Arlo - Ultra 2-Camera Indoor/Outdoor Wire Free 4K HDR Security Camera System - White

I got this camera for security at my front door. We don't really have any crime where I live. I have a sheriff's deputy next door and a detective across the street. However, we have had a few instances of some kids ringing our doorbell and running off at 2:00-3:00 am. This prompted me to want to get a camera to find out exactly who is doing it. They haven't been back since I installed the camera. I unpacked everything and decided where I wanted to install the camera. I chose the front corner column of my front porch facing the front door. This keeps the camera from being easily seen from the front yard. With the camera being white and my column/house being white, it is hard to notice unless you are looking for it. Installation was simple. The mount and the camera have a very strong magnet. The mount is concave and the back of the camera is a rounded shape. This allows you to install the mount and then adjust the camera without changing the mount position. It is a simple one screw installation. Just install the screw and slide the mount onto it. Installation and getting the camera adjusted to point exactly where I wanted it to took less than three minutes. The Arlo app is simple to use and set up. Just download it and follow the instructions. I have the hub close to the router and the camera is directly in line with my router, with only the outside wall between the camera and router. I haven't had any issues with connection as others have stated. I have a new tri-band gaming router that has a large range. Perhaps others have a lower end router and/or more walls between the two. In setting up the camera, there are many options. You can set dead zones that will not trigger the camera. This is great if your camera's view sees a road, or trees that could set it off in the wind. I have a small section in frame that catches the road, so I have set that corner as a dead zone to eliminate false alerts. You have different options as far as when it is armed. You can set it to capture video and audio and to set off the alarm. I prefer to leave the alarm off because I don't want it to go off every time someone delivers a package. I have it set to alert me any time there is movement in the "alert" area. The options for motion alert include people, vehicles, animals and other motion. I have mine set to record people and all other motion. This should, in theory not alert if a dog walks up to the door for example. I haven't had this happen, so I can't speak to how well it works.I have had several incidences of a carpenter bee and wasp setting off the camera. However, they were within inches and even crawling on the lens, so I would expect that. This being a 4K camera with HDR, the resolution is perfect. You can see everything in detail. You can even zoom in on the live image up to 12X. At night, the images are perfectly clear as well. If you want to see it in color, you can turn on the spotlight (which is quite bright) and the image will be in color. The wide angle lens captures everything in a 180-degree field of view. You can have the camera automatically zoom and track movement. I personally leave this feature off as you lose some video quality with this option and my area that I'm covering is small enough that I don't need it. The battery life is great. They state a 3-6 month battery life with the standard battery and normal usage. Of course, the more you view the camera, the more battery usage will occur. I installed this camera a couple of weeks ago and the battery level is at 88% and I have been viewing the camera a lot and turning the lights on and off a lot since it is new. I fully believe that they are accurate in their battery life estimate. They do have an optional solar charger that you can get so that you never have to charge the battery. Charging is magnetic as well. Simply remove the camera from the mount, attach the charger and hang the camera back up when it's done. You have the ability to speak to people through the camera, or set off an alarm. I tried the alarm this morning through the app. The app warned me that the alarm was extremely loud. However, I was standing in my bedroom about 20 feet away when I set the alarm off and I could barely hear it. I even opened the front door where the camera is at, and although it was loud enough to scare someone off, I don't believe that my neighbors could hear it, so it's not very loud at all. There is also an option for e911. You set your address and if necessary, you can press the e911 button to alert police. You can do this from anywhere in the world and it will use the address of the camera, not where you are, to alert the police. There are a couple of drawbacks with this camera. First, the alert is about a three second delay for me and my setup. While this is kind of expected due to the transmission from the camera, to the router, and finally to my phone, the theory of catching a package theif in the act is a little unreasonable. Anyone could walk up, grab your package and be gone before you are even alerted. Therefore, being able to get the alert, bring the app up and tell them to leave your package alone will never happen. Although you will have a crystal clear video of them doing it to turn over to the police. Also, while the mount is secured with a screw, the camera is only held in place with a magnet. This means that anyone could just grab it and run off with it. They do have an optional mount that screws into the camera, and this would make it a little more secure and harder to remove. I believe this mount should be included with the camera also at this price point. Overall, this is a great camera with many features. I am probably going to get a second camera to mount by the garage to oversee it and the driveway. I highly recommend this camera. I would even suggest getting this setup with multiple cameras. Believe me, once you see it, you will want more cameras. I have included two pictures. Both at night. One is with the spotlight off, and the other with the spotlight on, which gives you full color.

