Table of Content
We were similarly impressed by the fine quality of Arlo Ultra’s 4K video output, which is undoubtedly among the best you’ll find on a consumer smart cam today – next-generation clarity has arrived at last. We love the ability to zoom into the video preview in the Arlo app and not see any pixellation – the image remains sharp, clear, and true. A simple brightness slider allows you to carefully tweak the video for optimum quality – that’s all you need. The Arlo Q's high score largely came from the amount of services NetGear offers without a subscription. For free on the cloud the camera will store one week or one gigabyte of clips where the camera detected motion. In our testing we always hit the one week limit before we hit the one-gigabyte limit, even with lots of testers walking by the camera.
Of course no one is going to chat to a burglar mid-robbery, but informing them that the police are on the way will hopefully get them to move on. Compared with some smart home cameras, the Arlo Q looks fairly simple and unassuming – exactly what a security camera should be. Have 3 cameras and after 12 months they want $13 per camera per month. Can't even check if there was someone at the door, 10 minutes ago, bought the solar panels, yes they stay charged the cameras, but pointless when you can't access anything. One thing we found pretty worrying about the storage was users’ inability to fully delete videos off the cloud. Considering they’re inside the home, we can envision instances where people want certain videos gone — like if a towel slipped on the walk from the bathroom to the bedroom — ASAP.
Arlo Security Camera review
Video quality includes image clarity, color accuracy, and contrast in bright, dim, and no light situations. Worse still, we had to remove the microSD card from the SmartHub and check for recordings on a computer, as there is no way to access local recordings over the network from the Arlo smartphone or available web app. This is a bizarre restriction for a storage device physically tethered to your router and one that Arlo states won’t be resolved until the second half of the year. Elsewhere, the camera’s integrated microphone does a very good job of recording and streaming reasonably clear audio. Two-way audio is also available from your smartphone with Arlo Ultra’s internal speaker, offering functional, if rather raspy, quality. It lacks the siren available on the old Arlo Base Station but loses some heft and new integration features in return.
Firmware updates are automatically loaded, keeping your camera operating on the latest software. The Netgear Arlo Pro 2 Smart Camera VMC4030P is part of the Home Security Cameras test program at Consumer Reports. In our lab tests, Wireless Security Cameras models like the Arlo Pro 2 Smart Camera VMC4030P are rated on multiple criteria, such as those listed below. The payment for your account couldn't be processed or you've canceled your account with us. Below we provide the nitty-gritty details on how the Arlo Q performed in each of our individual testing metrics. Since many mothers tend to spout selfless phrases like ‘please don’t spend any money on me,’ Christmas is a great opportunity to spoil your Mum.
DO Not Buy this Product
The only draw back is that with motion detection, either all the cameras must be set to motion detect or none of the them. I was hoping to only have motion detection on one camera, to save battery life on the other 2. The strongest member of NetGear's Arlo line, the Arlo Q provides good video quality, a nice app, and a solid bevy of non-subscription monitoring services. Its only real weak point is its real time viewing performance, which we found to be rather hiccupy.
The NetGear Arlo Q lists for $200, which seems to be the standard list price for a 1080p camera. If NetGear's non-subscription offerings fit your needs, and you don't care about real-time viewing, then this is quite a good value. If you want a high definition camera that is adept at real-time viewing you might find a better value in the Nest Cam Indoor of the Logitech Circle. The app allows you to converse with whoever you’re monitoring, too. Thanks to the built-in speaker and microphone of the Arlo Q, users can activate the two-way audio feature in-app, allowing them to talk and respond to whoever might be on camera. It can allow you to do fairly simple things like telling your kids to go back to sleep when you catch them sneaking out at night, to ordering intruders to leave the premises remotely.
IP Wireless Security Battery Camera System Outdoor WIFI CCTV Home Solar Panel
The Arlo is a relatively expensive outdoor camera that did not wow us in any of our tests. If you like the idea of a wireless outdoor camera, we would suggest looking at the Canary Flex. The device is weatherproof and so can be used outdoors as well as indoors. An included magnetic mount for easy placement and removal of the device. Notifications can be turned on and off automatically based on time of day. The 180-degree field of view offers impressively wide vistas.
Each Arlo camera in the kit comes with two magnetized bases that allow you to pivot the camera to ensure you are recording what you need to be. You can use 6lb double sided tape or a single screw to mount it to an object. This means that you just need a screwdriver or drill to install the mounts, which makes things super simple. The Arlo camera also has no ports on them whatsoever for power, so you must rely on batteries at all times as there is nothing to plug anything into. The Arlo earned a 6 out of 10 in our real-time viewing testing, putting it towards the bottom of a metric that saw scores between 5 and 8.
The cameras are waterproof, so they work both indoors and outdoors. While we put our cameras through some Pacific Northwest rain and even stuck one under the sink’s spray and saw no issues, Netgear says they can falsely show a low-battery warning during extremely cold weather. By opening the lock you can pop the cover on the camera and see where the four CR123A batteries are placed. Netgear claims the Arlo camera batteries can last for approximately 4-6 months. They based this claim off the assumption that an Arlo owner will only view each camera for four minutes per day. If you use the camera for longer than four minutes a day the battery life will obviously be less than what Netgear advised.
The video also frequently paused for a second to refresh. These periods were short enough that we didn't feel like we were missing too much of the action, but they were still quite annoying. Several of neighbors car were broken into and 1 guy was shot and killed. And because the cameras won't work right I was not able to use the cameras to help the police or the neighbors. This 2022 update of our home security camera review draws... The Arlo's bad score in this metric is partially due to the fact that, during our testing, recording wasn't always continuous.
The big story though is the abissmal support from Arlo when things go wrong. Unfortunately Arlo themselves are usually the culprit with bugs occuring after FW and/or App updates. Users should be aware that full features listed on the box require a subscription service to Arlo Cloud, and that can get real pricey. If your counting on full features using recording to a local SD card in the base unit, be very afraid. At first I had the sensitivity set too high, which had the outdoor camera sending notifications with every gust of wind, but after a few quick adjustments I was able to rectify that.
Worst customer service and two of the five cameras I purchased don’t work. Waste of money and too stressful to deal with their non existent customer service. I have purchased 5 cameras within one year and the 2 most recent do not work.
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