Arlo - Pro 2 4-Camera Indoor/Outdoor Wireless 1080p Security Camera System - White

When I received this wireless camera system and began unboxing, my initial impression was good. Attractive styling and the base unit was a bit smaller than I expected based on the photos I had seen. It can be placed just about anywhere with it’s small footprint and contemporary styling. After unpacking all parts I feel a second AC adapter or charging block would be a welcome addition. More about that later. Both batteries ship fully charged so you can plug in the base station, run through the setup and begin using the system in about 15-30 minutes. The Arlo app, downloadable from the AppStore is well designed and makes setup quick and easy. This was a pleasant surprise due to my less than exemplary experience with previous router setup apps from Netgear. There are four aspects that I feel warrant significant improvement: First is the Web interface. Overall, the interface is well laid out and easy to navigate. The features available on the free plan are sufficient for just about everyones needs. But the Achilles heel is that fact that they are still using flash to display the videos. FLASH IS DEAD folks! Even Adobe says so. I don’t typically have it installed since it has a long history of issues with stability and security. Ironic for a security camera interface?!?! Fortunately, I am able to fire up Chrome and use the site. But this is a serious negative in my book. Second, the alert siren is only on the base. Sure, if you want to be alerted to an intruder detected where one of the cameras are placed this will do the job. But other systems have the ability to alarm at the camera site. I feel that this would be a better way of attempting to scare off would-be criminals from the premises. Third, as with other systems that I have tried, the app on iOS will drain your battery very quickly. There must be a way to refine the code so that it’s not so power hungry. This is the downfall of other wireless cam systems that I have tried so the Arlo is not unusual in this regard, but it is irritating. I don’t see why I can stream HD videos on my phone for hours, but can only stream on these cams for minutes. Fourth and finally, the seals on the charge ports of the cameras do not fit well. They are flimsy and on one camera will not stay in at all. This likely won’t have too much affect on my usage as they will be mounted under the eve of my home and not directly exposed to the rain/snow but if your installation is different you will want to consider this in your selection. Now for all the things that I like: Video quality is far better than other cams I have tried. There is much less of the fisheye effect and video is sharp and smooth. The motion detection works very well and is not an add on service as with their competitors. Their low light performance is above average, but you must consider your installation. In night mode, if you are trying to use it through a window, you will get a bright reflection in your image from the infrared lighting that is projected by the camera. But this is the nature of the beast, not a flaw with the camera design at all. Just consider your placement and plan before you buy. For monitoring indoor rooms or outside of your home at night, it would be a challenge to find a better cam system. The mounts are simple and easy to install. They use a magnetic ball joint connection with the camera which should allow you all the range of aiming that you need. The magnets are quite strong and I’m not at all worried about the wind ripping them off; and I live in a part of Illinois where we routinely experience 40-60 mph sustained winds. I’m in the Mt. Washington of Illinois! But with any cam that uses a magnetic mount, you have to consider carefully the placement. You not only need to choose a location that will give you a clear view of the area you wish to monitor; but you have to consider access to the cams. You have to balance your ease of access when you have to retrieve the cams to swap or charge the batteries, while still having them located out of easy reach for thieves. In my situation one will be mounted outside of a second story bedroom window. I can reach out and grab the cam easily, but it’s high enough off the ground that no one else has access without an extension ladder. But for the front of the house I will have to mount it over the garage which will required ME getting on a ladder. With an expected battery life of around 6 months this isn’t a huge deal and I may choose to just run power to the zone and keep the cam powered with electric. (which means that I’ll have to buy a second charger to charge the other cam) Barring my aversion to Flash, the web interface is so very good. You are able to adjust all of the settings just as you can with the app, view your library of events, view live streams from the cams and take snapshots. Any of the videos or stills can then be easily downloaded as mp4’s for video and jpg’s for stills. Good to see them using industry standards for compatibility. You can setup the cams to record with motion detection and more precisely with “activity zones” which I found to be much better than other systems. They will detect motion just about anywhere in the frame including the far edges. Alternately, you can set them to record at specific times. Oddly though, you must use the app and not the web interface to set recording based on geofencing. But even with this restriction, it’s a neat feature to have. Another HUGE plus with the Arlo system over competitors, is that in the “free” account you can store up to SEVEN days of events without incurring additional charges. If you are familiar with Amazon Alexa, IFTTT, SmartThings then you will be happy to know that this systems supports their use as well. But not even a mention of HomeKit. I hope that this will be an addition through an update in the future. The two-way audio is remarkably average. But you shouldn’t expect high fidelity from a speaker that small. It’s good enough for you to notify someone in the cams range and understand their response. The base station also provides a feature that most others don’t. USB ports for connecting external storage devices. You can connect a flash drive or hard drive to provide local storage of events so you wouldn’t even need to use the cloud based storage if you didn’t want to. But if you’re buying a system like this, one of the outstanding features is the remote access and storage. There are also a line of compatible accessories that are offered for the Arlo system. Several different types of mounts, solar chargers, spare batteries, charging stations (which I think should be included also—hint: netgear) and black or cams skins for making the cams less obvious. Summary: It is my opinion that the Arlo Pro 2 is one of the best, if not THE best, wireless home security camera systems available. I have tried a couple others but this one is definitely a keeper. Excellent video quality, low light quality, motion triggered events and user interface bring it out on top. With a few refinements they could easily change my review to a 5 star across the board! The price is a little higher than competitors, but the difference in performance and included storage helps to justify the cost and increase the overall value.