This is my first time using an Arlo product and I’m quite impressed by it. The Arlo Ultra 4K UHD Wire-Free Security Camera System is very user friendly and very intuitive to get up and running with ease. I currently have an off brand security camera that is also wifi capable, but requires an electrical outlet. My experience with this Arlo has left me with a great comparison between the products I own. This Arlo Ultra 4K provides a great picture quality and audio recording for my needs. I like to have a camera of this nature monitor my front walkway and front door. I can see who is coming and going and when deliveries are being made. My desire for this camera is strictly for residential purposes, but I’m positive this would be a great asset for a business owner setting as well. Main things included in the package to get you up and running are the following: 4K camera unit, wall mount w/ magnetic base, smarthub, rechargeable battery, and cables. You will also need to install the Arlo app to your smartphone, and in my scenario it worked seamlessly on my iPhone. Getting the smarthub connected to your network is easy as you utilize the Ethernet cable to plug into your network. Power up the camera with the battery installed and you’re up and running as the app will walk you through the process and it guides you very well. Once I had the smarthub and camera synced up, it was time to figure out where I wanted to place the unit for best usage. I was able to drill a small hole within my home’s vinyl siding in order to get the mount drilled in. The mount has a magnetic face to it and therefore the Arlo 4K camera has a magnetic base and it connects easily and strongly to one another. Position the camera how you like for your viewing area and it holds position very well. I really liked being able to place this camera outdoors without having to run wires and cables to hide them. The battery has been doing really well so far, as it’s down 15% and it’s been running for about 4 days now. I live in the northeast US and experience a good cycle of all 4 weather seasons. So far I’ve gotten the camera wet in a rain storm and it’s still working really well. Depending on which way the rain is blowing / falling it will distort the lens of the camera and possibly effect what you see and record. I’m assuming snow will be an issue for me when winter time is upon us as well. I have my camera in an uncovered area as I don’t have the ability to mount it under an overhang of some sort. The camera has a lot of great features which I’ve been playing with since getting this set up. The ultra-wide 180-degree panoramic view is nice. It gives me a full scope of my target area without a fish eye lens effect or cutting off the edges of my area. Great to be able to get a true full view of a larger zone. The advanced night vision works really well as I tried it a few times late at night. The infrared camera ability depicts the person and surroundings really well and it’s what I was expecting. The added bonus of this camera is that it has an integrated spotlight which lights up your target area and can create a color video to see a better picture of what’s happening. The light I feel is a nice security feature since it will activate on when motion is picked up and deter any potential bad guy from the area. I also have the ability to activate a horn like alarm from my app in order to make an audible sound to deter someone and let them know they’re being monitored with two way conversations from the mic and speaker. The Arlo Ultra also comes with a 1 year plan of Arlo Smart Premier Service which I feel is fantastic for having as a provided plan by Arlo. After that 1 year is up I can subscribe to different tier levels of playback service, and at a quick glance they seemed affordable. I wish this was a non-pay service to be able to monitor these videos. Another feature offered is an e911 action which will allow your Arlo Smart app to access emergency services. This seems like a unique feature that sets it apart from competitors. If someone is truly breaking into your house or you spot suspicious individuals, I would think this could be a great asset in order to alert the right authorities to your home address. On that note as well, you can also have the app contact a friend or neighbor for example similar to the e911 feature. This could be useful if you see something happening and can quickly have a neighbor across the street be alerted that something is occurring at your residence. The 4K camera is a big step up for me from my previous 720p camera which gives me a general idea of what happens at my front door. The Arlo 4K is very clear and detailed for my target area within about 6-10 feet. After that distance I have noticed that images tend to get grainy and blurry when I try to zoom in on something which is unfortunate. I was hoping to be able to see and read out a license plate of a car in my driveway about 20 feet away and couldn’t make it out at all. I could see what kind of car it is easily, but in daylight hours and camera set at BEST VIDEO QUALITY of 4K I was unable to read the license plate. This was a bit of a let down, but I’m toying with settings and trying to see if I can make adjustments to see these types of items better. The app is pretty easy to use and allows for some tweaking on which alerts you want to receive and you can also set a zone for your alert region. The camera has the ability to notify you of motion or person or animal for example when the alert pops up on my iPhone XR and Apple Watch Series 3 (non cellular). Great to see a snapshot picture of what the camera is alerting me about on my Apple devices. A few other