Arlo Home Security Cameras Review: Protect What You Love Most

Have you heard of Arlo Home Security Cameras? These products are among the best and most famous ones in the home security camera market for good reason. Arlo itself is a renowned name in the industry. With that in mind, here’s our “Arlo Home Security Cameras Review” that covers nearly everything that needs covering regarding the Arlo brand. 

What Can Arlo Cameras Do?

What do Arlo cameras offer? What are the different applications for them? Truth be told, Arlo smart security cameras are among the leaders in this industry of home security. To be more specific, Arlo is a maker of cameras, doorbells, floodlight cameras, and accessories as well as a provider of smart plans for cloud video storage. It creates an ecosystem because every camera is able to communicate with each other for the sake of your home security. 

What Makes Arlo Cameras Special?

Arlo cameras stand out from the rest because of the unique way they integrate smart device connectivity in creating a safer surveillance ecosystem for you and your family.

You can go from the most basic of Arlo camera to the newer Arlo Pro and Arlo Ultra and you’ll still get safety assurance in the form of 2-way audio, infrared-enhanced night vision, flexible camera work, alarm systems, and much more in one package.

How does the Arlo camera work? 

The Arlo camera works by being a Wi-Fi smart device security camera first and foremost then building around that concept with additional features, from full-color night vision that pair together infrared and built-in LED lights together to the activity zone system that reduces false alarms from nearby pets or strays.

Sure, the models vary from the minimum amount of Internet speed required to whether they can be used indoors only or indoors and outdoors. However, even the most basic Arlo is a must-buy.

Which Arlo Camera is right for you?

Buy in accordance to your budget and needs. Long story short, the different Arlo brands all build up on the basics of what an Arlo security cam has then built on that. Arlo Wire-Free offers 720p recording, weatherproofing, night vision, 100% wire-free setup. From there, the different Arlos offer something extra, like the Arlo Ultra providing color night vision and up to 4K security recordings.  Or the Arlo Baby monitor with its unique offerings like a music player and air sensors. 

Types of Arlo Cameras

There are 4 types of Arlo cameras. 

• Wire-free cameras: Ostensibly, a wireless or wire-free camera from Arlo is a camera that reduces the amount of wires and cables needed to power your device by using a rechargeable battery. In turn, the battery or the whole unit can be charged using the smart hub station as the charging port of sorts. Arlo Pro 3 – Wire-Free Security Camera System

• Powered cameras: A powered camera typically uses an AC adapter and plug to power itself. What type of plug and adapter output is used will depend on the energy requirements, size, and scale of the camera in question. For example, smaller cameras have an AC adapter output of 5V 2A, while bigger ones have 120V 2A. It also varies from region to region. 

• PoE cameras: Power over Ethernet cameras uses technology that allows network cables to carry electrical power. This way, you’re assured that your Arlo smart device and digital security camera has the network connection it needs in order to communicate with other display and video recording equipment around it while also being powered up at the same time. Arlo Q Plus – Wired PoE

• Mobile cameras: A mobile camera is different from a wire-free camera in that it’s transportable as opposed to wire-free cameras that only lack wires. You have the standard digicam, portable video cam, and mobile phone cam as examples of portable or handheld devices serving as cameras. Arlo makes security versions of such cameras. Arlo Go

Use Cases

Here are what Arlo cameras are usually used for.

• Home Security: If you want to secure your home the same way a bank or a mall would then you should invest in your own Arlo security camera. There are loads of them to choose from, with some being wholly battery-powered and wireless while others require a plug or even a doorbell transformer if you buy an Arlo doorbell camera.

• Baby Monitoring: Monitor the wellbeing and activities of your baby with the Arlo Baby monitor. The device is able to stand out from the rest of the devices in the market today by also offering things like air monitor that checks the baby room for VOCs and keeps tabs on the temperature as well as a music player to calm your baby down.

• Pet Monitoring: You can also use Arlo products to monitor your pets and how they’re doing whether you’re out and about or if you have a particularly large home requiring monitoring at separate areas of your property. There’s no specific pet camera but many security cams from Arlo can double as such.

• Small Business Security: Just because you’re a small or startup business that can’t afford an expensive security system using state of the art cameras and whatnot it doesn’t mean that you can’t protect yourself. Arlo offers a more affordable yet HD solution to your security dilemma that can be scaled in accordance to your shop growth.

• Vacation Home Security: If you’re on vacation you want to be able to safeguard your home and call the police to your address when something is afoot and you’re not able to hire a babysitter or house sitter to look after your abode. You can get assistance quickly or evidence for the prosecution in HD when suspicious individuals scope out your home.