I’ve used the Arlo Pro 2 camera setup for the last 7-10 days and I can definitely say that The Arlo Pro is a great home security camera unit. I’ve used various other network connected security and motion cameras from a few different brands, and the Arlo Pro stacks up nicely with them. While the Arlo does suffer from some of the same annoyances as some of their competitors, the Arlo Pro is an amazing product. Cameras: My Arlo Pro came with (2) HD motion cameras and a magnetic wall mount for each. The cameras are a perfect size, not too large and feel very solidly built, lots of quality in the build. The cameras run on new rechargeable batteries, that depending on your frequency of use of Live video or motion capture, should last a very long time. Over my use of them for the last 10 days, the battery meter is still showing full, and that is with a mix of lots of motion detection and live mode viewing for this review. They can also be powered by a micro USB cable. You get one cable in the box, but if you want to use your own, be careful as the opening for the micro USB port on the back of the camera is very narrow. The supplied cable worked fine, but all of my other cables in my home did not, as the cable connection end was too wide. The powered connection is great if you want to use the cameras indoors, but since the cameras are weatherproof, it doesn’t make sense to power them outside, since having a micro USB cable plugged in will expose the inside of the camera to the elements. Plus, who really wants to run micro USB cables outside? Base Station: The Arlo Pro cameras connect to a base station. You connect the base station to your network via Ethernet and then sync the cameras to the base station. Now other cameras in this space generally connect directly to your network via Wi-Fi, so having a base station needing an Ethernet connection could seem like a negative, but I don’t think it is. In fact, I think it’s a positive, because compared with my other Wi-Fi only enabled smart cameras, the Arlo Pro seems to have the strongest connection and the least amount of lag time getting in and out of the videos. It almost seems that having the base station connect to the cameras directly improves the overall strength of the system, which is a huge plus for me. Definitely seems much quick to respond compared to other cameras I’ve used that were Wi-Fi only. I was able to get the whole system up and running in under 5 mins. Everything connected automatically and was simply to follow using the app. I did have one hiccup trying to connect my second camera, at first it did not recognize it. I closed and restarted the app and ran the sync camera tool again, and it was successful. The base station even has a built in siren if you want to use it as a quasi-home security system. if you see something that you don’t like on your video, and want to enable the siren, just push a button in the app. I will say, the siren is LOUD. It’s louder than my actual home security system alarms. And the base station gives simple to see LED light confirmations of network activity and cameras connected. The footprint is also very small which is nice, so sitting next to the router doesn’t take up that much more space. Video Quality: The video from the Arlo Pro is very nice. HD 1080p is what the cameras are rated and you can either keep them set there or drop the resolution down if you want, to 720p or 480p if you want to try and stretch the battery life. The video quality of both motion captures and live view recording is very very nice. Clean and clear and full of color. I never really noticed any lag or stuttering or any pixilation. The video is clear and smooth. The night vision clarity is also very very good. Stacked up against other cameras I’ve used, the Arlo Pro ranks up at the top in terms of the video quality, I was very impressed. You also want to make sure you have enough internet connection for the cameras as well. Have at least 2Mbps of upload speed headroom to use just for the cameras if you want to make sure the connection and video quality is good. Since they are network connected, task the network and your video is going to suffer. Motion Capture and Live View: I was very impressed with the motion capture of the Arlo Pro. Motion detected immediately fires off a ping to my smartphone and once you view the clips, the camera doesn’t hesitate to start recording, even when the motion was fast moving. This was the #1 complaint I’ve had with other motion detection cameras, that by the time