nice features I’ve found while I’ve used this for the past few days have been the power management aspect. I can set this on a battery conserve method and it reduces the quality of the video, or I can go to a best video setting which will ensure I’m getting the highest content but the battery duration could suffer a bit. There is also an optimized setting which gives you a balance of video quality and battery life, and that is where I’m running it currently to help prolong until my next recharge. Another nice feature which I’ve utilized, but haven’t found fully useful yet is “auto zoom & tracking.” This feature helps to track a person for example as they come into view of the camera. In this scenario the camera eye tracks the person moving and follows them. In my case a UPS delivery was made and the camera tracked the person walking into the driveway to the front step and then away from the house. Interesting to see this feature, but I don’t know if it’s fully useful yet as I didn’t really find any benefit from it. There also is a feature for package detection in the beta stage within the app. I have this activated, but haven’t seen it function yet so I can’t fully give feedback about that. One concern I have with this product is for anyone that may have an older version of an Arlo camera they invested in. From what I gather this new Arlo 4K camera and smarthub only work with 4K camera units. Therefore for a consumer, who has a previous camera, they will not be able to use that older camera unit with this new smarthub. I hope that Arlo fixes this issue and will make sure to allow previous Arlo camera devices to be used with this new smarthub since it’s all within the same ecosystem. So far I’ve been happy with this security camera and feel confident in the Arlo brand. I’ve had great connectivity and am able to get a view from the camera via my smartphone when I’m away. No issues with connections or blur. Overall I feel it’s a pretty good camera with a high price tag at almost $400, for which you’re getting a smarthub base and a single 4K wireless camera. For me this is pretty good functionality, peace of mind home usage, and hoping for long term use with this. Hoping this helps you out in your decision. PRO: Small and compact design 4K video quality Wireless and wire free Great app for viewing and alerts Security monitor features to deter CON: Expensive price tag Backward compatibility Blurred imagery for distance viewing (license plate) Comes with only 1 rechargeable battery Needs a 2 or 3 hole base mount for better stability

Today, I am reviewing the Arlo Ultra HD Camera.  Unboxing was a breeze; the camera came with a power cable, battery, mounting hardware, magnetic mount, and a hub station. Although cumbersome, the hub has to be plugged into your internet router to use the Arlo camera system successfully.  The instructions did not include how to mount the camera, though. After I went on the internet to look, I figured out that the plastic piece included with the mounting hardware needs to attach itself to the screw. The reason? This plastic piece fits into the back of the magnetic mount. Keep this in mind when you figure out where to mount the camera.  I charged the camera for the recommended three hours. Make sure to press the eject button on the camera, physically, to insert the battery into the camera for charging. Again, the instructions were vague on doing this. While charging, I downloaded the Arlo app and created an account. This process was simple. After the camera charged, I plugged in the smart hub into my internet router, opened the app, and unplugged the camera. The Arlo app locates both the hub and camera during the setup process automatically. During the location process, the Arlo app will download a firmware update for the hub and camera (this takes about five minutes). Again, this is a seamless, automatic process. Once the hub and camera's firmware are updated, you are ready to install the camera outside your home. Although you can do this on your own, make sure to have your application opened so that you can see where your viewing angle is inside the app. Installation was simple, and the mounting bracket is not necessary (I installed mine through vinyl siding above my garage).  After installation, the camera began detecting my movement, and it was smart enough to tell me that it "spotted a person." In the Arlo app, you can set up other settings such as "wide angle view," as well as video display settings. I chose the "4K" live video setting; for now, the camera will allow you to view live footage in 4K, it will not record 4K footage, yet (you have to pay an additional fee for cloud 4K video recording). Although disappointing, the camera does provide a clear picture. You can pinch the screen to zoom in and out of the camera, and still maintain a quality picture. The camera's built-in speaker captures the sound well. However, when using the talking feature (to talk back to someone approaching), the audio was not loud enough (I turned the speaker up and still, it was not that loud). Do not let this make or break your decision on picking this camera up. Additionally, there is an option to turn on and off the spotlight included in the camera. Since my camera is mounted above my garage, the two garage lights that were installed previously automatically turn on when motion is detected. Although not necessary for me, you have an option to turn the spotlight feature on, and off in the Arlo app. I will say, the spotlight feature is ideal for those who do not have automatic motion detecting lights (the picture was too bright). However, you can adjust the picture brightness on the camera if needed. Though, I did not need to after I turned the spotlight off (the picture was just "right").  