So... Mrs.BurtonRW and I are about to buy a house (waiting for the sellers to return the contract today), but that's a subject for another thread, which I'm sure I'll get to.

Anyhoo... I'm intending to install an outdoor camera system and was looking hard at Arlo Ultra (for the DIY, plug-n-play capability - same reason I use SimpliSafe for security).

What I have currently is SimpliSafe for security and a Ring Pro2 for my doorbell. I'm not necessarily wedded to either, although I'm pretty sure I'm going to stick w/ SimpliSafe.

So looking at Arlo's website, I saw their doorbells and thought that would be convenient to have the video all on one platform.

While we're at it... Arlo Ultra cams are advertised as water resistant - does that mean weatherproof, just don't use them for underwater photography? Or do I have to be worried about mounting them under eaves?

Aaaand... how is the actual battery life on the Arlo Ultra units? I don't want to have to break out the ladder every month to charge them.

Thanks in advance.

-Rob

I have Arlo Pro 2's on my house but I do not have the doorbell. The battery life is excellent. Depending on foot traffic in and out of my front door I can typically go 60 days before having to charge that one and 75 days on my other cameras.

If you can avoid being battery power and wifi then that is best.
Arlo battery life from my experience is pitiful.
Wifi connectivity can vary with any of these devices can vary depending on how the signal gets to the device (and back).
I have found the Ring Pro units (powered by doorbell unit) works pretty well and the Elite unit that is POE should be better but I have not installed any of these.
If I didn't use a commercial unit like Axis I would use the Elite model.
YMMV

We have the arlo cameras and while you can hear the audio from the camera - the speaker is very bad and you can't talk to anyone that may have set the camera off. I've seen similar complaints about the Arlo Doorbells - so if you want to use them to talk to someone at the door - that may be an issue. Hopefully someone can chime in with actual experience using the speaker for the Arlo doorbell can chime in...

quote:

Arlo Pro 2's

Until there is a consumer based product that allows local storage of motion detection evidence I’m not too excited.

I have Ring Pro using WiFi communication and Battery power. Batteries are 2 months in the cold with minimal cam data. Most traffic is Motion alerts from our back door on letting the dog out. There paid subscription is not what I want to deal with - I want local access to my data.

I insulated my home from the inside using Dow foil backed R6 sheets which kill most all of any WiFi signal.
Their WiFi booster will not connect to either of my two Access Points which may be due to older technology.

The response times are nowhere near as fast as Seen on TV. By the time you get a report of motion - it's gone.

Nice Try but not ready for prime time. Too many hops in the notification loop -

If I were able to test their POE/Doorbell powered unit I would expect better performance but most users will have to make that a learning curve.

Still a CUTE little unit but would I continue with another unit - Not in the future -

I'm betting there will be something in the future -

Local storage via FTP to a cheap NAS and POE/Direct Power would be preferred.