Arlo Q by NETGEAR – 1080p HD Security Camera | 2-way audio | Indoor only | No base station required (VMC3040)

by people ...

Product Specifications

Works with Amazon Alexa/Echo Show/Fire TV - View your live video with a simple voice command
1080p HD resolution- Live stream sharp HD resolution from anywhere using your smartphone, tablet, or computer
Enhanced night vision capability lets you see clearly even in total darkness
Records motion or sound-triggered events and saves them in your cloud to be accessed from anywhere via the Arlo app
Download your recorded videos to keep them for longer than 7 days
2-Way Audio - Built-in mic and speaker enable push-to-talk capability, so you can listen in and talk back
7 Days of Free Cloud Recordings - Arlo comes with recurring 7-day free cloud recordings. Live stream or view recorded video and audio for up to 7 days

Product Description

Style:Arlo 1080p Wired (1 Pack) See and hear in perfect detail with the Arlo Q HD security camera. Experience a new sense of security with 1080p HD video, night vision, and 2-way audio. Arlo Q alerts you whenever motion or sound is detected and notifies you with instant alerts so you never miss an important moment again.

Product Reviews

my unblinking telepathic watchbird

BLUF: Buy the Q Plus with a 128gb card (be sure it’s microSDXC and class 10). You’ll be happy.I’ll try to mention things I didn’t see in the fiftyish reviews I read prior to purchase. Fast initial setup, not too much tinkering to get the position just right, and easy to change monitor/notify modes or set up your own custom mode. It’s like having an unblinking telepathic watchbird perched in my kitchen. I named it Huginn after Odin’s raven that scans the earth to tell him what humans are up to. Alerts through the iPhone app are 3-5 seconds after the event; emails (for which you can specify multiple recipients) usually come another 10 seconds later. Excellent.The seven-day free cloud backup rocks. The Q Plus with a 128gb card for local backup rocks far harder. Mine is paired with SanDisk Ultra 128GB microSDXC UHS-I Card with Adapter, Black, Standard Packaging (SDSQUNC-128G-GN6MA). It’s great if you’re trying to avoid a subscription for more cloud storage, though $50-90 for additional hardware (upgraded camera and the memory card you choose) for five cameras would add up to many moons of premium subscription. You’ll have to think about what suits your needs; I say local backup storage is king. All activity in the busiest part of our home during the past three days has taken 2-3% of the card at 1080 video and audio as well – awesome. You can set it to stop recording when the card is full or automatically overwrite the oldest records once 80% full. Records on the card are mp4 files titled with the epoch time of the event, which you can easily convert to standard date and time with a Google search or just sort the folder of recordings by the date the file was created.Regarding motion-activated recordings, some old reviews of the battery-operated Arlo units griped about delayed activation. A moving object that was in sight for only a few seconds might be captured for the last half, so only someone’s backside would be seen while exiting your driveway. I don’t know if today’s firmware for battery-operated Arlo units handles it differently but there are no such issues with the Q Plus. It shows playback beginning a few seconds before the motion occurred and then stops recording based on your chosen setting, either upon motion stopping or when a specified length of time has been recorded. I’m guessing this unit has some kind of revolving cache of the past five seconds that it continually overwrites until motion is detected, then using those few seconds as the beginning of the recording.The only downsides so far:1) The memory card mysteriously stopped writing after the first couple days and required reformatting. May be related to me removing the card without properly “ejecting” through the menu. Hasn’t happened again but watching out. You can verify remotely that the card is functioning, needs reformatting, etc. (hasn’t happened again after 15 months).2) Switching modes by iPhone app (home/nonalert to away/alert) sometimes requires as much as 10 seconds for the camera status to be interpreted before changes can be made. Inconvenient but manageable. Might be my old phone. (Yes, upgrading my old phone, network cables from CAT5e to CAT7, and using POE instead of wifi dramatically increased speed.)3) Windows restrict the IR broadcast for night vision by reflecting the light rather than passing it. The camera’s entire field