With my high internet speeds at home (350 MBPS), I found the Arlo app easy to use, but at times, the app "lagged" when I went into the library to view footage, and change the viewing settings to my liking. Although not an issue, when playing back footage in the library, I notice that it takes the Arlo app some time to load. Again, this is not a big deal, but keep in mind that you may experience lag with playback and setting changes.  Now, the best feature that the Arlo Ultra camera provides is that it records when it detects motion; the Arlo Ultra does not continuously record (although you can pay for this setting). The point of this feature is to save your battery. You can monitor the battery in the Arlo app, by the way. After a few days of use, the battery remains at a full charge. Expect to have the battery drain more when you continuously record, though. According to Arlo's website, expect your camera to remain charged for three to six months. Noted, you will have to remove the camera to recharge it for three hours (so do this when you are home). Although if it is too cumbersome for you to remove the camera from the magnetic plate to charge it, you can install the charging cable into the device. However, this defeats the purpose of the "no cable needed" idea.  Additionally, Arlo includes a full year of thirty-day cloud storage (this trumps what Nest does, which asks you to pay five dollars per month for continuous recording/cloud storage). Other features include an auto-tracking option (this is a "pay for" feature).  Overall, the Arlo App is easy to use. However, app lag issues do not provide a "seamless" user experience (it takes too long to load videos and connect to the camera). The camera itself was a breeze to set up (after some research); the picture and sound quality are fantastic. I would recommend the Arlo Ultra system for someone that does not want to drill more holes into their home to feed wires. The design of the camera and the ease of use makes this camera an ideal suitor for those who want a "do-it-yourself" home security system. 

The Arlo Ultra 4K UHD Wire-Free Security Camera System is Arlo’s next product in wireless home security. It touts features such as 4K UHD recording, Auto Zoom and Tracking, and color night vision. Though this is supposed to be Arlo’s most advanced camera, I didn’t find it much better than the 1080p versions. My Set Up I used this camera near my front door for testing. The camera was positioned unhidden 20 feet (clear line of sight) from my Wi-Fi satellite and 30 linear feet (through one floor level) from the Arlo base. My network is provided by an Orbi whole-home mesh system which is made by Netgear (who happens to be the parent company for Arlo). My internet service is gigabit, so there are no bandwidth issues. Features of the camera 4K UHD recording – This is supposed to be the clearest recording commercially available for home security cameras. I expected to see quality paralleled with a 4K movie played on my 4K UHD television. What I got was more grainy and not this high quality image that I expected. In fact, that’s when it worked at all. Using 4K recording, I could not stream an image to my cell phone in the app. I have uploaded a screenshot of the horizontal gray lines that I viewed instead. Auto Zoom and Tracking – The feature is a really neat idea. The camera detects motion and basically zooms in and follows the moving object. It had a little delay, but was cool in that it could decide what to follow. My big complaint with this feature was that it does not work when recording in 4K. The settings automatically change if you tell it to record in 4K or turn on Auto Zoom and Tracking. Turning on one feature turns the other feature off. Having a 4K camera isn’t useful if the other features don’t support 4K. Color night vision – I was stoked to see this as a feature on the camera system packaging. The biggest complaint about my previous camera system that I owned before this Arlo was that the night vision wasn’t very good. My hopes were that this feature would be able to provide more information through color in combination with the higher quality recording (4K). What I was not aware of is that in order for the color night vision to work, the spotlight has to be on. This is a problem for me as I would rather the criminal I am recording not know where my cameras are. My understanding is that the extra light is needed is order to record the color information, and that this illumination process is not specific to Arlo cameras. Other camera systems require lighting to record in color at night as well. You can still record in regular night vision without the spotlight. Battery Charging – First, the camera only comes with one rechargeable battery. I find this to be an issue because unless you have found a way to charge the camera in-place then you will have times where you have to stop recording to charge the battery. I would suggest that Arlo give 2 batteries in the next package (or at least one extra depending on camera package). Second, the charging method uses a proprietary cord. If you lose or damage the cord, you will have to get one from Arlo. Battery Life – The packaging describes the batteries as convenient and long lasting. This is not the case. My battery went from 41% to 5% in the first week. Charging a battery every 2 weeks (especially if you have them mounted out of reach) is not convenient. Spotlight – The spotlight is optional (you can turn it on and off). It is also adjustable, so you can control the brightness level. It can work with