Today I bit the bullet and purchased the Arlo Pro 2. I got the 2 camera kit which comes with a base station. I paid $455 dollars for it, which boils down to $227.50 per camera. This is not cheap, I have high expectations for these cameras, and I expect them to deliver.

Let’s get to the features:
First off, this camera needs a base station, which will be inside the house near your router. It needs to be connected to your router using the included Ethernet cable.

For the cameras, they are 1080p HD
It has 130 degree FOV
Night Vision with 850 NM LEDS that can reach up to 25 feet
It has an 8 x digital zoom
2 way audio
It can only connect to a 2.4 GHz WiFi and the base station to the cameras needs to be within 300 feet line of sight.
The motion detection if it is in battery power uses PIR motion technology but when it is plugged in it uses video based doftware and has a 3 second preview meaning it will record 3 seconds before motion has been detected
As to alerts – you can get push notifications on your phone and/or email.
The cameras are weather resistant with a IP65 rating and has an operating temperature of -4 degrees to 113 degrees fahrenheit
Also, it works with Amazon Alexa, Smart things and IFTTT.

As to recordings, it defaults to recording to the cloud and has a free basic subscription, which stores your motion detected footage for 7 days.
It has other paid subscription plans: the premier which stores footage for 30 days for 100 bucks annually and an elite plan that can store your footage for 60 days for 150 dollars per year.

Now, time to open the box…

We have the base unit…on the back we have the speaker for the siren,
the reset button, 2 USB slots if you want to add a back up hard drive for your videos, the LAN port, on and off switch and power supply port.

We have a window sticker.
A quick start guide..
a micro USB cable to charge the camera and also if you want to plug in the camera instead of using battery power.
We have the LAN cable.
2 wall mounts
screws and plastic anchors
battery…there should be 2 of these.
We have one of the cameras..pretty light when it doesn’t have the battery..speakers at the bottom..non-slip surface if mounting on a shelf.
At the back is the micro USB port for charging and powering the camera and also a screw option if you don’t want the magnetic mount. The magnet is in the camera and the mount is just a metal piece. The magnet is pretty strong though.
On top is the push button to open the battery compartment and also the sync button to sync the camera to the base station..the battery compartment has a rubber seal around to protect from the elements…it is pretty easy to open or close.

We have the USB power adapter. BTW there is only one and also one USB cable for 2 cameras…I’ll talk more a about that later on.

Installing the battery is pretty quick. Just open up the back and slide the battery in. Just pop the battery cover back and making sure it clicks in place.

As to mounting options. On what comes with the kit are 2 wall mounts. It is easy one screw to install the mount and the camera will just stick in place. With this mount and the positioning of the camera’s magnet, it can only be installed vertically or in a wall… If you have a ceiling, this mount will not work. They do sell other types of mounts that can be used in a ceiling install.

To setup the cameras, first download the Arlo app and sign up for an account…click allow for the app to send you notifications…and for me new to Arlo…click Arlo Wire free…then we need to set up the base station.

I have to connect the base station to my router using the Ethernet cable then I’ll plug it in and turn it on. I’ll wait for a few minutes until the lights turn green in the front. I don’t need to type in my WiFi’s password like other cameras. Time to sync the cameras one at a time…push and hold the sync button on top for 2 seconds and release…then the status light will blink green..then push the sync button on top of the camera for about 2 seconds also and a blue LED will blink. Wait until it turns off and that means you successfully connected the camera. Do the same procedure for the rest of your cameras.

Time to install. I’m going to install one just using the battery for power and another one plugged in. It just needs one screw to attach the wall mount and just stick the camera in place..with a magnetic mount, you can easily fine tune the placement of the camera. The minimum height recommendation for install is around 7 feet.

The other camera will be installed in my back patio where my other test cameras are installed temporarily. On this one, I will use the USB power supply just to test the features of the camera that is only available when the camera is plugged in.

Now, let’s check out some sample footage…first is the plugged in camera and you will notice that the camera recorded 3 seconds of footage before the motion was detected.

The second footage is from the battery powered camera and you will notice that it picked up the motion and started recording quick and you will also hear that I got the notification almost instantly.

