Arlo - Wireless Home Security | Night vision, Indoor/Outdoor, HD Video, Wall Mount | Includes Cloud Storage & Required Base Station | 1-Camera System (VMS3130)

Stop searching for indoor/outdoor cameras, these are it and here's why!I tried 8 different camera brands and Arlo won. I wanted to make sure we got the right ones and I didn't want to pay for an expensive monthly service just to get a live view of my cameras. Arlo does not require you to pay for their monthly fee unless you want storage backup to view historical content, which is nice.The first set of cameras we tried were the Defender outdoor cameras CCTV - we had these backing up to a DVR which means that the cameras record footage 24/7 - even if internet is down. For outdoor cameras, that was an important feature for us, but if its not for you then the Arlo win hands down. When compared to Defender cameras, the Arlo have a much better picture quality, MUCH BETTER. The catch? You pay more for the Arlo. Since we got the Defender cameras first, I learned the hard way that I should have went with quality. Yeah, I saved $300 buying the Defender brand cameras the first time around, but I regreted it because when I viewed the cameras I could barely ascertain what was in the picture. In general I can see, but no details were noticable.We decided to get indoor cameras and for indoor cameras the Arlo are what we needed and more. Another thing I like is that if we ever decided to move them outdoor, they will work outdoor as well and we will not need to buy another camera. They run on rechargable batteries, so no need to run wires which is nice.The other indoor cameras we purchased the same time as the Arlo (and later returned) where as follows;Wainsview1. SereneLife Indoor Wireless IP Camera - HD 1080p - complete crap, did not even sync up to our internet. If it's a hassel to set up then I am moving on to the next camera. If you can't even make the set up process easy for the consumer, that sets the tone for everything else. No thanks.2. Amazon Cloud Cam Security Camera - I ordered this and then canceled it before it shipped, I was disspaointed when I read the reviews. I had high hopes since other Amazon products have been superior, not these cams. Sounds like they have some kinks to work out which they did not before they deployed to the user community. I think in the future these can improve, but here is a tip for Amazon Cam, go back to the table, kind the root cause of the issues, debug, UAT, deploy once you reach a level of quality. If Amazon worked out the issues that consumers are frustrated with then I would give it another try. Users want the ability to view their cameras LIVE without paying for a monthly service. Users also want the ability to store footage using their own storage devices, we don't want to pay for a monthly service (and the price always goes up for monthly service, always).3. Wansview Wireless 1080P Security Camera, WiFi - let me start off by giving this camera some credit, of all the cameras we tried, this one came the closest to the Arlo cameras (for indoor use only). What I loved about this cam was that it worked on WIFI and we had the option to hard wire to our home network. Another thing I loved was that it was like a robot and I could control if the camera moved up, down, left or right. I literallally had the ability to view every area of the living and kitchen without the need for multiple "fixed" view cameras. Sometime I have to put multiple cameras in a locatation so that I can get the entire view, this camera takes away that issue. Due to its flexability, you can put it in an open location and get the view of a general area which normally could require 3 fixed cameras just to get the full view. Another thing I loved is that I could change the lightness and contrast of the live feed whichw as awesome at different times of day and made the picture more clear. The last thing I LOVED about this camera was that I could use it as a 2 way voice, and a loudspeaker while I was away from home. You might be thinking, why do I need this feature? Believe me, I thought the exact same thing, until I needed it. Need to get your spouses or kids attention and they are not picking up their phone? Maybe you ordered pizza for them or have a package that needs a signature and you are watching your family on the camera while you are away and no matter how many times you call them to tell them to get the door, they cant hear you because their phones are on silent. That is when the 2 way audio speaker comes in handy, yell at them to get their attention to get the door, problem solved. I thought having a ring doorbell would make our lives easier, but, when someone is at the door and they press it, the only notification or sound to alert us, is sent to our phone via the Ring app, if you dont have your phone nearby, you will never hear any sounds that someone is at the door. So that was a problem. Anyways, after all the positive comments on this cam, why did the Arlo beat them? Simple, the Arlo application interface (phone app) is far superior, the ability to add multiple cameras much easier on Arlo. On the Wansview, I did love the camera, but we need multiple cameras in multiple areas of the house, it would not let us add the additional Wansview cameras we purchased (which is the review of camera #4 - Wansview Wireless Security Camera, 1080p). So we would have to open one app to view the Wansview cam and another app to view the other cameras, NOT REALISTIC. I want to view all my cameras on one application, with one click. I don't have time to look