of view is lit up beautifully like noontime on the night vision recording except the window only showing a reflection of the interior. See attached photo of my kitchen at night. Anyone standing just outside that door window peeking in would be invisible to the camera inside. That’s just physics and nothing the manufacturer can address. I’ll fix it with an outside camera, or at least an exterior IR bulb illuminating that space just outside the window.All things considered, this system rocks too hard. I keep imagining scenarios like receiving an alert, watching a burglar, then debating whether to startle him with the two-way audio (“Hey bro, nice tattoo.”) or just call the police and showing them his every action in 1080 video. If Sonos ever gets IFTTT integration I might just have “Been Caught Stealing’” by Jane’s Addiction blare at him upon entry.This system is a huge security asset and Huginn will have a few buddies soon. Highly, highly recommended.— 5 MONTH UPDATE —This system won’t stop rocking and five stars ain’t enough. The peace of mind during a week out of town was phenomenal. A few observations.1) Storage capacity. The camera sits in the busiest part of the house and the 128gb memory card has recorded every motion and word in 1080p. At the rate it’s filling, the card will hold at least eight months of records before it’s full and begins writing over the oldest (turned out to be five months; see update below). Some might call it excessive, but the 64gb card was only $20 less, so no regrets.2) False alerts. Turns out the motion sensor can activate when the brightness of the room changes suddenly. If the sun is just right and the wind is strong enough to blow my trees fifty feet behind the house, the rapidly changing shadows cast through the window will set the camera to record. This “false positive” is no burden for me but may affect your application. You can choose “hot spots” in the field of vision so, for example, passing cars seen through the window are ignored, but this shadow effect is the entire room.3) Another application. I hear squirrels over my head in the early morning as I sit on a couch by an exterior wall. Are they on the gutter? Are they in the attic? Huginn was recently assigned temporary duty in the attic, staring at some peanut butter crackers for two weeks. He didn’t complain and reports no squirrel activity in the vicinity, and this bird doesn’t blink. I probably wouldn’t spend so much money on a pest cam but this cost me nothing new (except leaving a security post unfilled for a time).— 15 MONTH UPDATE —Huginn is still going great. A few more observations.1) The local storage in 1080p has kept the past five months of recordings before storage is full and it deletes the oldest (128GB card). I’m still pretty satisfied: it’s over 20,000 individual recordings from the busiest part of our home and enough time to look back if we suspect a break-in occurred.2) Sometimes excessive wireless network traffic causes the connection to be lost, indicated with a lavender light. I frequently caused it by playing three wifi speakers at once. I never verified but I bet the local storage still saves recordings. Worth noting, after any temporary loss of internet service, recordings made during the downtime will not be uploaded when service is restored.3) Switching to the power over ethernet (POE) feature eliminated the potential wifi interference and increased data transfer dramatically. Since the device receives its power through the same network cable transferring data, I initially thought just an ethernet connection would suffice. Rookie mistake; turns out you need to “inject” power into the cable. My router does not support POE, and looking around online suggests not many do. For larger networks there are relatively cheap 6-12 socket POE injectors and for small networks you can find an individual. DON’T BUY ONE! I had never looked closely at the supplied ethernet adapter until hunting for a solution. Turns out the power cord for the camera plugs into to a small outlet on the ethernet attachment, so the Arlo Q Plus has its own inline POE injector. The only additional hardware you need is an ethernet cable. I don’t know much about networking, but CAT5e cables are old tech that does not sustain max data transfer at long distances. CAT6 and CAT7 are newer generations with more insulation and other magic I don’t fully appreciate. What I do appreciate is that upgrading every network cable in my house to CAT7 only cost $15. Not even a question at that price, though for you may require more linear feet and dollars of cable than I did to upgrade.

