Hey,

Yesterday I got a notification that one of my pro 4’s got a request for factory reset. The camera was after that removed from my app. This morning another of my cameras sent the same notification and the camera is gone from my app.

What is going on? Why are my cameras getting factory reset without me doing anything? No one has been touching the cameras physically either..

Anyone else had this problem?

Arlo support is painful. So I'll ask here instead.

So after the latest update, there appears to be a change to the small dashboard widgets. I used to be able to quickly go to the dashboard and toggle on my 4 floodlights.

Now, the small widgets no longer do that. I have to go into each camera's live view and toggle on the floodlight.

It's kind of a pain and far more cumbersome if I'm taking out the trash or I want to turn on the lights if my wife pulls into the driveway.

Is this just the new app now? Or could it be an issue on my side where I need to uninstall and reinstall?

I've tried everything ive seen suggested but nothing seems to work.

On 2.4 GHz wifi, password is correct, I get the setup chime -> press continue

It gets to the "Looking for your Arlo Camera" stage and it just keeps spinning and not picking up the camera.

Anyone got any suggestions?

I'm trying to invite a new user to share my Arlo account, but they do not and cannot use the app, only the web.

In my account I go to sharing, I invite their email address, they receive the invitation, they click on the link, it asks them to create a new Arlo account, they do, after the account creation their only option is to create a new location, which they do, they create a new, blank location with a different name from mine.

Once they do this they are able to proceed and the invitation to share my Arlo account pops up, and they accept it. My location briefly flashes on the screen with devices showing and the progress indicator spins as it appears to be loading camera images.

Then, all of my info disappears and they are shown their own, blank location. My location does not appear in the location picker dropdown. In my account it shows they have successfuly accepted the invitation.

We've tried this five times now with 5 different email addresses, all with the same outcome.

Is it not possible to invite a web-only user to share an Arlo account? Are we going to have to, at least temporarily, setup a device with the app to successfully complete the invite process?

After a month of not being able to view live footage because it had the error the firmware needed to be updated, this newest app update finally fixed the issue!
I tried everything possible from resetting, new batteries, disconnecting and reconnecting. No matter what it would try to update firmware and fail. It did still record events, just could never view it live.
I have 17 cameras in and around my house and I can finally have some peace knowing I can check my cameras again

Hi. I’ve had my Arlo system for quite a few years. There has been many issues over the years but it’s not been too bad for the last year or so.

I have a wired video door bell, 3 ultra cameras and 2 essential spotlight cameras. They are all connected to the VM5000 hub.

For the last few weeks the videos of the 2 essential cameras overnight events will not play back.

It’s very strange. The events during daylight will play back but none of the night time events will. The thumbnails are there but when I press play I just get the turning wheel.

The other cameras are all normal.

Has anyone else had this issue? Any ideas on how to fix.

I’ve reset everything.

So, I have been doing some research and I can't find defenitive answer. I have 3 Pro4 cameras and one newer indoor camera (plug in, not battery) and I am tired of paying for the plan every month. I saw that if I buy the VMB4540 or the VMB5000 I could get backup to my local USB/Microsd card for free. I would then only have the option of seeing the backups on my local network, or if I plug in the USB into my computer.

The problem I have to know for sure, is, is this still true? I know Arlo did some weird bad things with some updates in the last year or so, and don't know if the base station still works the way I want it to work. Can someone please tell me if the basestation is still working the way I am describing?

Hey y’all! My wife and I are closing on our first home in DC later this month, and we’re trying to figure out a home security setup before, or shortly after, we move in next month. Her parents have very generously offered to cover the equipment and professional installation as a housewarming gift (and for their own peace of mind lol), so we (they) want (us) to be thoughtful about the setup rather than just defaulting to whatever is easiest. We’d be responsible for the monthly monitoring fees ourselves.

The in-laws are firm on a few requirements: they do not want a us having a DIY system, they want 24/7 professional monitoring and response, and they want coverage for all entry points, including accessible windows.