the motion sensor or you can manually turn it on. Again, this is required to be on if you want to use the color night vision feature. Siren – There is a siren feature that you can manually turn on if you want to create a noise or draw attention. The siren is not very loud in my opinion, and I’m not sure that it would be that effective. Call e911 and Call Friend – There are features to manually contact an emergency number from the app. I did not test these two features. Magnetic Mounting – The camera can attach to the mount magnetically. I think that this is a neat idea, but due to the shape of the camera and cupping of the mount it is somewhat limited. Some people have raved about this feature, but I wasn’t completely happy with it. Likes *Decent Quality Wireless Camera *4K recording (new standard in home security cameras) *Auto Zoom and Tracking is a neat idea *Color night vision adds value of clarity in low light situations *Has Siren, Call e911, and Call Friend features *Magnetic mount idea *Comes with 1 Year of Arlo Smart service (cloud recording) *Has option for SD Card recording Dislikes *4K Streaming would not work at all on phone in house *Cannot record in 4K when using Auto Zoom and Tracking *Battery Life is short and only comes with one battery *Charging cord is a specialty cord *Color night vision does not work unless spotlight feature is turned on and spotlight is illuminated *Siren feature not very loud *Requires paid subscription after the first year if you do not want to use SD Card option Overall, I think that the Arlo Ultra is an average security camera. For a wireless camera it’s not bad, but the battery life is short and new features that didn’t work as I had hoped. This leaves me a little unsatisfied with the product. I think that if you must have a wireless camera Arlo is a good starting point. However, since the new features on the Ultra didn’t work well, I’d recommend looking at the 1080p Arlo cameras instead of this one. The Ultra cameras will cost more, and I don’t see any real benefit for the extra cost. 4K will be the new standard moving forward, but this camera doesn’t exemplify that standard.

Having owned all previous generations of Arlo cameras (single-use battery all the way through 1080p version), the Arlo Ultra is certainly a step up in terms of quality and ease of use. I'll take you through the full unboxing and set up experience. If you want to learn more about the pros and cons of the camera, then skip to the bottom. =Unboxing: The one camera kit comes with: 1 camera, 1 base station, power cable (both cam/base station), battery for cam, mount, and all required cords to power the camera. Everything is packaged neatly and is a huge improvement over the other generations of Arlo cameras. Kudos packaging team. =Setup: (10/10) Just like all other Arlo cameras, setup is straight forward. Simply use the Arlo App and navigate through new camera setup. Since this kit comes with a base station, choose to add a new base station. Then follow all the on screen prompts and you'll be set up in no time - the process is so easy that my mom could do it. =Video Quality: (9/10) I currently run multiple Arlo Pro 2 cameras and I was able to clearly see a difference between the cameras. The Field of View is much larger with the added fisheye lens. The alleged 4K quality is noticeable and is very crisp compared to the previous generations - it won't blow your socks off. For those that want the clearest video quality will want this camera but those that may only want basic video may turn to one of the older generations. =Customization and App Control: (8/10) The camera has a built in spot-light which is very powerful. You can turn the light on manually via the app or it will turn on automatically when motion is detected. Within the app, you also able to manually record video, take a picture, and talk via the cam (good for telling your food delivery person to drop your meal at the door while you throw some pants on). The speaker isn't the best quality but what do you expect when stuffing so much into a small camera? Since the dawn of Arlo, the app has been a little rough around the edges but they have really made some improvements over the years. The installation flow is easy (no more push-to-sync button), and viewing your camera is straight forward. Accessing modes may not be the most intuitive but you after you set your modes then you'll never have to go back to those settings again. Set and forget. =Mount: (10/10) Included in the kit was the new Arlo Ultra mount. In terms of positioning and installation, this one is far superior to the other iterations. There is no need to fasten a neck screw or worry about a weak magnet. The mount gives you full 360-degree control over how your camera is mounted and even has a groove on the underside to conceal the power cable. All mounting hardware is included. Yes, the mount isn't 100% secure since someone can pull the camera or base off the wall/mount. Just don't install your camera where someone can walk up and grab it - it isn't rocket science. =Base station (Arlo SmartHub): (9/10) Not much to say here. It is a little more athletically pleasing and will look more natural on a bookshelf. This base station is required for Arlo Ultra's more premium features such as 4K video, Auto Track and Zoom, and local live streaming. You can still connect previous generation cameras to this base station. It would have been nice to have the previous generations fully compatible with Ultra but I can live with replacing or adding another base station. Additionally, the SmartHub doesn't have a siren but that will come down the line with the Arlo security system. ==Pros