I got the ping to check the camera, and when the camera started recording, the motion event was already over or I was looking at the back of someone walking away, etc. The Arlo Pro does not have that problem. It begins recoding immediately and you don’t miss a thing. The ping of the notification to the app is also very fast, allowing you to see the motion going on and make decisions or use the two way talk feature to communicate with whoever is on the other end of the camera. Going in to Live View is also very fast. Live View is a huge advantage, for when you want to proactively see what’s happening and record longer manual videos. The Arlo Pro shines in both areas here. I will say though, one issue I have was with the sensitivity of the motion capture. I was struggling to find a sweet spot to where I only got the notifications of motion I wanted, not blowing leaves or tree branch, or nothing at all because it was set too low. I was either getting slammed with notifications on some days, and not getting any on others. Something hopefully Netgear will improve upon. You can also set up Zones if the camera is powered by a cable, which helps greatly, really only notifying you of motion is a manually created zone, but not ideal for outdoors. Arlo Pro APP: The app is laid out very nicely. The app gives you three sections – Mode, Devices and Library. In the Mode section, this is where you can tell your Arlo Pro system what logic to use when capturing video. You have the options of Armed (motion is captured), Disarmed (no motion is captured but Live View is available), Schedule (where you can tell the Arlo Pro to record on certain dates/times), and Geofencing (where the Arlo Pro will respond to an Armed mode when your smartphone is outside the geofence area and the system sees you as “away”). These all work very well. The geofencing mode is my favorite. If I’m home, I tend to not want all my notifications coming to me, but once I leave, the system knows to kick over to Armed and start checking for motion capture, all without me having to go in and switch it myself. Love it. The Devices section shows you a dashboard of your connected cameras. You see the last image that the camera recorded and the timestamp, and you have the LIVE button right there to go into each camera in Live View. From here you also have all the settings for each camera, the connection status, the battery status and how many motion events the camera has recorded. The Library section is where the app stores all of your recorded events. You see a running account of all the videos recorded, and have the option to view them and also favorite, share, download or delete. All in all the Arlo Pro is a wonderful system for helping secure your home and give you piece of mind.

======= Summary ======= The Arlo Pro 2 is a feature-packed & well-balanced security system. It has very good image and audio quality, setup is super easy and fast, camera control through the App and Website are superior and superb, and the connection is rock-solid. Free 7-Days of Cloud Storage is absolutely great and appreciated. ======= Design ======= I'm a fan of the Arlo Pro 2 system's design. I love the white and black color theme which matches my interior and furniture very well. The cameras are modern-looking and cool. The cameras are very easy to assemble as well. Press the button on the back-side of the unit to pop open the battery housing and simply insert the battery (which came fully charged out of the box). On the back of each camera, there is a flap that protects the charging port. Should one desire to, you can also power the cameras with wired charging so you don't have to remember to charge the battery later. Choosing to power the cameras via a wire opens up additional camera features such as the "3-Second Look Back" option and the "24/7 CVR" continuous recording option. When the cameras are run on battery power, it will only record during Sound & Motion trigger events. The Base Station, which is connected to your home router, also offer options for connecting your own USB drives for local storage. If the included wall mounts are not flexible enough for your security and usage needs, Arlo offers lots of different accessories such as an outdoor mount, a solar panel, a charging station, table & ceiling mounts, additional wall mounts (2 of these are included in the package), and different color skins to change the look of the Arlo camera units. Speaking of the included wall mounts, those are really cool~! The wall mount themselves