Good system, already caught somebody

Works as advertised. Easy setup. Good picture quality. Two way communication works, with slight delay. In general the Arlo camera system has worked very well for me. I’ve already caught someone trying to brake into my car. The key is the alert/notification system. There’s no point to watching a recording the next day of someone taking your stuff. The Arlo motion sensors alert me to activity and then I can deal with it as its happening. The wireless system allows me to move the cameras easily to different locations

Good, good, good

Set up was very easy. A lot of equipment of this type doesn’t always come with very good instructions. Thankfully, this camera was an exception and came with an easy to follow Quick Start Guide.There is an app called Arlo which can be installed from Google play, the Amazon app store or for iPhones, from iTunes. The camera can be set up from the app or there is also a very easy to use website. I installed the app on my Android phone, but I set up the camera using the website as it’s so much easier to see things on a larger screen.The website set up followed the Quick Start Guide and it only took a few minutes to get the camera set up for first use. I did get a message that there was a newer software version for the camera, so I updated that right away.Getting the camera on my wireless went quick. It would have been faster if I had typed in the correct password the first time. Once I put in the correct password, the camera connected and I’ve unplugged the camera from power several times and each time it has connected back fine.The camera connects to power with a micro USB on one end (into the camera) and a regular USB on the other. The regular USB (sorry, I don’t know the technical term for the larger, regular USB) plugs into a USB power adapter and that plugs into the wall. The power cable is about 115 inches long.The camera comes with a wall mounting plate with screws and mounting anchors. We have a covered porch in the front of the house and I was going to mount this in one of the corners to view folks coming up onto the porch. But, after I tested this out, I decided I didn’t need to mount it.I have this sitting, on it’s base, on the inside of a front window, pointing toward the front of the porch. Yes, on the inside of the house, pointing outside.When I first set this up, I has this set up to record video when the camera detected any sound or motion. It records for 15 seconds. It can also just take a snapshot (a picture) when it detects motion or sound.Things were working very well, with the camera inside the window pointing out. I was very happy, thinking I didn’t need to mount it after all. It wouldn’t have been a big deal to mount it, but there is some work involved (drilling into the stucco, etc). And it’s nice not to have it mounted and have the option of moving the camera to another location if I want.The sound detection was working great. Actually, it was working too great. Because it’s at the front of the house, in a frequently used room, it would record things I didn’t need/want recorded from inside the house. I’m not an expert with all this, but I finally realized I didn’t want it to record for sound. I wanted it to record for motion only. So, I went into the settings and turned off sound detection and only had it record for motion.At first, the motion detection was wasn’t working well. We tested it out, walking up to the house, up the porch and it didn’t record. Shoot. I thought maybe it was because the camera was viewing things through the window and the double-paned glass didn’t allow motion to get through to the camera. I was bummed and then thought I had to mount it outside. Not a big deal to mount it, but it would have been so much easier to just stick it in a window, facing out.But, then I found the motion sensitivity setting on the web page and set the sensitivity to the max and now it works perfectly!! I couldn’t be happier.We have a 15 foot ramp going up to the front of the porch, with many tall flowers and plants surrounding the ramp. This camera seems to sense when someone is at the very front of the ramp, because it starts recording about 2 or 3 seconds before anyone comes into view, as they start walking up the ramp. That’s perfect.The camera starts recording and after a few seconds, the UPS person comes into view, puts down the packages, scans them and then I see him walking away down the ramp. The same happens when the mail gets delivered. The camera will start recording a few seconds prior to the person actually coming into view of the camera and will record for a few seconds after they leave. Perfect, perfect, perfect.I have things setup so that I receive an email and a text message when the camera detects motion. I have Cricket wireless right now and I have the camera send me an email to my cell and it arrives as a text message. For Cricket, the address is YourPhoneNumber@mms.cricketwireless.net. Make sure to include the 1 plus Area Code.I have the notifications coming for all motions right now, and the texts are a little ugly and long, because they are actually emails and are very wordy. But, I like them because then I know there was motion detected and I can bring up the app to see what the motion was.The camera comes with free cloud recording. It will save the videos or snapshots for 7 days, up to 1GB of data. There are also other options, which can be paid for monthly, that allow more data to be saved and for longer periods (plus other added functions). I just have the basic free one and I like it.I can easily view the recordings and delete the ones I don’t want. I can also download any I want to save, onto my computer.Wow, this turned into a long review!! I’m sorry, it’s so long. I’m trying to think if there are any other good things I want to go over…Oh, yes! A couple more things.I was able to turn off the status light on the front of the camera under Settings. That way the camera is not as noticeable in the window.Also, it’s possible to set up a schedule so that the camera is ‘armed’ for motion or sound detection during particular times. Useful if I want the camera to be armed while I’m at work or out of the house, but disarmed in the evenings when I’m usually home.I read on the Netgear Arlo page, that when this camera first came out, the scheduling feature was only available for the paid monthly subscriptions. But, due to feedback from customers, Netgear decided to add it to the Basic and free plan. So, speak up if you want something different! Seems Netgear listens to their customers. Nice.Lastly, the camera has Night Vision, too. Also works well.Overall, I am quite pleased with how easy it was to set up the camera and with how well it works.But, there are two things I want to note.One thing I am keeping my eye on, the camera gets pretty warm. Are they supposed to be very warm when plugged in? It’s not recording all the time, so not sure why it would be warm all the time?Also, on the website, after making different changes to the configuration/set up of the camera, the Save button (or the place you click to Save the changes) is in a different spot on the screen. On one screen, the Save button is on the bottom of the screen and it’s a rectangular area which gets clicked on. On a different screen, to save changes, the word Save is on the top of the screen, no button, just click on the word Save. Not a big deal, but it would be nice if this was consistent on all pages. I got frustrated a few times after making changes and I thought maybe the page automatically saved as I made changes, but it didn’t. I finally figured out each page has a Save button, just they look different and are on different parts of the page.

Arlo Q Saved Me From Getting Robbed In College

My Arlo Q had prevented an incident from possibly becoming worse when my roommate decided to go window shopping. At the time I was enjoying a fun night at the county fair when I received a notification on my phone that motion was detected. I watched in real-time this incident on the camera that took place. I recently had moved back to school after a summer’s internship where my landlord connected me up with a roommate I didn’t know.If you are in a situation where you can’t lock your door, and you don’t trust your roommate. Buy this, you won’t regret it. My camera is still working flawlessly two years later. This camera also works great as a pet cam which I do frequently to keep tabs on my ragdoll kittens when I’m away on travel for work.

Amazing

Clear picture and clear audio. This camera just made life easier, in love with it!

it’s in the garbage now. It takes forever to connect for a …

After 6 months of use filled with frustration, it’s in the garbage now. It takes forever to connect for a live view or to change modes – when it actually works.

Awesome

Has a good picture day and night. Sound is good. Love the monitoring and easy set up. The picture is off by a few seconds but overall a great camera and product.

Easy installation.

Device was super easy to install. Only an initial device “offline” issue that resolved on its own. The Arlo App is fairly simple to use.

… join wifi networks with special characters in the name like this is 1992

Unable to join wifi networks with special characters in the name like this is 1992. The quality is rarely every 1080p and i have 300mbps internet so i dont think that is the…

I do like the product

I bought 3 cameras. I do like the product, but one camera was malfunctioning by going offline. Spent 3 sessions with customer service to finally get them to admit it was…