Arlo

The convenience is awesome and the system is simple, couldn't get much easier. There are many issues with the cameras and the app. There is normally about a 3-5 second delay at all times. When opening the app about 1 out 3 times it will open and on each camera it will have "Getting Status..." during this period you can not do anything on the cameras, it sometimes takes a minute or two to come up. The last update to the app removed the ability to screenshot for the activity zones.

Decent wireless camera system. Very easy to place (within router range) and use. I'm charging batteries every 2 weeks. Not too bad. If you have the extra budget I would definitely recommend the Pro 2. Better quality picture. If you want to have any chance of seeing detail of a person or get a license plate number from a suspicious vehicle. The App is very easy to use, but could use some improvements. Mostly, when I've watched a video clip I would like it to show "watched" this would help eliminate re-watching clips. All in all I'm very pleased.

Could use some improvements. Not sure if it's the app or the equipment but it can take a while to stream the cameras to your phone (possibly combination of both). Quality is really good. I like how the motion detection doesn't detect everything. However, occasionally the cameras will pick up nothing in particular. It should be made easier to disable email notifications. When I was hooking up the cameras, I got 20-30 emails regarding motion detection. It was very difficult to find how to turn this off too. Otherwise, good equipment and app.

Since the last two updates, my notifications are completely messed up. I always have my notifications set with a different sound and led light color so I know the difference between receiving a text and my cameras going off. Now, no matter how many times I set it, the notification sound doesn't change and I get no led light at all. This is such a simple thing to fix! Please fix because the whole point is to be notified the moment the cameras go off!

It is a tremendous lack of basic sense making the user view an ad for a product they already own every time you open this app. When I'm opening the app, it's always because I'm checking to see what moved in front of my cameras after receiving a notification. Intentionally delaying this process goes against the whole purpose of the product. Please remove the Arlo ads, and try to make the streaming features faster. Also, please add the ability to view a video frame by frame. Most of the time, the camera only captures X as it's leaving the frame. And I can't actually see what it was in detail because the video autoplays every time I try going back to the start, and you can't pause the video near the beginning. There are many things I like about Arlo, but you can do better.

Good but not great. Needs better notifications sounds...like an actual ring so I don't miss it. Rain blurs the photo/video. The video isn't clear enough to read a tag number (720). Delayed time when using to talk to someone at the door. Usually they are gone before the voice will work. A lot of lag time. Lag time on capturing movement. I do have good bear video it captured. Perhaps the next generation will have better video quality.

UPDATE:6-17-19 If I would have know all the issues that I would have 8 months ago, I would not have purchased all these cameras. As far as I can tell most of the problems come from the app itself . It never seems to ever fully work correctly . So expensive, and unfortunately so disappointing . Simple to set up, easy to use. I love the options for customization. Great features.

the app is okay I guess. The camera is excellent. Very clear catches a lot of motion and the night vision is great. I am extremely disappointed however in the doorbell. I cannot believe how horrible the audio quality is for a doorbell whose only feature is audio. I mean, I almost think that it is faulty, kind of hope that it is faulty. There's no way it can be this bad.

Having used this app for a while, it has a really annoying feature. Every few weeks it defaults to the log-in screen with a message saying 'access token is expired'. I've no idea what this means but in reality you have to log back into the app with a username and password. Easy if you have those immediately to hand. REALLY annoying if you don't. Also, the app's glitchy. Sometimes it needs 3 or 4 restarts to work.

I have the pro 2 model, it states it's supposed to be 1080P, but the quality is terrible, as when you zoom in, image is pixelated. If you take a snapshot, the image is blurry, if you pause the frame the pause button remains in the screen and it blocks an important part of the image. On the good side, it's easy to set up and mount. Try to set up near a power source as charging batteries is a hassle, especially in cold climates. Arlo would receive 5 stars, but only after they design an actual 1080P unit. My cell phone does much better for quality.

Like everyone else is saying, the latest UI update to the app misses so many things. They are taking the "Apple" approach and oversimplifying it. It's a home security system. Let it be intricate. This needs fixed. I can't even connect a new camera because at the screen where you are supposed to select the type of camera, it only lets me select the more advanced version than the one I have. Doesn't work.

Camera great, app horrific. It gives no indication which videos you have already watched. Everything about its UI is unintuitive. When viewing the videos it does not tell you the classification like "motion", "animal", or "person" like it shows in the list, so you have to keep returning to the list if you want to know that. You can't create a mode as a copy of an existing mode so you can make just one change to it; new modes are created from a blank template. Many more complaints but no more room

I really like the idea and potential application of this system, but I feel that it needs improvement for the cost. The base station does not stay connected and frequently reboots causing the cameras to miss important situations and the app frequently requires login in order to access at the most inopportune times. There are a number of other issues, but I will just say for the price, I expected more from this product.

It would be nice if there was a way to set customized actions for all connected devices instead of having to set them individually. Seems like such a simple, common sense option that is not provided. For instance, why is there not a way to arm all connected devices at once? The video stream tends to stop working on occassion when I am checking them & notifications, mostly audio, aren't sent but show in the library. I feel there could be more functionality added to be more user friendly.

If I knew then what I know now, I would never have bought this system. First the hardware: I have the Arlo 2 plus doorbell. The doorbell worked for five minutes. It was great. For five minutes. The cameras can't be focused, and either they're permanently out of focus, or the resolution is so poor that the entire view is a pixelated mess. Now, the app: The app is slow. As others have noted, it takes forever to bring up the live view. If you try to bring up live view while something is actually happening, good luck. By the time it comes up, whatever triggered it is long gone. An update a few months ago resulted in the app sending TWO notifications for every event. People have complained about this, and, despite, subsequent updates, it hasn't been fixed. The most common events that trigger the motion sensor are my grill skirt blowing in the breeze and cloud shadows moving across the yard. Turning the sensitivity down doesn't help this. The latest "update" resulted in loss of the ability to turn the device off so it doesn't record these things. You can turn the BUTTON off, but the camera stays on. All in all, this system is about as useful as screen doors on a submarine.

I like the ease of using the app, enabling or disabling cameras and checking battery life. The only thing I wish was different was being able to delete multiple videos at the same time. I have dogs and when they are outside I get a lot of motion so if I don't disable the cameras I have a lot to delete. Deleting individually is very time consuming. Otherwise the app is great!

I like the cameras and the fact that work with SmartThings but the app has a lot of bugs, the individual motion notifications per camera is always on, even if you turn it off, you have to turn them all off or leave them all on and then when you receive the notification you can't open it from the notification bar, you have to look for the app and open it separately. Sometimes it won't detect motion even when it is at 100% sensitivity. Besides that so far everything else is fine.