Arlo Smart Home Security Camera System – 2 HD, 100% Wire-Free, Indoor/Outdoor Cameras with Night Vision (VMS3230) by NETGEAR
- See in stunning clarity and sharper details with HD cameras and watch live streamed or recorded videos from your computer, smartphone or tablet using Arlo’s free App
- Patented 100% wire-free design and magnetic mounts let you discreetly place cameras where you want and monitor your home from every possible angle
- Night vision cameras with HD clarity even in the dark
- Motion activated cameras and customizable activity alerts provide real-time email or app notifications while home or away
- Indoor/Outdoor weatherproof cameras install easily for DIY security so you can even monitor the exterior of your home
Arlo Smart Home Security Cameras are the world’s ONLY 100% wire-free, HD, Indoor/Outdoor video cameras for home monitoring. Motion activated cameras initiate automatic recording and alert you via email or app notifications. Free apps enable remote monitoring from anywhere and with the built-in night vision you’ll even see in the dark.
List Price: $ 349.99
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How is Arlo compared to Dropcam???… Read here for a Non-Biased review from an actual owner of both.,
#### UPDATE #### UPDATE ####
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It has been a little over a week now and I wanted to take a moment to update you about my Arlo system.
I did absolutely forget to mention one more important aspect of the Dropcam, which is AUDIO. The dropcam offers very accurate and sensitive sound detection. You can customize the sensitivity and even hear the faintest sound. This means the dropcam can also be set to record audio constantly, or begin to record once sound is detected. The dropcam also features a basic low quality output speaker, which you can talk through using the Dropcam app on your mobile phone. I actually tested the feature and spoke with my wife who was at home, while I was overseas on a business trip using wifi and my mobile app. It works very similar to a walkie talkie. It does not work like a normal phone conversation, instead, only one person can speak at a time, like a 2 way radio with a delay. This feature may only be useful for monitoring a pet “OFF the Counter!!”, lol or maybe reminding your child “Do your homework!”. The Arlo does not have audio, but I knew this going in, so it is of no consequence to the Arlo system’s score. I simply did not use the audio feature enough on my dropcams and forgot to mention audio in my original review. It’s a great feature, but for my purposes, audio is not a priority.
Regarding the battery life, I have good and bad news. The bad news is the outdoor camera battery, only lasted around 6 days after installing a fresh set of batteries. The low battery warning appeared around the end of the 5th day, and the camera was dead by the 6th. I think this may be an issue due to the infrared sensors or maybe temperature? (its pretty chilly in the evenings ~38-40F). Again, I’m not an engineer so I have no clue what is causing this issue. For those like me who are price conscious, I am now on my third set of CR123A batteries. Again, the cost of the batteries could be justified somewhat due to the fact that the Arlo works well being FREE, you do not need to pay a monthly fee for cloud recording like dropcam.
Remember, battery life varies greatly for everyone on something like security cams. Just because I am getting 6 days of use does “Not” mean “you” will get the same. You have to take into consideration, settings, environment, ambient light, temperature, and many other various options. So please don’t say “well I only got 2 days” or I got 2 months of use”. Everyone’s mileage will differ. This is why I cannot change the rating of my review.
Regarding reliability, I had to restart the app on my phone a few times. The app would freeze and become non-responsive. Rebooting my phone or restarting the app solved the problem every time. A very minor annoyance, and has only happened about 3-4 times. I have had no issues with the cameras operating as of yet. I am sure as the software is upgraded and improved, the issue with the app will be sorted out.
Besides the short battery life, I have nothing else to report. I have another week to decide if I will keep the Arlo system or return to my old dropcams and deal with the annoyances of wires. As of right now, I am leaning towards keeping the Arlo system as I really enjoy having the camera outside on my porch. It makes me feel safe to know that potential thieves/criminals would be recorded and stored in the Arlo servers “cloud”. With dropcam, they can only be mounted inside the house, near a power outlet.
If anything else changes, I’ll certainly report back with an update. Best Wishes!”
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[[[[[ORIGINAL REVIEW]]]]]]
I have used Dropcams (2 were in constant use) in my home for over 6 months prior to purchasing the Arlo system. The dropcams have served me very well, but they also have limitations which I will explain throughout this review.
Let’s start with the setup. The Arlo system did honestly take me longer to decide where to put them, compared to the time it took me to set up. 5 minutes using an iPhone app, checking a few options, and done! The dropcams, were also similar in ease to set up. I consider this a tie between Arlo and dropcam.
The video quality on the “balanced (middle)” Arlo setting, is about the same as the Non-HD setting on a Dropcam. (my dropcam only has the option of HD or non-HD) This resolution is fine for my use of home monitoring, without killing your internet bandwidth.. (don’t forget to take this into consideration). (wifi video monitoring and streaming uses a lot of data, so make sure your home internet provider doesn’t have a cap on your data usage).