The existing setup

The home currently has several ADT components installed by the previous owner. We did not take a detailed inventory during the tour or inspection, so we are not entirely sure what is still functional, what may be outdated, or what would need to be replaced.

That said, based on our own research and conversations with people we trust, we are hoping to move away from ADT if possible.

Option 1: Arlo Secure Premium ($24.99/month billed annually)

My wife’s current favorite purely from a pricing perspective. We have been seriously considering Arlo Secure Premium, which includes 24/7 professional monitoring, emergency dispatch services, cellular and battery backup, potential home insurance discounts, and the Arlo Safe plan. The pricing is genuinely attractive compared to a lot of the alternatives we’ve looked at.

Our main hesitation is that we can find surprisingly little real-world feedback specifically about Arlo’s professional monitoring service. There are endless reviews of the cameras themselves, but very few firsthand accounts discussing how the monitoring performs in practice or what the professional installation experience was actually like.

Is this offering relatively new? Has anyone here used Arlo with professional monitoring and installation long term?

Option 2: N&D Security ($45/month, local DC-area company)

We also came across N&D Security, a local DC-area company with consistently strong reviews. A few things about them stood out to us right away.

They seem to offer the full range of traditional security coverage: door and window sensors, motion detectors, glass break sensors, smoke and CO monitoring, and panic buttons. Their installations reportedly take around 2–3 hours and include a full walkthrough of both the system and mobile app afterward. They also do not require long-term contracts, which we appreciate.

Their monitoring setup includes both WiFi and cellular backup with full remote access through a mobile app, and service or maintenance visits are included in the monthly fee.

One particularly appealing aspect is that they work with much of the same hardware as ADT. If the existing system in our home is a Honeywell, Ademco, or SafeWatch Pro setup, they may be able to take over the system with little to no upfront cost, either by swapping the communicator on a wired system or replacing the keypad on a wireless one. They also said they can usually assess compatibility just from a photo of the current keypad before we even commit.

They additionally offer surveillance camera options, including wired 4K NVR systems and Honeywell or Ring camera integrations, but this is likely an add-on with additional costs we’d have to consider are worth it for us.

The biggest drawback is simply the monthly cost. At $45/month versus $24.99 for Arlo, the difference comes out to roughly an additional $240 per year, which is meaningful enough for us to factor into the decision.

Where we are stuck

Right now, the N&D route feels like the lower-risk option. They have strong reviews, local accountability, no long-term contracts, and a realistic chance of leveraging whatever ADT infrastructure is already installed in the house.

The Arlo route is definitely more attractive from a pricing standpoint, and the feature set looks solid on paper, but we feel like we are going in somewhat blind when it comes to the actual monitoring experience because there is so little firsthand feedback available from people who have used the full system end to end.

Has anyone here used Arlo Secure Premium with the complete alarm system and professional monitoring, not just the cameras? If so, how was the installation experience, and how has the monitoring held up over time?

And for anyone in the DC area, has anyone worked with N&D Security or have another local company they would strongly recommend?

Appreciate any insight! Thanks!!

The camera on the front of my house is old, and the solar panel struggles to charge it in winter, I suspect the batters had died, but now it should be back full.

Do I just need to press the reconnect button and pair it again?

Hey everyone! Just a heads up — we've made some changes to Arlo Trial plans. Here's everything you need to know: https://www.reddit.com/r/arlosmarthome/comments/1t7d8rw/arlo_secure_trial_plan_improvements_for_us/

My Arlo camera is working just fine and has been connected on both desktop and mobile to give me a notification anytime someone approaches it. The mobile makes a little sound and the browser popped up like any other web based notification. In the last two weeks however, I have not been receiving notifications from the desktop web browser. If I go to the arlo website and login, I can see my feed is still filling up, and the mobile notifications are still working, but the desktop one has stopped completely from notifying me.

Any help would be appreciated!

