Netloear's Arlo review, an efficient wireless camera smart health innovation

When the Netgear connectivity expert enters the smart health connected objects market, inevitably, we expect to find efficient smart health connected products. Here, we are rather seduced by this small health home automation device very easy to use which will allow you to monitoring your health home from your mobile terminals or your computer without even thinking about it.

Introducing Netgear's Arlo Camera

Arlo is his little name. This is not yet another IP camera, but a real health home video surveillance installation that you are going to have in your hands, all wireless. She is compact, works with a magnetic fixing system, resistant to water, even if you cannot immerse it (it will spend its days in the rain without deteriorating, logically). Night vision, motion detection, dust and humidity resistance, or at temperatures from -10 to 50 ° c… Arlo has many rather qualitative features, which you will be able to discover in the rest of our Review.

(embed) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3eCd4dou7c (/ embed)

Mark : Netgear

Category: health home automation camera smart health connected to video surveillance

Release date : Available on the American market, and in France since mid-March 2015

Marketing price: Starting price for a camera, its docking station, 4 lithium batteries, 1 Ethernet cable, 2 wall mounting screws, 1 mounting guide and 2 magnetic posts: € 269.99, retail price recommended. In comparison, the kit of 3 cameras is 519.99 €. The 4 and 5 camera packs are not yet marketed in France.

The camera can be purchased alone without its accessories for € 169.99.

Competitors in the market: We have found a few competitors on the market, but they never have the same options. Some also allow audio recording, which Arlo does not do. But after careful research, we did not find any that allows most of what Arlo allows, namely: motion detector, waterproof, wireless, smart health connected to an application and searchable in wifi AND mobile network AND with a simple design and a magnetic system.

Tested on: iPhone 4. Finally a smart health smart health connected object that accepts old versions. No need for Bluetooth 4.0 to operate Arlo, most smartphones are compatible.

Unboxing

Here, we discover the Arlo HD camera with its “Smart health home Security Camera” kit from Netgear, in a white box with studied packaging, with a transparent plastic part to expose the two cameras on the top. The cameras are well screwed on their base and can only be dislodged after "effort". Indeed, it is necessary to unscrew small rigid plastic washers in order to bring them out. In terms of user manual, here, no fuss, everything is available on the Internet, so you will only geta guarantee as well as some legal information, some guidelines for where to go online to register and start your camera, and signage to position where you want to indicate that you're filming.

Design & Ergonomics

The Arlo HD camera from Netgear is at first sight solid, of good quality. The shape is questionable but not unpleasant, and it is true that it is very compact and light weight. White, with a gray circle at the edge, it has a lens with digital zoom and infrared LED for night vision. The interest of this camera is that, prior to that, it should easily be forgotten … which is not necessarily the case with its reception base, certainly white and flat, but all the same visible.

On this station, you can see symbols appear which indicate where the synchronization of the device is, synchronization which you should not have any difficulty in achieving. The cameras have a "Sync" button on their head, and the other base station sync button is on the right side.

Mobile app

Arlo’s mobile app is easy to find by typing “Arlo” in your store. It is fully dedicated to your camera and can manage two simultaneous views, beyond that, your smartphone screen will not be enough. It will therefore be necessary to go on tablet, with four possible views, or on a computer, where you will have endless possibilities, knowing that at most, you can connect 15 cameras per docking station and you can go up to three docking stations, so 45 cameras in total, simultaneously.

Compatibility: the Arlo camera is compatible on all types of Android platforms (Tegra2) and in a free iOS version in French. Older iOS and Android versions are also compatible. You can also access monitoring from a computer without problems by logging into the Arlo portal.

Connectivity: Wi-fi and mobile network

Use & Getting started

Netgear's Arlo camera is, once out of the box, pretty simple to handle. To Review it, I immediately set up the docking station by plugging it into a router, smart health connected the Ethernet cable and saw the first two LEDs light up. Then, I clicked on the synchronization button on the right of the box, then started the synchronizations of the two cameras. The camera lights first flashed orange, because I did the operation a bit quickly. Then, the second time, the indicator light was blue and "flashed" for a few seconds before finally turning off. When I launched the app and watched the docking station indicate three green lights, I could see that the cameras were already working.

No worries on this side, therefore. The silver gray magnetic base is placed on the back of the camera, but the camera is also magnetic and light, it can be easily positioned on metal supports … lamps, radiators, fridges … If you intend to use it regularly, it you will need to position the base on a wall at an angle, and use the screws and plugs provided.

Adaptation time

Theapplication is very simple to configure, although it does require spending some time on the screens at startup to enter your personal details, and you will need to enter the codes for your secure cameras. For your cameras to work in wifi, you will need to activate the same wifi as that which powers the docking station. But the cameras can also be viewed via 3G or 4G.

