didn’t update after a recording back to completed. This happens far too often in my opinion, but it is what it is. The Camera health fix app is intended to correct this automatically once you got everything setup.

You can confirm if it is a bad state or not by opening up the device from the IDE and then reviewing the status of the camera. The steps would be once in the IDE Click on “My Devices” across the top. Scroll down the list and select the camera you are wanting to check. Then scroll down the page until you can review the “Current States” section. The last state in the list will be clipStatus. Click on that and it will show you how it has been changing recently. If everything is good you will see where it cycles between “Initiated” and “Completed”. If the last entry is “Initiated” and it is more then a few min ago then it is in a bad state.

You can fix that by either flipping the switch/button for the Camera Health Check, or by going into the arlo app and doing a manual recording. It may take more the one time to fix it as well. If you are using a switch instead of momentary button, make sure you set something up to flip the switch back off.

Thanks but I don’t hate the clipStatus State :frowning:
I use the default Arlo Pro Camera DTH

The Health check seems to work because when I activate it, it activates the movement on my camera and triggers the mode. I receive the SMS and IFTTT makes a recording of 10 seconds.

That is interesting.

Here is what I see when looking at the current status’s for my Arlo Pro 2’s

And this is what I see on my Arlo Q cameras.

Both of the have them have status’s for the clip. I also looked at the option for DTH for the cameras and there is no Arlo Pro 2 device handler. Just Arlo Pro which is what I am using. I will do a test with the original Arlo Pro Device Handler to see if it shows difference.

I have added a line to the program to add additional logging around the clip status check. I would expect the program to fail completely if that value was completely missing. Please check the live logging again and let me know what it shows for the current Clipstatus when it runs. I wonder if it is returning a default value somehow even though the state isn’t present. Once i have that info I will see about coding around it. I may need you to help me validate as you can see in my previous post I don’t have this condition with my cameras.

debug Not enogh time has passed. No notification is sent
debug 47208
debug Sat Jun 22 15:25:18 UTC 2019
Camera is active and recording can not be submitted.
debug Camera Status is null
debug Ruleset2 event

Do you use or have custom DTH?

FYI… No clipStatus on my Arlo Q too :confused:

@BobbyGraph
I use the standard DTH that loads when setting up the integration.

OK so the below quote answers my question.

Now that I think about it I wonder if it is something about a different IDE shard. What region are you in. Perhaps the shard has a different DTH because of some sort of regional thing.

This potentially has far reaching changes. This will impact the Helthcheck app as well. You might as well turn that off as well

@BobbyGraph

I have updated the recording routine to account for what you have uncovered. As of the last update the recording routine will now submit a recording if it can’t validate the status. Before this last update the app would never have worked for you. This may also be what is causing @tweason problem.

Keep an eye on your recordings if it does work for you. I don’t know if the same issue will be present for you that created the need for the health check child app in the first place. If your recordings stop working we will need to do further research to find out what we can use to identify what is the bad state.

I look forward to hearing how this goes. I will really need your help as from what you can see above I can’t produce this environment myself.

Sorry for being late to the party, but yes, those were the errors showing up in my logging as well. Just updated the child apps. Will give it a go.

Also, as a workaround, if you create a second set of virtual switches(I actually used momentary buttons) just like the ones for the health check, and trigger those as the Light action, it recorded for me (at least once).

This means you need an IFTTT Rule that records when each switch is triggered. If you do not have too many cameras, that might be a viable solution.

@Mavrrick58 it works! :smiley:

I will test more deeply but it looks good.

debug Capturing at Sat Jun 22 19:20:06 UTC 2019 to Sat Jun 22 19:22:06 UTC 2019…
debug Sending cameras message to record with 120 second capture
debug Camera is not recording. Submitting clip to record.
debug Camera Status is Completed
debug Ruleset 1 event

  • [clipStatus]: Completed now appears in my Device states

Thanks

If it Is creating the state once it runs make sure you setup the health check again. Also make sure the re ipie in IFTTT isn’t disabled.

@Mavrrick58

Ok I tested even more today.

Motion are detected and the recordings are started.

First obversation, I find that the Health Check is launched often, even after every registration. And sometimes, even with IFTTT, the status does not come back so I have more than one IFTTT record in my Arlo library.
I have the impression that it is probably my time settings that are involved. Currently, I have 60 sec records in my modes and I have configured the Health Check with Setup 300 sec and IFTTT 300 sec. (And a record of 10 sec at IFTTT). Can you give me some advice?

Second, I use a virtual switch and I realized that when I close my switch, the mode does not stop.

I looked in the code and I added this line to line 480 and now it works:
subscribe (virtualSwitch, “switch.off”, modeTriggerEvt)

From what I realized, there is a trigger only when you put a switch on and not when you put it off.

Thank you