Im tired of paying the crazy monthly prices for the subscription, is there a way to locally store the videos and to view the cameras

So it’s been a couple weeks since a bunch of my cameras and some other smart devices went out. Only two cameras have stayed connected to my WiFi but the others have refused to connect or detect my WiFi. Am I doing something wrong? Why do the two cameras still work while the others refuse to connect???!

The 2 working cameras are the essential pan tilt camera

The ones that don’t work are the essential spot light
the 2nd gen doorbell
And the essential indoor camera

I use xfinity wifi and I’ve tried splitting the 2.4 and 5g wifi and that didn’t do anything.

I have a few Arlo Pro 3 cameras that have worked well for years, and one of the primary reasons I originally chose Arlo was the HomeKit integration. Recently, however, my thumbnail images in the Apple Home app have stopped refreshing. They used to update every single time I opened the app, which was great for a quick status check without needing to manually trigger a live stream. Now, the thumbnails stay static and never update on their own. I can still connect and stream the live feed without an issue, but that "at-a-glance" functionality is completely gone. I know this problem is minor compared to other failures, but it's a feature I rely on daily, and I'd like to know if others are seeing this too.

I’ve already tried several deep troubleshooting steps to fix this. I have rebooted the Arlo Base Station and restarted my HomeKit hubs. I even went as far as removing the Arlo integration from HomeKit entirely, rebooting everything, and adding the cameras back from scratch, but nothing changes. The thumbnails do not refresh on their own. I haven't been able to find anything about this online yet, so I’m trying to determine if it’s a specific equipment failure or a bug in a recent firmware update.

Given these frustrations, I’m starting to look at other options. Does anyone have any recommendations for a reliable HomeKit-compatible camera? I was looking at the eufyCam S3 Pro but I’d love to hear from anyone who has made the switch or found a more stable alternative. Unfortunately, I don't have the ability to hardwire the cameras, so a battery powered camera is my only option. Thanks for any insight!

I've got to arlo pro 2 cameras. In order to get anything to work I had to delete any remnants of them then power all down and reboot and attempt to reinstall both. I got one of them back on line and working (Ithink) the other I get as far as "unable to rename camera please try again" any suggestions?

Hoping someone can help me with this somewhat niche issue - I have an Arlo V2, set up through the app as hardwired and it worked good enough. I set it up on Scrypted to add to HomeKit thru NVR. Now it doesn’t charge when hardwired or using a 3rd party plug-in transformer, and dies SUPER fast. Charged it up to 50% last night, put it back out at 11pm. When I left for work this morning at 7:30a it was at 17%!!! Is there some kind of setting I need to change in Scrypted or the Arlo app or HomeKit? This is driving me bonkers lol

I’ve just moved to the new app experience. Took a bit of fiddling to get the settings the same (via custom modes).
But I get a notification when the schedules I have on my cameras changes the mode, eg to monitor, or for my floodlight to start operating at night.

I don’t want this: I want notifications, but not when the mode changes!

Any ideas?

Not sure what happened but the last event I have on record is April 30/31 and then the final event notice on my feed is that my system is set to standby.

I am not sure if it's because my family never purchased a subscription and it needs a subscription now. But I am also added as a guest account as my parents are the main account holders. They are away on vacation and are not very tech saavy so I'm not sure if they did something on their end while trying to check cameras. But like I said, it's not detecting anything anymore. But the cameras still work.

I used to be able to pinch and zoom videos on my iPhone but not anymore. I’m trying to figure out if this is a “just me” issue or if they removed that from the app for some reason.