are screwed onto a wall but the Arlo cameras connect to the wall mounts via magnetic force, which is very strong and powerful. I found this magnetic mounting system to be very elegant and nifty. This nice and thoughtful ecosystem that Arlo has created provides users with great flexibility and convenience. ======= Setup & Connectivity ======= Everything about the setup process is very simple and easy. Once the Base Station has been connected to the router and has been powered on, it is a simple matter to press the Sync button on both the Base Station and each of the Cameras to get them synced (cameras must be synced one at a time). Once synced, the "Arlo" app from the app store is used to connect and control the Arlo Pro 2 security system. One can also go to the Arlo website on a PC to view and control the cameras as well. The Arlo app walks you through the account creation & setup process in a easy-to-understand manner. Firmware updates are handled inside the App and additional cameras can be added from here as well. I rate the Setup process a 10/10 for being so simple, fast, and for proceeding without a hitch. ======= App & Website Options & Performance ======= Both the Arlo app and the Arlo website are fantastic~! The layout is very clean, intuitive, simple, and very easy to find the functions and settings you want. Both the App and Website are very reliable as well. The Live Feeds came through without any visual or audio distortitions and the connections remained speedy and responsive to my commands and inputs. In the "Devices" tab of the app, one can view the Live Feed from both cameras at the same time. Each camera can be separately controlled & one can do many things to it - pause the video feed, record video, take a picture snapshot, adjust camera brightness, perform a 2-way walkie-talkie-like communication via the loud speaker, mute the camera audio, and view the feed in Full Screen. Through expressive & clear icons, the App also tells you if sound & motion detection is turned on or not, what the Wifi signal quality is, the battery level, whether an external storage device has been connected, and how many security events have been detected. In the "Mode" tab of the app, you can select from 4 different preset security settings - Armed (Motion & Audio detection + Notifications), Disarmed (no detections), Schedule (activate Motion & Audio detection only on certain days and certain times of your choice), and Geofencing (trigger Motion & Audio detection when you're away from Home & turn them off when you come Home). One can also create a Custom Mode to your liking. In the "Libray" tab, you can view all the saved videos from the Motion & Audio triggered events (last 7 days of security event videos are stored for free courtesy of Arlo Cloud). Even with hundreds of video clips available to sort through, the App performed very smoothly and fast on my Samsung Galaxy S8+. Video quality and playback performance were excellent. Each clip that has been saved can be Favorited, Shared, Donated (sent to Arlo for R&D purposes), Downloaded, or Deleted. From the Settings screen, one can rename the Base Station and each of the cameras. Additional cameras can be added & firmware updates are done here as well. Other things you can do include changing your Arlo subscription model, buying add-ons and accessories, setting up Fingerprint access, and managing how notifications are delivered (sound, vibrate, LED light). All in all, the Arlo App and Website are powerful tools that are also very easy and intuitive to use. A definite 10 out of 10 experience. ======= Performance ======= Both cameras performed brilliantly during use under all conditions (low light, night vision, natural sunlight, overcast & gloomy). The 1080P video quality is sharp and vibrant. The incoming audio quality is very good with no static or other distortions. The 2-way speaker is nice and loud and the other party had no trouble hearing me or understanding me. Everything just works and works very well. Another 10 out of 10. ======= So, is it any good? Is is a good buy? ======= Most definitely~!! I've tried & experienced four different security systems under $500 from different vendors so far and the Arlo Pro 2 security system is hands-down the BEST one I've used so far. Its video & audio quality and performance are great, setup is easy and connections reliable, 7 days of free Cloud storage is awesome, and the App and Website experience is supremely smooth and performant. I highly recommend the Arlo Pro 2~!!

