Smartthings Classic with Arlo - Issue with camera always active or completely turned off

Devices & Integrations
1

Hi all,

New to Smartthings…

After linking my hub the first thing I did was link my Arlo pro cameras to my Smartthings. While the integration was relatively easy I quickly came across (what I consider) a major issue.

After the integration Smartthings sets the cameras to ‘Active’ which means that the motion sensors are always active and I get a notification whenever a cameras sees motion. I worked out I could use a Routine (Home) to turn off the cameras to stop this and then another routine (Away) to turn them on when I (everyone) leaves.

The problem I have with this is when I am home I sometimes still want to look at the cameras but with them turned off by the ‘Home’ routine I can not view live video in either the Smartthings or the Arlo app. Basically the cameras are completely turned off.

All I want to happen is when Smartthings registers that both my phone and my partners phone is ‘Away’ that my Arlo cameras are set to Arm mode. Is this possible? When one of us (or both) are home that Arlo is in Dis-armed mode but we can still view live video.

Thanks.

2

You can do this with IFTTT. I have a ST virtual switch that I use to flip between Arlo Armed and Disarmed.

There is also a community smart app named ArloPilot that I believe can do this for you but I have not tried it yet.

3

Using the Arlo Pilot smart app you can do that, but I’ve been having sporadic issues where it is not disarming sometimes.

4

Thanks. How do you use IFTTT to monitor two phones?

5

Well you would actually use a routine - that happens when everyone is away - to change mode. Then use IFTTT to watch for that mode change.

If you are still stuck - Iet me know and I’ll write up something for you later tonight.

6

Thanks, I’ll give it a whirl.

So basically the IFTTT applet will be: IF Smartthings mode is ‘Away’ set Arlo mode to ‘Armed’
And then a second applet for: IF Smartthings mode is ‘Home’ set Arlo mode to ‘Dis-armed’?

Seems to easy… :blush:

1 Like
7

I leave my cameras in the Arlo Armed Mode and use Routines to activate/disarm the cameras. This avoids some of the inherent delay of using the Smartthings Mode in Arlo. If I want other sensors to trigger recording I use Smartthings Custom Rules.
I believe that the Arlo cameras must be active to view live and the original Wire Free and Pro models will stop recording after about 30 minutes of Live View. While in Live View they will not be recording. I am not sure about the Pro 2 cameras but I believe the Q and Q Plus models might be able to view live continuously.

Brian