• Elderly Parents: Just like with baby monitoring, you want to be able to monitor your aging parents in order to better look out for them when you’re working and whatnot. A surveillance camera at the cost of Arlo cams is just what the doctor ordered when it comes to taking care of your elderly without shipping them to a nursing home.

Which is the Best Arlo Home Security Camera?

• For Indoors? For indoors, you should get a hold of any and all of the products since they practically all can connect to an electrical socket using an AC adapter or recharge their batteries with the assistance of the smart hub base. The only ones that are exclusively indoor use are Arlo Baby, Arlo Q, and Arlo Q Plus. 

• For Outdoors? You can use any of the ones with batteries (so every model except Arlo Baby, Arlo Q, and Arlo Q Plus) for outside or outdoor use, including the Arlo Video Doorbell unit and the Arlo Pro 3 with Floodlight. Many of these units are weatherproofed and water-resistant in order to allow you to survey your yard and secure your home perimeter.

• For car? You can use mobile or vacation home security cameras from Arlo like the Arlo Ultra,  Arlo Essential, and the Arlo Pro for mobile or car security that should work well along with your car alarm. Just make sure their batteries are recharged to ensure overnight protection every time.

Reviews

Here are our reviews on the different Arlo cameras currently available.

• Arlo Ultra Review: Arlo Ultra and Ultra 2 are HD to 4K security cameras by Arlo that have all the trimmings and offerings of every last Arlo cam unit save for perhaps the floodlight feature exclusive to a certain edition of Arlo Pro 3. From Color Night Vision to Dual Motion Detection as well as HDR, Auto Zoom, and at least 3 Mbps upload speed requirement, this camera is the cream of the crop of Arlo’s offerings.

• Arlo Essential Review: Arlo Essential, as the name implies, offers all of the essential features of a quality Arlo smart security camera just short of being an Arlo Ultra. It comes up short in certain Ultra departments, like having 130° diagonal instead of 180° diagonal field of view or having a single motion sensor instead of dual motion detectors. 

• Arlo Wire-Free Review: Arlo is the most basic and also the most affordable of the cameras that have all the basic offerings of free 7-day cloud storage, 110° field of view, built-in siren and IR light for night vision, a battery that lasts 3-6 months, wire-free rechargeable battery, and 720p resolution.

• Arlo Pro 3 Floodlight Review: This is essentially the Arlo Pro 3 with a Floodlight attachment or feature included in order to give you full-color night vision and a way to ward of would-be burglars and home invaders care of a 2,000 to 3,000 lumen LED white floodlight that should work well with the siren. 

• Arlo Pro 3 Review: It’s the Arlo Pro 3 without the Floodlight. It has 2K HD video, HDR, wire-free use, a Single Motion Sensor (130° horizontal) that’s better than Arlo Wireless and Arlo Essential, no sound detection but has motion zones and two-way audio, and is also good for indoor and outdoor use. 

• Arlo Pro 2 Review: The unique thing about Arlo Pro 2 going between Pro and Pro 3 is that its motion detection varies from it being plugged into it being used wirelessly outdoors. It has an IR-based wire-free motion detector and a plugged the video-based 3 activity zone detector depending on your power setup.

• Arlo Pro Review: Ironically, the Arlo Pro has a slightly larger resolution than Pro 2 instead of the other way around, with the camera able to go up to 1280p (1280 x 720) like the Arlo Go. It “falls short” to its later version by being completely wire-free and having fewer motion zone options as a result of it working only with a rechargeable battery. 

• Arlo Go Review: Unlike Arlo Pro, the Arlo Go has sound detection and an AC Adapter Output (120V 2A). it’s not a strictly indoor device and only requires 1 Mbps upload speed from your Wi-Fi Internet but it does require more power and voltage to work. It also offers scheduling, geofencing, 3G/4G connectivity, SD card ports, and a wide-angle lens.

• Arlo Baby Review: The beauty of the Arlo Baby is that on top of giving you 1080p reliable video camera footage to monitor the wellbeing of your infant child, it also offers a Smart Music Player, Smart Multi-Colored Night Light, and Air Sensors that detect VOC level, humidity, and temperature.

• Arlo Q Review: From our experience, the Arlo Q is a pretty good indoor camera with all the basic Arlo requirements saves for weatherproofing. It has a 300-feet line of sight wireless range, free apps, and 8x digital zoom. However, it does have a 5-second lag time when in use that might annoy certain users. 

• Arlo Q Plus Review: The Arlo Q Plus is basically the Arlo Q with a bigger emphasis on video storage such as the free 7-day-at-a-time video upload feature available to all cameras and its SD Card Slot for microSDHC or microSDXC card class 10 or higher with 128GB maximum capacity. So it’s Arlo Q with more storage options.

Arlo Smart  

Here’s the lowdown regarding Arlo Smart. 