Looking for a good home monitor system? Well then the Arlo pro may be right up your alley. Lets find out if this is the right fit for you and what exactly you can hope to receive. First off the one thing i want to get across is that this is a home monitoring system and not a actual security system. At least as of this review the subscription plans basically only include cloud service and will not dispatch or call any type of service for you in the event of an emergency. I find that this set up works perfect for anyone with an existing home security system or anyone with children they may want to monitor while away from the home. So out of the box you are going to receive two hd cameras with a magnetic base, wall mount screws, rechargeable batteries and base station with a built in siren. Set up is done very easily simply screw the wall mounts wherever you wish to place your cameras and attach the camera to the base. The cameras have a magnet on them so you can attach and remove them as you please all with ease. Next simply download the Arlo app and hook your base station up to your modem via an Ethernet cable then link the two together and your good to go. Lets talk functionality and what you can expect out of this system. First off one of the nice features of this system is once it is all set up you can add and invite people to download the app and have access to the security cameras. The app allows for a master controller meaning that if you are the main owner you can control what cameras your other users are allowed to see and you can cut of their access at anytime time. This means you can allow them to view all, one or none of the cameras mounted. Now the home base has a 100 decibel siren built in to it that can be activated either manually through the app or it be set up to be triggered by one of your motion sensor cameras. The monition sensor cameras are very sensitive so i find that setting it up to activate for motion is not a good idea unless you live way out in the country or mountains with neighbors that are a mile away. The Siren is very loud and will wake up everyone in the house for sure. Now the cameras are wireless and run on a rechargeable battery and its really hard to say how much battery life you can expect to get out of them for the simple fact that the cameras will not run continuously and are set up to only run when motion is captured. I've used them for two whole days with average motion outside and im at about 75% battery life still. Id say this is very good considering that i should expect to get about a week out of a full charge at this pace. Everyones battery life is going to vary so keep that in mind. The cameras come with a built in two way mic. You can hear people outside and you can talk to them via the cameras. Now i own security cameras that have this function and the audio is usually distorted and horrible. The arlo pro audio is perfect, you can easily hear the outside and they can hear you clearly if you chose to talk through the mic. This function is a big plus if you have kids. For example lets say you leave your teenage kids home alone so you can have a date night and someone comes knocking on the door. Not only will you get an alert on your phone so can you can see who it is but your kids can pull up the camera see who it is and talk to them via the cameras all without ever having to open the door. Now lets say that's not a concern of yours but rather you want to watch them inside your house to make sure they are not getting in to anything they should. Since the cameras sit on a magnetic base you can then remove them and place them anywhere you want in your house and you can check up on them whenever you like and talk to them all via the cameras mic. The possibilities of what you can do and placement of these cameras is endless due to the fact that they can detach so easily and can be placed anywhere. Now the app also allows you to set up different motion sensor modes and you can also create a few different set ups. I provided a couple pictures showing different mode set ups and video quality. The cameras do come with night vision but i will say this, night vision is something you cant ever expect to be high quality so keep that in mind. Now as i said earlier the cameras will only run if something activates the sound or motion sensors or if you go to your Arlo app you can command them on to see whats going outside. Now lets say you own a business or for whatever reason you wish to have them run continuously. The cameras can be set up to accomplish this a few different ways. You can hardwire the cameras in to a direct power source such as an outlet or you can buy solar panel add ons which will keep the batteries charged if they are outside. Both set ups require the purchase of additional parts. Now the one thing i did not expect was that in order to have your cameras run continuously you also need to pay for Arlo's subscription plan in order for this to take affect. This means that even if you have the cameras all set up accordingly they will not run all the time unless you pay a fee. Kind of dumb right? Well to be honest with you there really is no need to run the cameras all the time unless you do own a business of some sort. As far as residential homes go, your not going to receive enough traffic to really need this feature plus that also provides alot of back logs for you to have to over and review. Now Arlo is going to give you free 7 day cloud storage. This is actually very good, some of my other security cameras only give me one day of cloud storage which almost forces you to pay for their subscription plans. Now lets say this is not good enough for you, Arlo does offer a huge variety of different plans. There's a category for home use and one category for business. I don't really want to go in to detail about the plans cause the list is long but if your curious about the pricing they can be found on Arlo's website without having to purchase the product. Here's my final thoughts about Arlo's set up. These cameras are very easy to set up and are probably the most user friendly i have ever seen. The simple fact that there are no wires to run means that you can place these cameras at any location inside or outside your house. The magnetic base allows for you to easily remove the cameras to set them up in a different temporary location and then place them back to where you originally had them all with ease. These cameras are weather proof and come equipped with night vision making them an ideal outdoor set up. If you have children and have been thinking about getting a security set up for a while then the Arlo is almost a must. The camera audio/mic set up allows for you to stay in contact with your family rather your out on the town or at the office. The base with built in siren is loud enough to wake up everyone in the home and is almost guaranteed to scare of any intruder who was thinking of breaking in. All in all this is a good buy that allows for additional cameras to be hooked up to this system making it a smart choice if you wish to expand later on. Pros: -wireless -base with built in siren -Two way speaker -Rechargeable batteries -Free seven day trial -Subscription plan with multiple choices to choose from -Magnetic base that easily detaches Cons: -Grainy night vision -Subscription plan required for continuous recording