at Wansview cam and then open another app to view my other cameras. The user wants one place to view it all, not multiple, which means it is of high importance for the other Wansview cameras to sync up to the application without issue. When we got the other camera4. Wansview Wireless Security Camera, 1080p - nothing but problems trying to add them to the Wansview app. That is what blew it for Wansview. If you need just one camera, this one would work, but if you need more than one, that is the issue. Sad this one didnt work out.5. ISEEBELL Home Camera, Wi-Fi IP Indoor Security - the review for this one is more simple, Postive: Great Picture - Negative: Terrible App interface which continuously crashed and made it impossible to reply out. We returned them not because the picture quality was poor, but because the app to view the live feed completely sucked. Note to the manufacturer, the usability of the phone application which is used to view the live camera feed is just as important as the camera quality. Do not deploy your products to the market until the phone application kinks are worked out. Also, they did not offer a way to view live feeds online. When I am at work, I like to open a browser to view my life camera feed, I don't want to have to open my phone app each time when I have a desktop browser open. Many of these camera brands wont or dont have an option to do this. Guess who does? Arlo! Yes, Arlo has an awesome site, which I love, that allows me to view all my cameras from my laptop via my chrome browser. I love this feature!6. Fsmart wireless Indoor Home Camera Video - Positive: Great Picture, impressed with the picture for how cheap these are. They let you add a card to store video footage, HUGE cost savings which allows you to backup footage and doesn't require a monthly service fee (Arlo does not have this feature and that is a huge disappointment and area of improvement for Arlo to consider).7. Defender outdoor cameras - Positive: they work even when the internet is down and you can backup a month of 24/7 footage on the DVR that comes with the 8 camera package - no monthly service fees. Negative: Picture sucks bad and so does the phone app, the phone app seems like they put zero investment in improving, big let down.8. Arlo by Netgear indoor/outdoor cameras - The winner after comparing all of the above options. Why? Overall the two main important features was to have a good picture and reliable use of the phone app. The app has not crashed and is user friendly. The picture is clear and I love that. However, there is room for improvement and I hope Arlo listens to this advice. The camera market is getting competitive, so if you dont consider this advice, it might come back to bite you later on.Areas of improvement for Arlo:1. user wants the ability to insert SD card so they can backup certain amounts of footage without having to pay for your expensive monthly service2. user wants the ability to use some of the cameras as a 2 way radio - loudspeaker3. develop some cameras which have the ability to move, instead of all cams being fixed view. The user wants to have the option to at least move one camera up, down, left, right and have the camera use the same arlo application interface. Would be nice to have a camera with this option.4. Just invent an Arlo "ring" style doorbell - I will buy it. Ring irritates me bc I have to open their app and I dont want another app on my phone which is already at space capacity. Just get a doorbell and integrate that into the app interface so that when I check my house cameras I can see the front door cam. Would be nice.

I wanted to wait a little longer to write a review so I could thoroughly test the capabilities of this camera, but I felt compelled to write something now, because this camera has already proved its worth.I bought this camera on Black Friday as a present to myself. I have Nest cameras in my house, but wanted something for outside. I wanted something wireless and easy to install as I live alone and would be doing it myself and don't want visible wires. I also wanted something that offered a better plan than what Nest does. I kept coming back to this camera because it had everything I was looking for: It was wireless, had night vision, motion detection, small and inconspicuous, looked easy to install, offered a pretty good free cloud storage plan, and was fairly inexpensive. I waited till Black Friday to pull the trigger on the one camera set up to test it out. I planned to mount it to my front porch, and if I liked it enough, would buy a second for the back porch.Set up was easy and only took a few minutes. The app ran through the pairing process to the base station and the camera received great signal once I mounted it outside. I used the table/ceiling mount that Netgear offers for this camera and also purchased a silicon skin for it for a little extra protection. I'm using a Google Pixel phone and love the added security of the fingerprint sensor to open the Android app. I set the camera mode to work with my SmartThings and have it continuously running and alerting me to motion while recording 30 second clips. The camera can also be set up to work with IFTTT which opens up much more capabilities between it and other devices. One such capability is that everytime my camera senses motion, it sends a notification to a wifi-enabled desktop clock in my living room. I can sit on my couch and watch movies and will see a small notification below the television that someone is at my door. It's awesome.Video quality is very good. While it is not as