and Cons Pros: - Easy Setup - Great video quality - Increase Field of View over previous generations - Solid mounting option - Spotlight is fairly strong. Good feature to scare off snoopers - Wire-free!! - Intuitive app control Cons: - Slight lag when connecting - with the bitrate that this camera utilizes coupled with cloud video relaying, this is no surprise. Don't get disappointed when the live video takes 0.5 seconds longer to load or as a slight delay. = Other notes - Fisheye - the fisheye lens distorts the video a bit but this camera is built for security not for recording home videos. - Battery life - I haven't had the camera installed long enough to comment on the battery life. But mileage may vary depending on your recording habits. The more your cameras are activated and the longer video is recording then the shorter your battery life. It is really straight forward. - Connectivity - I haven't had the cameras installed long enough to notice any spotty connectivity. I will be keeping an eye on this over time but results may vary depending on the distance between the camera and SmartHub or other external factors. = Overall first impressions This is a solid camera to add to the Arlo family. The increase Field of View is a huge benefit of this camera as well as the wire-free advantage over other cameras on the market. I'll be replacing my front door camera with Ultra and moving my existing camera to watch over my fish tank. Arlo provided me with this product free of charge for testing purposes. The content and opinions expressed here are honest and based on my use of the product. But with that said, I'm happy with the product

This camera has some great potential to becoming the next generation of camera security with its 4K UHD compatibility. This camera is a big step up since the original Arlo Q security camera that they originally released and I’m still very proud of how NETGEAR & Arlo teams have been working hard on making and growing the foundation of the large product line ups and securing the future of the company and its users! I’ve been a reviewer for NETGEAR & Arlo products for a few years and giving them my opinions about my setup experience, features, performance and my expectations of products that they have either sent me and or purchased myself. Note: Arlo has provided me with this product for free, but the content and my opinions expressed here are honest and based on my own use of the product and or products that I have received for review. • Camera Mount Setup The package includes one magnetic base with an anchor and screw so you can secure the base to your house depending on where you place it, once you have the base attached to your house the camera attaches right to the magnetic base. (There is a metal plate within the backing of the camera housing that you can see when you’re placing in the battery for the camera) I personally don’t like the magnetic base for the camera due to the weight of the camera and that almost anyone could come right up to your camera and remove the unit right off the front of your porch if its not located in a high unreachable place but otherwise from that you could use the included base in any situation because the connection to the base is strong with the magnetic I got a hold of the Arlo team and they we’re so kind enough to send me the (VMA4000) kit so I felt more secure with the mount and didn’t have to deal with the magnetic base anymore and personally I really like this mount way better! Its got a way better angle and I can position it to where I like much more easy. • Camera Setup Placing the battery into the camera is very easy and simple and holds a charge up to 3-6 Months depending on how many times the unit is activated and or how you have the unit setup to record video within settings. Recharging the unit is very easy with the magnetic charging cable that sticks to the bottom of the camera so you don’t have to remove the backing of the camera and or plug anything into the camera. There is a included cable to charge the camera but is very short (3 feet to be exact) that isn’t long enough to charge your camera indoors and or outdoors you would have to manually remove your well placed camera just to charge the unit or have a extension cable that can extend the reach so you can recharge your camera. Arlo does provide different ways to charge your unit that you can purchase the following 8-foot cable (VMA5000) & 25-foot cable (VMA5600C) also there is an optional solar panel that you can also purchase (VMA5600) • Arlo Base Station Setup The included base station is small enough to fit on your desk and or other places as long as you’ve got a nearby ethernet connection to a router so that you can communicate to your wireless camera and base station through the Arlo App. The base station has the compatibilities to communicate to the Arlo Ultra from 300 feet distance as long as there is a clear view of the base station to the camera and nothing in-between and if you’ve got a mesh network then you’ll have zero problems with connection. There is a microSD slot under the base station so you can store 4K video recordings and or 1080P to the microSD instead of having to use the cloud base storage. • Features I’ve touched on some of the features of the camera and its base station within the setup section of this review but some other key worthy notes to approach on here is the mutable accessories that you’ll be able to purchase for the camera its self and being able to add up to 10+ cameras to your system. The night vision is wonderful to have during the night so you can see what’s going on around the area of the camera and also the night vison