• What is Arlo Smart? Arlo Smart makes your camera notifications more meaningful and detailed. Instead of being alerted of movement that can be false alarms, this feature allows your camera to figure out whether it detected people, vehicles, animals, and so forth as well as sounds like alarms or doorbell rings. It also allows you to customize activity zones and so forth. 

• The benefits of Arlo Smart: With Arlo Smart, you can get Advanced Object Detection so as you’d have an idea of what triggered its alarm. It also detects packages as they’re dropped off or picked up. It even has Custom Activity Zones that allow you to focus on motion detection on certain areas within the camera’s field of view. Its e911 service allows you to call emergency dispatchers closest to your specified address to boot (U.S. only service). 

• Using Arlo Smart: Before using Arlo Smart, you should avail of an Arlo Smart subscription. Read about the different subscription plans below or visit the Arlo website for more details. How sophisticated your Arlo Smart service depends on how much cloud recording is available for upload or online retrieval, after all.

• Arlo subscriptions explained: Here are the different Arlo subscriptions and what they entail. For price specifics and more details, visit the Arlo website on its subscriptions and plans page. 

• • Arlo Basic – Free: This is the 7-day rolling recording wherein you can get to record up to 7 days or a week’s worth of recordings before they’re rolled over with new recordings to save on your archival space. This service is free for all devices to save for Arlo Pro 3 and Arlo Ultra, which use the 7-day Smart Trial.

• • Arlo Smart Premier: With Arlo Smart Premier, you can record in the cloud for up to 2K video resolution on 1-5 cameras. Your clips don’t only last for a week or 7 days but a whole 30 days after recording. 

• • Arlo Smart Elite: With the Arlo Smart Elite that’s recommended for the Arlo Ultra series of cameras, you can record up to 4K video resolution footage for 1-5 cameras. Like with the Smart Premier, it rolls back recordings for 30 days. Each clip has an expiration date of about a month. 

• • Arlo Add-on: For both Smart Elite and Smart Premier, every additional camera beyond 5 cameras can get single-camera plans each for half the price as well. For example, a single-camera plan for Smart Premier is $2.99 so you can get that at about $1.50 after the discount. For Smart Elite it’s $4.99 or at about $2.50 at the half.

• • 24/7 recording: This package allows you to record all day, every day for the whole year to ensure the absolute security of your home and small business. When plugged in, the Arlo Ultra series, Pro 2-3, Arlo Q, and Q Plus can record non-stop to the Arlo cloud with a Continuous Video Recording (CVR) plan for every camera. You can only watch these videos on the cloud though; you can’t download them. 

How To Install & Setup Arlo Cameras

Open the battery compartment, insert the battery, bring the camera at least 3 feet of the base station, and sync them together. Just press the Sync button on the base station for about 2 seconds and release. Wait for the sync status LED to blink green. Press the sync button on top of your Arlo unit for about 2 seconds and release as well. The sync is confirmed by a blinking blue light on the unit.

Extend your Arlo’s battery life

Here are the ways to extend the battery life of your Arlo.

• Switch to Optimized or Best Battery Life setting: Like the battery energy savers, settings, or modes found in your laptop, your Arlo cameras have the option to optimize its energy usage to save battery life, which entails lower resolution, fewer alarms and notifications, and less sensitive motion detection settings.

• Record shorter videos: You can also save battery life by recording shorter videos. Naturally, the longer you record and the more files are sent to the cloud, the more draining it is for your battery. It’s better to record short enough clips for you to figure out who or what is at your home in certain specific times. 

• Place your camera closer to the base station: The base station doesn’t only serve as the battery charging station but also the adapter or plug for your camera. It works the same way your laptop battery doesn’t drain as long as its adapter and plug are plugged into the nearest power strip or wall socket.

• Back up to USB: It honestly takes more energy for the video recording to be sent to the cloud than it is to simply save it on your SD card or USB device like a flash drive. Back up your video recordings via USB to allow yourself to view them whenever you want versus having them lost within 7 days or a month depending on your cloud-subscription plan.

How are Arlo cameras compared to other brands?  

Let’s now compare the Arlo camera brand to some other popular brands out there. 

• Ring vs. Arlo: Which is more secure? Amazon’s Ring brand or Arlo? For one thing, Arlo is more concentrated on creating a security ecosystem with geofencing and cloud storage plans covering at most 5 cameras each. The ring is more about securing your outdoors or outside perimeter with its outdoorsy battery-powered cameras and video doorbell cams that attach to existing doorbells or double as doorbells with camera functions. 

• Nest vs. Arlo: Arlo is always the best option when it comes to outdoor cameras because of it weatherproofing, free cloud storage, loud siren, smart functionality, battery-saving options, and hub charging tech. The Nest cam is more of an indoor device with good person detection, night vision, and A.I. (that you need to pay for as a service). Arlo is more of an all-rounder that works in both indoor and outdoor settings.