Getting started with the application is a bit long, which is most complicated because, if you do not want to be inundated with notifications and push, you will have to configure your camera correctly. Otherwise, you will receive a notification as soon as the slightest movement is detected, indicating that a movement has been detected. To configure your camera, you will need to adjust its sensitivity in terms of movement, but also its brightness, and the time periods during which you want it to detect movement. You can also adjust the recording time, up to 120 consecutive seconds. Whenever your camera detects motion, it will send you a notification and you can quickly view the image in the gallery.

So remember to define a full schedule of the week for motion detection, this will save you battery, storage, but also incessant notifications. If you want, you can also put the camera in OFF for the whole week, or in ON permanently, free to you.

Features

Arlo is indoor and outdoor, it automatically goes into night mode with a infrared vision LED. It is in high definition, with an IP 65 rating (resistant to dust and humidity) and 100% Wifi. Waterproof, it can be placed outside and be subjected to rain and snow, but cannot be submerged. She is functional from -10 to + 50 ° c.

At the level of the case, we can see that it is designed with a fairly rigid and difficult to open battery access valve, to precisely preserve from bad weather. It will adjust its resolution or its number of images per second depending on the connection available to the user. The 720p image for 25 frames / second base may therefore be reduced. L‘Image is encoded in h.264, at an angle of 130 °.

Arlo switches alone in night mode. However, it operates on a system called “Self-monitoring”, it is not an alarm system, it is up to you to configure your device as you wish and consult it. It is the creation of movement that creates feedback.

As wifi consumes a lot, Netgear has modified the connection characteristics to provide more autonomy. So this is not a wifi operation per se. All videos are stored in the cloud. We can choose to have Arlo take photos, videos, there are filter systems and each camera is independent.

Recording capacity: free storage up to 1GB. For an extension of the number of cameras or storage, you will have to pay a subscription.

Conclusion

Netgear's new health home automation video surveillance camera is functional, efficient and easy to use. We are waiting for the rest of the health home automation range (smart health home) to find out if Netgear has chosen to extend a red thread between its smart health connected objects or if the products will be isolated in their use.

What we like: Arlo is a real little spy who does her job pretty well. If you are concerned about burglaries or need to monitoring an area that is not busy but is sensitive, motion detection will be sensitive enough to give you satisfaction. However, avoid it in a populated place because you risk being overrun with notifications, day and night, despite the planning. We like its compact shape, its wide angle, its powerful night vision, its autonomy and its maneuverability.

What we don't like: Nothing hateful in this smart health smart health connected object. Can be a flat to express with the base of reception Netgear, a little too voluminous, and not necessarily matched to your interior. We would have preferred something more design that we can forget in a living room or even appreciate visually. But it can be put on a shelf without necessarily being visible, so nothing dramatic. It would also have been nice to have rather than batteries, rechargeable or not, a battery to simply reposition.

The app-level user experience is a bit convoluted. The handling is a bit long and uncertain, and it is not necessarily very intuitive. The idea of ​​setting up a community platform to study user feedback has a real interest, it serves as a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) in more developed. For the moment available only in English, the platform has this interest to collect comments from users. However, it lacks animation by a community manager or a member of staff from Netgear to provide information, certain questions having remained unanswered.

Arlo's Netgear API is not open to developers, the format is proprietary. To see if the rest of the range will be interoperable, and how it will be. Discover our interview with Netgear very soon to find out their positioning on the smart health connected objects market.

The best explanatory articles are located in the “Recommendations” and allow you to access small personalized manuals by task (set up your camera, save battery, …). We can't wait to see this platform in French so that we can comment on it correctly!

Design and Ergonomics – 8

Application – 8

Features – 8.5

Getting started – 9

Value for money – 6

7.9

Design : The design of Arlo is especially studied to optimize the space taken by the battery and to be compact. She would have been even more cute in round mode to be more discreet and integrated into the environment. The reception base displeases us and takes up a lot of space. Finally, it is not the design that will have caught our attention the most.

Application : An application which requires work but which since its update is available in French on iOS and Android. A simplified interface and a more intuitive planning of the time slots for detection of the camera would be preferable.

Use / Getting started : The application is probably longer to take in hand than the camera itself, we have not timed, but the synchronization was quick and simple to perform, and when opening the box, we can almost everything immediately set up his camera, which is a real positive. Getting started is not offensive from the outset and you can quickly find your images once the camera is down.

Value for money : € 219.99, it's an investment. However, most IP surveillance cameras are less than 100 euros but they are not waterproof and not always as handy as Arlo. The concern is above all that if there is a real need for video surveillance, a single camera, despite a possible wide angle, is a bit short. So it quickly becomes heavy in terms of budget if you plan to install several. By replacing lithium batteries with a rechargeable battery, the purchase may be less frightening in terms of consumption over the long term.

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