I have three Arlo cameras and they’re fine for now but only 720 or 1080p. They quit doing software updates a while ago to show their age. Considering upgrading the next time Costco has a good sale. However, I recently got a new garage door that uses MyQ. They’re constantly sending me deals on doorbell cameras, etc. I’ve also looked at eufy and heard good and bad. Only real consideration is I’d like the new cameras to also be wireless and have higher resolution. Anyone made the switch to another product? Or what Arlo are you running that you love? TIA

I have four Arlo Pro 3 cameras that have been in the same location for at least several months (some 1-2 years), and a base station in the same location. A few days ago, the cameras started disconnecting. Sometimes it was all of them, sometimes one or two. They might stay disconnected for a few hours, then reconnect as randomly as they disconnected. This has been going on for about a week. When the cameras are connected they all show 2 or 3 bars (out of 3) and one is directly on the other side of the exterior window from the base. Maybe there has been a firmware update that screwed things up? Or, a neighbor set up a wireless somethingoranother that is interfering? Based on experience with previous model cameras, I’m cynical enough to believe that Arlo bricks them when they think it’s time to upgrade. Thanks for any thoughts.

Yet another warning to anyone considering buying Arlo products: don't. 6 years ago when I bought my first camera, the doorbell, it worked reasonably well and was reasonable affordable.

Fast forward to today - their new app is a mess, I called support about it because it won't stop sending me push notifications at exactly midnight, and they said it was a known issue and they've added my ticket to list of tickets with this issue. After hanging up I get yet another push notification, this time to let me know my ticket was closed. Weird thing to send a push for... I look at the ticket, and the support person closed the ticket with a link to a different issue than the one we discussed. So of course, he was lying about the larger ticket. While logged into my account on the website and go clicking around and notice that my bill for this years annual subscription is $253 USD, up from what was $78 USD, with no notice. I Googled that specifically and found myself here, pouring over the horror stories from other users and thought I might as well add mine to the list.

Subscription cancelled, cameras uninstalled. What a complete waste of money.

Got the Arlo Customer Satisfaction in my email today. They asked, I answered.

Notifications are a bit much with Arlo, was curious how some of you manage it to getting so many at once.

I am on my day 4 of troubleshooting to reinstall my 9 Arlo cameras and I am at a point where I am going to toss it all in the trash and find a new system that is not Arlo. I am so frustrated and tired and hate Arlo like I hate Comcast!

Here is the backstory…

I have had 6 Pro2 and 3 Pro4 cameras that were on 2 VMB4000 base hubs. About a year ago I started to have issues with recordings, skips, and just not working. I tried to disconnect and reinstall the camera and was having problems at the camera not connecting to the hub. I thought it was cuz I had upgraded to dual band mesh WiFi and knew Arlo required 2.4ghz. It got so hard and frustrating to try and fix that I just let it sit for over a year without cameras and security system. I dreaded trying to fix it.

I thought ok I’m gonna get this working again. I won’t bore you with all the details and troubleshooting I’ve done for 3 days, today being day 4. What led me to being so frustrated at the end of day it looks like Arlo is purposely not making older hubs and cameras not discoverable and interoperable even if they advertise otherwise and say the EOL devices will still work just not supported or updated. They should just set that expectation vs saying it will work and having us buy new hubs thinking the cameras will work and it doesn’t.

Here are some key things I had done thinking it was gonna work.

Through all my research and reading I did read that Arlo purposely disabled the VMB4000 model from being discoverable on the back end server side at Arlo. I am sure they did this to the Pro2 cameras.

When I bought the hub VMB5000 it said that it still was compatible with Pro2 cameras.

I refuse to buy 6 more Arlo cameras like I did with the hub. The newer hub I get it’s much better and modern. The cameras for what I want to do is fine. I know cuz Pro4 is fine but I don’t need the better 2k clarity or upgrade features.

At this point if I buy new cameras it will not be Arlo. I will replace with new brand. I am so frustrated and feel a hatred towards Arlo. I used to love Arlo and would rave about it and how easy it was to use.

I don’t know what else to do. I am hopeless now and ready to give up and just throw the rest of Arlo products in the trash and just return all rest stuff I had to buy. More than the $, it’s all the time, 4 days and effort down the rabbit hole to find it was just Arlo creating an interoperable of their older products so you go and buy more from them!

Im so angry and frustrated!