If you are familiar with the Arlo Pro system then everything in the Pro 2 works pretty much the same way. The main differences between the two are the Pro 2 supports full HD 1080 recording and the ability to program “Zones” for the motion detection. Other than that it’s pretty much exact same thing as the Pro system “which we also had”. Setup is really easy, just plug in the power adapter to the base unit, plug in the Ethernet cable and the other end into your router, plug in the power adapter and then press the power button. It does take a little bit for the lights on the front to turn green, the far right camera light will stay orange till you sync your cameras. You also need to go online and set up your Arlo account, connect to the base and then follow the instructions on syncing your cameras, it’s really simple. I did try to charge the cameras before syncing but found that the batteries were full and didn’t need charging. You may want to do this before mounting them the first time. I like that you can set up different programs and scheduling to fit your needs and can even have one cameras motion detector trigger a different cameras video recording, or you could set them so that if one camera detects motion all cameras record video. And as with the Pro system the Pro 2 cameras record audio which is pretty clear. You can also set the cameras to record on detecting audio, “although I don’t do this”. The battery life so far seems to be the same as the Pro system, but I’ll know more a couple months down the road. Our busiest camera which is set to record pretty much anything that passes the road in front of our house records a lot, at good 20 clips a day, and the battery on the Pro system usually lasted 3 months or more. I’m really impressed by that, and it’s really easy to bring it in, charge it up and put it back. Charging only takes about an hour and a half which is pretty quick for the size of the battery. The other thing I really like about the Pro and Pro 2 systems is the ability to add a thumb drive for local recording, so that all the videos are recorded there in case you need to retrieve them. I added a 32gb thumb drive but haven’t checked to see how many recording it can hold but with the full HD video clips being around 1.6k MB the thumb drive should hold a lot. Unfortunately you can’t access the thumb drive remotely and have to remove it to view the videos. Remote viewing seems pretty much the same as the Pro system but the video is a little clearer on the Pro 2 system with the settings set to maximum. I like this was anything further away look sharper and it’s easier to identify who or what was just captured. This is a nice upgrade over the Pro system, having the ability to set up motion detection zones is nice, but you must have the camera attached to the power adapter all the time for this to work. The clearer image is also a pretty nice boost the system and I can definitely give this a “Buy” rating if you are in the market for a simple to set up security camera system that works. It's not absolutely perfect, "nothing is", and wish the local videos could be viewed even if it's only on the internal network the base unit is attached, but we are very pleased with our Arlo system.

This system is by far the easiest installation i have done in a long time. I had this system ready to go in under 10 mins and installed the magnetic wall mounts in 7 minutes. To be honest i didn't even read the instructions i just plugged everything together, installed the batteries to the cameras which came fully charged btw (saved a lot of time), hooked up the base to my mesh linksys router, plugged the adapter and i was done! I did read the book to sync up both cameras to the base which was easy too, just pressed and hold the sync base button for 2 seconds and pressed the sync button on the cameras as well for 2 seconds (one at a time or course) and i was done. I was really impressed with the Arlo App (i have an iphone), its very easy to use, the dashboard interface is easy to navigate, and the two cameras are on the home screen of the app for easy navigation. Arlo has 3 service options or "view plans" that you can use with this camera system, the first one is the basic option which is free, provides up to 7 days of recording through Arlos cloud service (up to 1 gb), up to 5 cameras, and support limited to 3 months, the other option is the "premier" includes 30 days of video recording in cloud (up to 10 gb), up to 10 cameras, and unlimited support. The fee is 100/year. Last but not least is the "Elite" option which has up to 60 days of video recordings in cloud(up to 100 gb's), up to 15 cameras, and unlimited support. The fee is 149/year. They also have packages for business, but these options are for home. If you are interested in the difference you can go straight to their web site. I decided on the basic package to try it out first. I did all my customization through the app, i set up the cameras to automatically recording with motion, there is also an option for audio detection recording (you can also use the cameras speaker to speak), or scheduling recording. I turned off the push notification because i was getting notified as i was walking through the room it was getting kind of annoying, but i can see how this would be a good option if you are out of the household. The library (recordings bank) is really easy to use and offers a calendar type lay out so you can view your recordings by date. Since i had my recordings to start with motion i only got recordings in 8 sec to 1 min videos lapses which is fine. I ended up installing a camera inside my studio apartment and one outside. I don't recommend to use the screws that came with the wall mount if you are planning to install it outside. I would use a bigger screw for installation just make sure it will fit through the wall bracket in the back of the wall mount. The picture quality is really great, it's 1080hd so its very clear, the app has options to change the clarity, you can lower it to save battery. I also don't remember reading about how long the batteries last, but i will eventually buy a solar panel for my outdoor camera so i won't have worry about a low battery (it cost roughly $80). The cameras are weather proof, i installed my outdoor camera right under a fascia so it won't be too expose to the elements. I really like this camera and i would recommend to anyone! My mother loves it too that she is thinking of buying one for her home. Good product.