clear as my Nest cameras, it is clear enough to see facial and other identifying features of whomever steps onto my porch (more on this later). Motion detection is also good, but setting that up was a bit more tricky. The default sensitivity setting is 80, but I don't know what 80 means and it is not clearly explained anywhere. I've tinkered with this number; setting it as low as 30 and slowly increasing it to 60. I'm still not 100% I've gotten it down right, but it senses what it needs to when it needs to. The viewing/motion detection area can be adjusted by pinching and zooming the screen, which is helpful because it I don't need the sidewalk in front of my home tracked since it gets a lot of traffic. I just need my steps and porch tracked. The only thing about this, however, is that however much you pinch and zoom the viewing area, that is all the camera will see. It blows up the picture which makes it grainier, and you won't be able to see the entire frame, even in live viewing. I would like to see the whole area when viewing a live feed, but only have the camera tracking a certain area of that. Once motion is detected, the camera starts recording, but it will take a couple of seconds before the recording starts, so if you have a short walkway, it will only record once that person is halfway to your door. For me, this means that I'll get videos that start once the person is already up the steps to my porch and in front of my door. It only captures them walking up if they're moving slow enough. The video recording can be set as well; the default is 10 seconds, but you can make it as much as a couple minutes. I started with one minute recordings, but eventually shortened it to 30 second clips. I did this because my camera often captures people who walk along my sidewalk, and it takes barely a second for them to come into, and leave, the camera view, but the camera will continue to record for 55 more seconds. I was getting a lot of dead video and it was shortening my battery life. I found that for my uses, 30 seconds was ample enough time to record what I needed.Despite these few small issues, I still very much love this camera because, to put it simply, it's paid for itself already. I had the camera for less than a month and it caught a thief.I have lived in my home for several years and do most of my shopping online. I literally have boxes delivered to my front porch on an almost daily basis. Most of my deliveries are left at my door and I bring them in when I get home from work. Despite having boxes laying out all day, and sometimes overnight if it's delivered after I've already fallen asleep, I have never had an issue with a stolen package. One day, though, I came home and realized I had a box taken. I stayed late at work one night and returned to a box on my porch. Once inside, however, I found out I was supposed to have gotten two boxes. I immediately checked my videofeed and saw an individual walk onto my porch, stand there for three minutes, then pick up and walk away with one of the boxes. I called the police and showed the responding officer the videos. He requested I take still shots of the video and email it to him so that he could pass it along to patrol. He warned me that they probably wouldn't catch the guy because, in cases like these, they pretty much always don't. He also said, though, that this was the first time that he's responded to one of these calls and was supplied actual video of the thief. Most times, when people have mail stolen, they can only say it was stolen. They're not able to provide a description, let alone video. I emailed the video stills and had little hope the thief would be caught. In a moment of frustration, I posted the stills to an image sharing site and described my incident. Fortunately for me, a few readers were able to make out some details in the stills that led me to a company that this person worked for. That led me to the identity of the person as well as the contact information for this person's probation officer. Two days after my theft, I was able to call the police and give them the identity and location of the thief and a warrant was put out for their arrest.I originally bought this camera simply because I love gadgets and connecting tech to other tech. I liked that this camera could connect to SmartThings and IFTTT which made it capable of connecting to many more things. I also liked being able to get notifications on my phone of exactly when my dogwalker arrived and exactly when she left. It was a fun way to keep tabs on my place. But now I also have the added bonus of peace of mind and a little justice. I can watch my house regardless of where I am. I know who exactly is standing on my porch at all times. Even when I thought they'd never catch the person who stole from me, this camera at least gave me the peace of mind of knowing that it was a stranger and not my neighbors who stole. The quality of the video and the sleuths of the internet helped me to solve a crime in less than two days!! I have since purchased a second camera that is mounted to my back porch so now my whole house is covered.I cannot speak highly enough about these cameras. Their wireless capabilities allow them to be mounted anywhere, the video quality is good enough to identify a thief, the added connection to other smart devices make them easy to control and configure, and they offer a peace of mind I didn't know I needed until I needed it. Once my subscription to Nest runs out, I will be purchasing more of these Arlos to set up in the home. I cannot recommend this camera enough.