Arlo Pro Wireless Cameras

I started looking to get some kind of video surveillance system for my house about a year ago.  Initially I was looking pretty closely at the wired DVR based systems.  But there were a few characteristics of these systems that made me hesitate.  First, the need to hire an electrician to install the system.  I could attempt to install myself but the idea of crawling around my attic and up on ladders did not get me excited.  Second, I don't like the idea that all of the recording sit on a DVR in your home.  If a thief breaks in they can just steal the DVR and all the evidence.  Finally, most of the DVR based systems have really bad apps.  As a software developer I appreciate a nice user experience and most of these just do not provide it.

My must haves for a system were:

• Outdoor rated
• Wireless
• Free Cloud Storage
• Long battery Life
• Modern mobile app / website

So, I started looking at "smart" video surveillance systems, the two that really interested me were Ring and Arlo.  I initially was looking at Ring but two things swayed me. First, you needed to pay a monthly fee for cloud storage, I did not want to pay for cloud storage.  Second, you needed to hard wire the camera to your doorbell.  My doorbell was not working so that would mean hiring an electrician to get it fixed.  So I started looking elsewhere.

The original Arlo cameras looked very promising but I was reading some reviews about delays in recording.  Also the original Arlo cameras used regular batteries which would need to be replaced every few months.  So it seemed to me that the technology just wasn't where I needed it to be yet, I figured I would wait and eventually the tech would catch up.

Fast forward about 6 months, in November of 2016 Netgear released their Arlo Pro cameras.  These cameras provided everything that the original Arlo camera's plus rechargeable batteries that promised 3-6 months of charge.  I have had my Arlo Pro Camera for 9 months not and I have to say I love them.

There are a couple cool features that this camera system has that I have yet to use.  The base station has an alarm built that can be triggered by motion or manually.  Triggering on motion wouldn't work for me as it would not be fun to be woken up at 3am because a cat walked by my camera.  Where I think this could be useful is if someone breaks in, the camera would notify me and then I could manually trigger the alarm.  Hopefully I will never have to do this.

Another cool feature that I have yet to use in the USB storage.  Basically you plug a USB flash or Hard drive into the base station and all videos are saves on the device along with the cloud.  Nice feature to get more that 7 days history.  I need to pick up a flash drive one of these days so I have a backup.

The last couple features that I have yet to use are geofencing and  Arlo Smart.  Geofencing allows you to turn camera and notifications on and off when you phone enters and exits a predefined zone.  I keep my camera armed at all times and occasionally disarm them if I am working in the yard so I don't get a bunch of unnecessary notifications and videos.   Arlo Smart is a paid service that uses AI to categorize the type of motion detected as people, animals, vehicles and others and then allows you to choose notifications for certain categories.  They give you a 30 day free trial and then charge $3.99 per camera per month after that.  I think Netgear is missing the boat a bit on the Arlo Smart feature.  I as well as many buyers went with Arlo over the competition because there was no monthly fee.  Now they want to charge for a feature that to me is not really needed.  I don't get many false notifications and don't really care id a car or person pulled in my driveway, I still want to know.

Pros:

• Wireless - Easy Install
• Free 7 day cloud service
• Long life Rechargeable batteries
• Solar Panel for charging batteries
• Alarm Built into base station
• Works with Amazon Echo Devices
• USB Storage
• Geofencing
• Great App

Cons:

• System is a bit pricey
• non-continuous recording
• Video quality - not 1080p

Overall these cameras are exactly what I was looking for.  I have a two camera system.  Setup was a breeze.  I tool me under an hour to get both cameras set up.  Battery life is as promised.  The more activity the camera has the less time the battery will last.  My front camera that does not get much activity batteries lasted about 7 months.   My side camera that is very active batteries last about 2 months.  But now with the addition of the solar panel I don't expect to ever have to charge the batteries.

The cameras are great but they aren't perfect.  They are a bit pricey, a four camera system will cost you over $500 add a few solar panels and  mounts and you can quickly get north of $1000.  The product literature claims High Definition video.  The quality is not 1080p and think it gets compressed which lowers the quality even more.  I have seen competing camera videos that are definitely higher quality.  All in all though I will take the pros over the cons.

As of this writing Amazon announced that Arlo Cameras now work with the Echo Show so you can get a live feed of your cameras.  Just one more reason for me to love these cameras.