The greatest advantage to the Arlo system compared to the Dropcam system is:
1. Wire free, no cables whatsoever attaches to the camera. This is the very reason I eagerly purchased this system! I hated having…
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|Jan 20, 2015 7:51:31 AM PST
Thank you for your very comprehensive review, we definitely appreciate the time you spent putting it together. With your issue on battery life, you are correct in guessing that it has to do with temperature, and there is an issue with some cameras misreporting the true battery life in cold temperatures, This is a software issue that is being worked on, but we want to let you know that the batteries themselves should be just fine.
Our engineers and the Arlo product team are working hard to resolve this issue so it no longer misreports, and will be releasing a fix for this issue in the next firmware which will be released shortly. As a temporary solution until the next firmware is released, you can open the battery case on the camera and then reclose it, which will reset the temperature detection and give you the correct battery information.
Regards,
Netgear Team
Initial impressions after 1 day,
I was very excited to receive my 2 camera Arlo system when it finally was released. Previously I’ve had a four camera wired system with DVR and a two camera Logitech Alert system. We just bought a new house and I didn’t want to run camera wires in the attic and I was never really happy with the Logitech system which has now been discontinued.
Setup
I had the system up and running in five minutes. Super easy, you simply connect the base station to your router using the supplied cat5e cable. I had a shorter cat6 cable so I actually used this instead. After it is plugged into the router you go to the Arlo website and create your account. The final step was to put batteries into the cameras and pair them to the base station. Both cameras were paired almost instantly! Compared to running camera wires or dealing with powerline networking (Alert) this was a breeze.
Cameras
Nice looking little cameras and they have a bit of weight to them. They aren’t heavy by any means but feel like quality little units. They can sit on any flat surface or you may use the supplied magnetic mounts to install on a wall. They also have a tripod type adapter on the bottom which may open up some additional mounting possibilities.
Video quality
There are three options for video quality:
High quality (reduced battery life)
Balanced (compromise of image & battery life)
Best life (reduced image quality)
I used the suggested balance mode and found the image quality to be comparable to my old non-HD wired system and a bit lower in quality than my old Alert cameras. I changed the mode to high quality and the image improved to be comparable to the Alert cameras. For my purposes the balanced mode is fine. I’ve attached some pictures of my patio to compare the two.
Night vision
The cameras automatically switch to night vision mode when it gets dark. I found the image to be clear and sharp. I attached an image of my garage so you can see the clarity. This was taken during the day with only a small amount of light coming in through the door to the garage.
Website
The website is easy to navigate but there are not as many options available as my Logitech Alert site had. You may schedule when your cameras will record on motion or just have them record on motion at all times or never at all. There are some rules and modes that you may create but I haven’t explored those options yet. One missing feature seems to be being able to define the motion detection zone for each camera. You can adjust the image itself using pan & zoom controls (which may in itself adjust the detection zone) but with my old Alert cameras I could zoom the image all the way out but set specific areas that would trigger recording. You can setup the cameras to email specific addresses when they detect motion. In testing these seem to be sent within 10-30 seconds after movement occurs, pretty good in my opinion! The email contains a snapshot from the camera and you can click a link to play it without having to log into the Arlo site. This is much improved over the Alert emails that I used to receive.
Website compatibility
I used the site successfully on my Windows 8.1 PC, a Windows 8.1 tablet & a Windows RT tablet. My biggest complaint with the website is that when accessing from my Windows 8.1 phone it defaults to a mobile page directing you to download the IOS or Android app. Of course neither of these works with a Windows phone so you are out of luck if you were hoping to monitor your cameras from a Windows phone. To be fair, I already knew there was no Windows phone app when I bought the system but I hoped there would be a mobile optimized site that would work with my phone. When will manufacturers stop ignoring Windows phone users? Fortunately the email that is sent when motion is detected does allow (even on a Windows phone) you to play the video that was captured. So from a Windows phone you can play videos after they are triggered (when they are emailed to you) but you cannot stream your cameras in real time.
Video playback (from website)
You may view your videos from the website and they are categorized by the date and time they were recorded. It’s easy to delete both single videos and multiple videos at once. You may also choose to download a video, share it and mark favorites. I have not tested these three functions yet though.
