My goal is that when I leave or arrive at my home, I would like the geofencing to see this and adjust the Arlo system accordingly. Currently Arlo (App) supports a geofencing option that has been in beta stages for quite some time. Many users note that when using the Arlo app to control geofencing, that you have to have the app enabled in order for the system to see you arriving home or leaving. The app will time out if it has been closed and will not run in the back ground in order to tell the system you are home or leaving. Meaning, you have to physically open the Arlo app and then the system will recognize your geolocation and adjust the system accordingly. So…why use geofencing if you have to open the app anyways, why not open the app and just hit arm or disarm?
Now onto Smartthings… the app and system work great with geofencing. ST is able to arm and disarm according to what devices I have set up in the app. So I attempted to set my ST up so that when ST geofencing sees that I leave or arrive it will run a routine that will turn my Arlo cameras on (armed) or off (disarmed). The problem is that this method only works for one camera. I have 2 arlo cameras. In the setup of the routine with ST I am presented with the option of turning on what device/switch and then selecting the two cameras in my Arlo system. However, the ST geofencing will only activate or deactivate (arm/unarm) only one of my cameras.
I attempted to seperate the cameras based on routine in ST. I made a second routine in ST. Now I had two routines that were mirror images of each other except for the assigning of the cameras. Camera one with one routine and the second camera with the second routine. Tested geofencing, tested switching from arm (away) to arm (home) to disarm. I was still unable to activate (arm) or deactivate (disarm) the second camera.
I called and spoke with a ST tech rep. I was told to try the exact same things I described above with a second routine, etc… When I explained this, I was then told that ST only works with one camera in Arlo to geofence activate (arm) or deactivate (disarm) a camera based on geofencing.
END GOAL: ST to be able to use the current geofencing to also activate(arm) and deactivate (disarm) multiple Arlo cameras, it would solve my Geofencing issue with the Arlo app. From my experience, ST does work with only one camera correctly with a routine set up to arm the ST system and also arm one Arlo camera.