Nest, let’s check out the night vision

Now, let’s check out the main interface of the Arlo app and browse the settings.
When you open up the app, on the main screen, you will see the cameras.

On the bottom right, you will see the main settings where you can browse your devices, your profile, grant access to share your cameras with your family, subscription status.

For the camera settings, you can click on the gear icon on the upper right corner of each camera window.

You can change the camera’s name, turn it on or off, battery status, connection status of the camera in relation to the base unit.

We have the video settings where you can turn on or off the night vision, rotate the image in the event that you install the camera upside down
And if you setup the camera to be constantly plugged in an outlet then you can specify the motion zones and also you can change the video quality of the camera so as to save battery.

Then we have the audio settings where you can toggle the mic and speaker of the camera to on or off and also adjust the speaker volume.

We also have the motion detection test where you can adjust the sensitivity of the camera’s PIR motion sensor

On the bottom we have the library where all the recorded footage can be accessed. They are arranged by date and time.

When you click mode, you will access the base station settings where you can select which mode the cameras will be in. These apply to all cameras connected to the base station. There is armed when the cameras will record when motion or noise is detected… disarmed, you can set a schedule or the geofencing feature.

On the armed setting, you can edit and set the rules for each camera and this is where you can set up to turn siren on when the camera is triggered. In here you can edit the duration of the alarm and also the volume.

You can also set your notification if you want push notifications to your phone or email or both.

Now, let’s test the sensitivity of the motion sensor and also how soon you get an alert when the camera is triggered. The motion sensitivity is set to 80%. Let’s check it out. You get notified pretty quick.

The Arlo Pro 2 base station has a built in alarm and it can be set to automatically trigger when motion is detected or it can also be manually turned on by swiping down the little grey line on top and push alarm then a warning and click yes. I’m on the other end of the house and the base station is in the living room and I can tell you that it is pretty loud.

So, what are my thoughts on the Arlo Pro 2…let’t start off with the Pros. It has a pretty good video quality, the alert notifications are pretty quick and I have been testing it for about 5 days and I haven’t had any false alerts yet… I also like that you can plug in an external hard drive on the base unit and you will get back up of your footage. That is also good that it has 2 power options..battery and plugged in…Also I like that the alarm can be automatically set and also manually activated.

Now, for the cons..things that I don’t particularly like and could have been better…first… the price… this is an expensive camera for the features that you get…second.. the cameras are base station dependent..It says that the base station and the cameras have a 300 ft. line of sight range but the number and the thickness of the walls also affects it. I have a pretty decent router and I still needed WiFi extenders if I have to install cameras on the corners of the house..so in my case if I have to install a camera in those areas, then I need to set it up with another base station that will be connected to the extender.. extra expense and hardware basically…
And while we are talking about extra expenses…I was wondering why Arlo only gives you one USB cable and power adapter for a 2 camera kit and even their 4 camera system. They have the 6 camera kit but it only comes with 2 usb cables and power adapters…Now, you also use this cable when charging the cameras…They advertise the Arlo Pro 2 that it has dual power supply and you will get extra features if it is plugged in…but they want you to purchase the cables and power adapter separately if you decide to plug in all your cameras… cmmon Arlo..remember you are already expensive in the first place..

Now, the kit also comes with wall mounts…what if you want to install the camera in a ceiling..then you need to purchase another mount for that…how about including the extended mounts in the first place so that we can install on both ceiling and walls… by the way, did I mention that you are expensive…

And have you seen the included screws for the wall mount?…It only needs one screw to install the mount…but I think a bit bigger screw and screw head would be better. The small screw will do the job but barely… I have to use a bigger screw to install mine…

Lastly, this is a new issue with iphone users with a recent update of IOS 11.3, the 2 way audio is not working. I found in their community forums that Netgear engineers already knows about the issue and is working on a fix.

By the way, the Arlo cameras can be accessed via your computer on their website and the 2 way audio works with my computer…

I can already tell you though that on the footage, it will only record the camera side of the conversation.



Arlo Pro 2 Camera System – amzn.to/2JaSsW6