with color works great as long as you’ve got the spotlight feature setting on within the camera settings of the app. 4K video with HDR is great to have when you need to see that great detail of your neighbor’s cat walking around your house and or people approaching your house to visit or to leave a package! And talking about people, animals, packages, and or cars the Arlo app will notify you directly with what the camera picks up from it being a car to a package to almost anything that the smart detection can classify it as. Being able to store 12 hours of video storage to the (256 GB MicroSD) card that I had to purchase is a nifty feature to have because if you don’t have a cloud subscription to store your video files at then this is where your Micro SD card comes in handy. • Performance The performance of the camera works wonders between communicating with the base station and the Arlo App but there have been a few times where it seems like the camera doesn’t want to respond to the base station but in reality it is because it records when ever something or someone is walking past it or there seems to be a issue within the Arlo App because when I personally go to connect to the camera to see a live stream it doesn’t play but instead it just buffers the camera and doesn’t get a connection for a little while (like 15-30 seconds of buffering) • Did the product meet my expectations? Besides the camera having its little buffer issue once in a while and the mount being poorly designed for the camera but with Arlo’s team sent me a new mount to try out for the unit that has changed my outlook on the mounting issue. So yes, this product has met my expectations and I do recommend that you should purchase these cameras if you’re looking for something with a better versatile camera then look no farther.

Security cameras: I've got a ton of them. As someone who walked in on a burglary as a young child I take security very seriously. My wife says perhaps too seriously. But nonetheless I have a lot of experience with various security cameras from different vendors. Every single one of them has usually a lot of redeeming qualities but is missing one or two things that keep them from reaching the "I want to buy more of this camera" stage. That's why I keep getting more security cameras. Well after seeing the Arlo Ultra reviews I decided to take a chance on, what is admittedly, a very expensive system. I was skeptical but I also knew I wasn't just paying for the camera but the base as well (which does a lot in regards to being a central unified hub that has wi-fi of its own using your ethernet and stores clips locally if desired using an SD card - in addition to, or in place of, the cloud storage). Setting up the Arlo was about as easy as it gets. Plug the base into your router using ethernet, then insert the battery to the camera and hit the sync button on the base. Charge up your camera (mine had about half a charge) and you're ready to get to using the system. Once you charge and pair your camera to the base you can put the camera anywhere within 300 feet of the base, according to Arlo. They do note that walls, concrete barriers and other issues can knock that down a bit, which is no different than typical wi-fi. In my case I mounted my camera about 50 feet and it connected just fine. I did have one issue though, trying to view the stream from the app on my phone resulted in a continual "Connecting" which was finally resolved by me choosing to operate my iPhone on a 5Ghz connection to my router as opposed to the 2.4Ghz. The camera itself is truly smart. You can view it in 4K or 1080p with auto-zoom. I really like the auto-zoom feature so I went with 1080p, which gives me a very good picture even though it is not 4K. If a person walks anywhere near the camera the camera will zoom in on them and then follow them around. It's really amazing! And at night it will even turn on the light so you can see them more clearly instead of just having to rely on the typical night vision. You can also manually turn on the light on the camera as well at night any time you choose. You can setup the light to strobe, pulse or stay on continiously on movement. But that's not all when it comes to the camera smarts, it can differentiate between people, animals and vehicles and guess what? It actually works. Absolutely works and categorizes all the video based upon those criteria. So if you know you're looking for a clip of someone driving by your house you can easily sort all of your clips by vehicle. Or if you want to see what dogs were wandering around in your yard you can sort your clips by animal. Its truly mind blowing that they got this right. Other random thoughts: The clips are saved to the cloud and the first year is free, after that I believe it's $36 a year for 1080p or $60 a year for 4K storage of clips. I believe the clips are accessible for up to 30 days but don't quote me on that. The system has a siren (which I did not test) you can sound if need be via a panic button. It also has the ability to call or notify up to three other people, which would be quite useful for a house sitter and/or a friend or neighbor to help check your place prior to calling police. These are really nifty, and well thought out features. Now for the only real negatives. First, the battery life for the camera in the documentation and advertisements say 4 to 6 months. My fully charged camera went from 100% to 90% in about two days, although admittedly I was looking at it a lot (which uses more battery power). So by my calculations I will need to get up on a ladder about once a week or once every two weeks, get the battery out, bring it inside, charge