• Blink vs. Arlo: Arlo cameras have perks like the 8x zoom of the Arlo Pro 2 and Q as well as varying field of view ranges from 180° to 110° (130° and 160° in between). With Blink products like the Blink XT, you get only a 3x zoom and a more limited field of view of 110° and some such. Both Arlo and Blink units have similar quality video recordings ranging from 1080p to 4K, but Arlo is the clear winner in terms of extra features.

• Wyze vs. Arlo: Wyze Cam is not up to par with the likes of Arlo Pro 2. It’s not a bad camera though for its price. It’s able to compete with all the Arlo basics of having two-way audio, motion detection, and night vision. It’s better in terms of offering 14 days of rolling free cloud storage instead of just 7 days. However, in all other aspects, Arlo Pro 2 and higher outdoes Wyze Cam in every single way.

Arlo FAQ  

Here are the most frequently asked questions regarding Arlo products. 

• Which Arlo cameras work with the Arlo Solar Panel? The Arlo Solar Panel is compatible with the Arlo Pro 2, Pro, and Go cameras. The product is weatherproofed and connects via a Micro-USB port. It even includes a water-resistant 1.8 meter or 6-foot cable.

• Are Arlo cameras interchangeable? Yes, Arlo Pro Cameras feature backward compatibility in terms of base stations. This allows you to sync them with your Arlo Wire-Free base station almost interchangeably. In turn, any wire-free camera can also sync with the base station for Arlo Pro products.

• Can I manually activate the siren? Yes. In Arlo Pro 3 and Arlo Ultra in particular, you can activate the siren by going to the Devices page and clicking/tapping the shield icon. From there, tap/click the Activate Siren option. You can turn it off the same way.

• What Exactly Is the Arlo Security Light? The Arlo Security Light detects motion and alerts you with the app push notifications or email alerts that something is moving nearby your Arlo security cam. The light also turns on when it detects motion at a dark or low-light location, partially to ward off whoever or whatever triggered it. 

• How far away can I place my camera from its base station? You can place your Arlo camera at a maximum of 90 meters or 300 feet from the base station as well as SmartHub. This maximum line-of-sight range is reduced by each ceiling, wall, or other obstruction between the device and the base station.

• Can you use activity zones or action areas with your Arlo? Yes. To be more specific, you can take advantage of activity zones or action areas feature with an Arlo home security camera setup. It enables you to specify areas on your camera’s field of view for inclusion or exclusion from your notifications.

• Do Arlo Cameras Have Local Storage? Not all models feature local storage. If you have a wireless or wire-free Arlo camera then yes, they all have local storage that allow you to view their recordings even when your Internet is down. For the Arlo, Arlo Pro, Arlo Pro 2, Arlo Pro 3, and Arlo Ultra, it’s all in the cloud unless you connect a USB to them.

Final Thoughts 

Arlo is quite the impressive security camera and doorbell camera brand that should give its peers Ring, Nest, Blink, and Wyze a run for their money. It produces a smart security alarm ecosystem you can depend on, whether you choose one camera or multiple.  As this guide showcases, you won’t go wrong with most any Arlo camera, whether you’re buying Arlo Pro to Arlo Ultra and various other Arlo variants. Long story short, if you want to protect those you love the most, get an Arlo security camera or doorbell video camera of your choice post-haste.

Arlo Comparison Chart

Arlo Indoor Cameras

Arlo Pro indoor and outdoor cameras

Arlo indoor and outdoor Cameras

References:

1. James Stables, “Arlo complete guide: Choose the perfect Arlo and get more from your security camera“, The Ambient, December 10, 2018
2. Rose Thibodeaux, “The Complete Guide to Arlo Security Cameras“, Home Alarm Report, August 28, 2019
3. Megan Wollerton, “Arlo Pro 3 Review“, Cnet.com, October 30, 2019
4. Zach R., “Arlo Camera – Comparison Chart & Overview“, Just Click Appliances, February 11, 2019
5. Mike Prospero, “Arlo Q vs. Arlo vs. Arlo Pro vs. Arlo Pro 2 vs. Arlo Ultra: What Should You Buy?“, Tom’s Guide, January 27, 2019
6. “Arlo Smart Plans“, Arlo.com, Retrieved July 20, 2020
7. “Arlo Pro vs Arlo Pro 2 – Geofencing“, Smart Robotic Home, November 20, 2019
8. “Welcome to Arlo Support“, Arlo.com, Retrieved July 20, 2020
9. “Arlo Home Security Systems“, Arlo.com, Retrieved July 20, 2020

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