Live streaming (from website)
The site basically gives you static images of each camera’s view with a play button. Once you click the play button it connects to the cameras and within a few seconds live playback occurs. This is comparable to what I experienced with my Alert cameras and being 100% wireless totally acceptable to me. When you are live streaming you can adjust the image to play in small windows,…
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|Decent launch. Some concerns. Ultimately, my home is better covered because of Arlo.,
I have 2 Dropcams and now 2 Arlos. I purchased the Arlo system because I wanted outdoor cameras where I did not have power. Generally, I think the product is OK for an initial release. It mostly works. I think most of the rough patches are in software which can improve over time. Bottom line- it’s not a Dropcam. Don’t expect it to be a Dropcam. But, I now have better security coverage of my home because of Arlo. It’s a solution (with compromise) for having a camera looking at an area where there is either no power, or weather considerations a Dropcam can’t handle. It doesn’t record 24/7. The video quality isn’t amazing. But, if you want to record events in a “blind spot” that your Dropcam system currently can’t hit, then it’s a nice gap filler.
Product Concerns/Improvements:
1) Since the cameras are in a sleep mode until motion is triggered, they have to wake up to begin recording. I find that this takes too long and I miss a fair amount of the “action” before the camera starts recording. I’d say each video is 20% to 30% shorter than it would be if it began recording the instant motion was detected. (Moreover, it’s possible that the IR recording is a bit slower to get started than the daylight recording.)
2) I wish there were a black (or better yet, flat black or paintable) version that blended in a bit better in an outdoor setting. It would be easy to grab one of them and run based on where they are on my property and how visible they are.
3) I have 300+ notifications on my iPhone from the Arlo app. I have no idea how to dismiss them. Dropcam is not like this. It makes the notification feature useless (boy who cried wolf problem). Why do I get 2 notifications for every event (1 for the event, 1 for the video)? Why does one of the notifications say “click for video” when I really need to “swipe for video” (this is a dumb thing, but indicates a small focus on the details).
4) Why is there not an option to simply record video until the motion ends (or ends + some buffer)? Why do I have to pick an arbitrary amount of time?
5) I can’t get the motion detection test mode to work. A amber light will turn on, but stays on (even if I leave frame), doesn’t flash, and generally isn’t helpful.
6) I have no idea what the “more videos” “less videos” slider actually does to the motion sensitivity. What does the % mean? Is it how much of the frame changes? How much motion there is over a period of time? This is too ambiguous.
7) Why no IFTTT integration? I would like to trigger more than e-mail actions in some cases when motion is detected. Or, trigger automatic recording if my alarm system goes off.
8) At times it takes a LONG time for the “live” mode (or any other communication required with the camera) to get going.
9) Why can’t I zoom in on the video on my iPhone?
10) The motion detection needs some sort of light sensitivity filter. Meaning, if a light flashes on (such as a car driving by at night) it should not trigger a motion event. (To be fair, Dropcam struggles with this as well)
11) Why is the online login so damn hard to find? There should be a big button on arlo.com for users to click and sign in.
Other Notes:
1) I also had the 10% battery problem in the cold, but after popping open the battery door and re-sealing it the problem went away. It made me very nervous about cold weather performance.
2) There is no audio.
3) The batteries it ships with are not rechargeable. They’re also some sort of non-standard battery (e.g., not AA or AAA). But, I did find replacements pretty easily on Amazon.
In the end I’ll probably pick up another 1 or 2 of these so I can cover a couple more outdoor spots without power. Sure I wish they were 24/7 like Dropcam, but given the power constraint, I am pretty pleased to have some coverage.
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|Jan 14, 2015 11:25:24 AM PST
Thank you for your review, and we would like to answer your questions/concerns about some of the features of the Arlo camera system.
– The batteries that the Arlo cameras use are standard camcorder CR123A battery, and as you mention can be found on Amazon as well as many other retailers sites. Also the Arlo cameras do support rechargeable versions of the CR123A batteries, which can be purchased from a number of retailers.
– Since all batteries are effected by temperature, in cold weather they do not perform as well as when it is warmer. Due to a software issue the low battery indication is incorrect and the batteries are not drained, and Netgear engineering is currently working on refining the accuracy of the battery indicator based on the current temperature, which will be available soon as an automatic upgrade to the cameras firmware.
– The motion sensitivity is heat based, and adjusting the “more” and “less” video is adjusting the sensitivity which will trigger the motion detection.
– Once the motion detection is triggered there is a small delay for the camera to wake up and begin the recording, but normally this is a second or two and not 20% – 30% of the video captured. Possibly the object that triggered the motion was coming directly towards the camera instead of at an angle (or from the side), which is the least effective to trigger motion. The User Manual has a good description of the best placement of the cameras for motion detection, with some diagrams based on the cameras field of view.
– For the multiple notifications, this is an issue with the software and is being addressed by engineering.
For additional information, you can check out the User Manual that is posted online at http://www.arlo.com.
Regards,
Netgear Team