We absolutely love this Arlo security camera system. From it's easy set up, great picture/video quality, to convenience to move, add, charge and adjust within the smartphone/tablet app, I really feel like this system is one of the best on the market. Free cloud storage is an added benefit however I also opted to plug in a USB drive to the base to record and save videos on. One issue I've found is if you are planning on putting a camera behind a glass window, say trying to monitor/record outside video while mounting the camera inside behind glass, it does not seem to pick up motion outside to record. I assume this is due to the glass interfering with the motion sensor. On a funny side note, the first night we had it set up we discovered that we have frogs in our garage and they were recorded crawling up our window, looking for flies I'm sure. The other concern I have is if you are considering using this as a baby monitor, you have to rely on the alerts within the app and your wifi. If your wifi stops working, you can't access your camera and you better ensure your settings are correct if you want to receive prompt alerts to monitor a sleeping baby. We still opted to have a separate, non wifi, baby monitor because we just couldn't trust the app notifications and our wifi. There is a few second delay within the app so that also may be an issue for a variety of reasons. We have to charge the batteries approximately once a month and that depends on how sensitive you have the motion and recording settings or how often you access the cameras. They are also convenient to use as intercoms. We chose to add additional cameras to the system which were also very easy to add, simply press a button on the base and a button on the new cameras and you're good to go. Just make sure if you're using them as a security video recording system to set them up within the the "Mode" settings within the smartphone app to record. My favorite part of this system is the ease of being able to move the cameras wherever you want with the included half dome magnetic mounts, two included in the package. The cameras are light enough to double side tape to the walls instead of having to drill/mount, at least for inside mounting purposes. If we were going to put them outside, I feel screwing them in would be the best option. I would suggest mounting them somewhere that is easy to access because of having to dismount the cameras, simply pulling them off the magnetic mounts, to charge the batteries.

Ugh, this is not good. Let me start off by saying that I own several home security camera systems - D–Link, Samsung and the prior version of this product – the Arlo Pro. The prior version is easy to install, the software is mostly good and the battery life is excellent. Arlo cameras are weather resistant, wireless and have magnet built in for easy mounting. The Arlo 2 is of the same build and uses the same software, the same base station and the battery life is at ,minimum, equal to the prior version of the product. That is good thing and I was excited to see that the Arlo 2 has video that is 1080P and it now has activity zones. However, the excitement ended there. When it came video quality, there are vast differences between the prior version and the updated Arlo Pro 2. The newest Arlo Pro 2 has terrible nightvision. Just awful. It is grey, hazy and grainy. I cannot tell whether it is not illuminating as well as the original Arlo Pro or it is something with the sensor but there is definitely a problem. Take a look at the attached pictures of my living room, one with the Arlo Pro 2 and one with the Arlo Pro. You can immediately tell the quality difference. The Arlo Pro 2 is washed out in a sea grey. Blah. When trying it outdoors, it was even worse. In my opinion , almost unusable ( for outdoors.) I did some research online and one user said Netgear suggested removing the battery and reinserting. It did seem to make a difference but it still was not good . To make matters worse, the colors in the picture were way off when not in nightvision mode. Blues appeared green and lighting appeared very yellow. The color reproduction was just much worse than the Arlo Pro. To pour salt on the wound, something is wrong with the audio. It is muddied and less powerful. The mic just seems to pick up less sound. This turned out to be one big dissappointment. I loved the Arlo Pro and this seemed to be a nice upgrade. I am so hoping that this is one of those issues that can be corrected with a firmware update. Sadly, I am not so confident that will be the case. Color issues usually can be resolved with software calibrations. So can sound issues if the hardware is proper. The tough one is if the cameras do not illuminate enough in nightvision mode and if the sensor is not good . It is very concerning that some users are experiencing these issues and others are not, I hope that is not an indication that it is a hardware issue. At this point, I cannot recommend this product until Netgear resolves these issues. I am giving Arlo Pro 2 stars because the foundation is there for a great product and I will keep my fingers crossed for quick firmware update.