it and then go back out and replace the battery. I cannot see myself doing that so I'm currently considering buying a longer cord (about $49 for a 25 foot cord) to power it electrically or buying a solar panel that Arlo makes to power it via the sun. The solar panel is not cheap, about $79 for the official one. The good news is that most everyone says it works 100% effectively. But I will likely go with electrical over solar simply because the 3 second rewind, that is when the camera detecs motion it will go back 3 seconds prior to the motion, only works when powered over electrical. I did have a reason to test the tech support (see above about the continous "connecting" issue I had) via email. They got back to me within a day and asked me for a number they could contact me at. I told them I had resolved the issue. I do believe they have phone support as well but I did not choose to use it. All in all this system is not cheap but it's worth it just for how brainy and impressively performing the camera is. To add an additional camera (you don't need to buy another base until you have I believe 10 cameras total) is about $265 right now, which will, hopefully come down. I do plan to do that, when prices come down and/or I see a sale. This is, hands down, the best security camera on the market right now, bar none and I do not hesitate to wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone that takes home security seriously. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

The Arlo - Ultra Indoor/Outdoor Wire Free 4K HDR Security Camera System was nice and easy setup, but to be honest, I expected a lot more from a premium security camera, which makes this set a difficult one to recommend. To start out with what I liked about the Arlo - Ultra Indoor/Outdoor Wire Free 4K HDR Security Camera System was the flexibility in placement. Its wireless and comes with a magnetic mount that you can basically place anywhere. I was a bit skeptical with a magnetic mount being used outdoors, but for the two weeks I have had the camera mounted, it has not moved at all. So down load the app, sync to the Arlo base station, sync to the camera and mount. Literally, 20 mins to get up and running (minus fully charging the camera). Within the Arlo app, you can add some customizations, such as video quality, highlighting the activity zone in which you want the want to capture notification when there is activity. This is a nice feature as the camera lens can be set to Full, Wide or Super Wide to change the range of video capture and you can define a set range within the video range to trigger an activity. There is also 4k live streaming which does produce a very nice quality feed with the default view. The more you zoom, the grainer the picture. Now let’s get to some of the disappointment areas. The Arlo base is not a Wi-Fi set up. It must be connected to your internet router through LAN connection. Not a big deal unless your router is on the complete opposite side of your home of where your camera is going to be located. The camera has to be within a good range from the base station to establish a connection and provide timely alerts. Obviously there are ways to work around this issue, such as buying a longer Ethernet cable, Wi-Fi extenders or mesh systems with Ethernet ports, but that is added cost to get the Arlo base station in the optimal location for all your camera locations. The recoding quality was OK. Even with the best quality setting, honestly I feel like you would have to know the person in the video to do any sort of identification. Any zooming, cuts away on the quality and it is too grainy to get any detail profiling of a subject. Another big miss is the customization with the modes. By default, you can Arm, Disarm and Schedule when the security camera sends alerts. Scheduling is nice, as you can set a daily schedule by the hour, but the lack of additional customization within the scheduling mode is disappointing. For example, I can create a new mode that allows me to select whether or not sound can trigger the camera. The placement of my camera is outside of my porch which has a wind chime. Great, I can create a mode that doesn’t get triggered by sound, only motion. The downside of creating your own custom mode is that it cannot be scheduled and is active all the time. I don’t want the camera active when I know my kids are going to be present that will trigger the alert every 2 mins, so I try to schedule around those time. Problem with that is, with the schedule, you do not have the option to disable the sound trigger. So the technology is there, Arlo just didn’t put the flexibility in place with their app. Now comes the final and major disappointment. The recording captures. This security camera, when armed does a decent job triggering a recording when it senses motion or sound, however I do not make any sense of the variable recording times. I will have recording range between 12 seconds to 2 minutes all within activity occurring. If a person is walking around my back yard and within the active range, I don’t just get one recording, I get a handful of them, which would be fine if it needs to be split up, however there are time gaps between recordings. One recording will end, then next will start with the person 5 to 10 ft away if they are in motion. Well, that is really too bad as those time gaps could be crucial to what you hope to capture. This is with their paid service, which is included for the first year. If the mode is active and there is activity, I would have hoped for a continuous feed. That in itself is why I can’t recommend the camera as it supposedly comes off as being a premium unit.