Arlo Smart messed up notifications and my idea of how to do it better

[Gensus]

First the current issue, then my idea below.

Recently I have signed up for Arlo Smart Beta and started having issues right away. Sure is a Beta, so some issues are expected, but Arlo been playing with Smart for a long time now, if I understand it correctly and soon plans to release it and make it a paid subscription, so I feel that some improvements are needed asap.

First of all, I can sure understand how Arlo Smart Subscription (further just "Smart") can be an awesome addition for some people. If your Arlo camera is mounted in a spot where it gets a lot of movement (maybe passing cars) and you get too many notifications, Smart is a great way of filtering those, to receive only important notifications that some people should care about (Person detected). On the other hand, to resolve some similar situations it might be better to simply position camera in way that it is not triggered as often (if possible). This will reduce amount of recordings and prolong the battery life. So yes, AI Smart filtering is good in some situations.

That same AI Smart filtering really gets in the way in other situations, like mine. I use Arlo for more than security. I have indoor/outdoor cats and use Arlo to see when cats get home, so I can open the door for them. After Smart addition, Arlo won't send me some of the notifications when cat motion is detected. It does record video though. Notifications for "Person" and "Other" are both enabled, but sometimes those "other" notifications are simply not pushed. I guess Smart gets "too smart", thinking that motion is irrelevant. That sure is an issue in some situations, especially with freedom of camera positioning and fairly low resolution for software to really analyze and guess properly. Arlo Smart does introduce a delay, since recording needs to be analyzed before notification.
In the end, AI Smart video analisys is a complete waste, if you care about anything other than "person". And you need to trust that system with fairly low resolution for detect things properly.

----- My idea -----

My suggestion is to have an option of keeping system "dumb" and making notifications smarter in a different/simpler way. When motion is detected, camera starts to record video. Instead of analyzing it, it would be great if software would just grab the first frame (first picture) and push it along the notification (right away). No need for delay, no need for processing power in analyzing video. Simply motion detected notification + first frame (that will usually show what triggered the sensor).

Now the second part. When notification with picture arrives, it is usually very small and difficult to figure out. My suggestions is that when notification is touched/clicked on the screen of the device (phone), instead of the going to Live Feed, like it does right now, app will first open the picture full screen and give options to <Live Feed>, <Go to Library>, <Alarm>. If one checks notifications several seconds/minutes later, there is often no point in viewing <Live Feed>. Going to library and checking out recording is probably a better option. Also when full screen picture is shown first, it will allow user (who is a lot smarter than AI) to make a decision faster to act or not on that notification. When I see picture of a guest at the front door, I don't need to see any video, I will go open the door right away. If I see a picture with a deer in the back yard, I don't need to see any video, I will just ignore it. Without picture shown full screen first (currently not an option), the image is tiny and cropped, so it is often difficult to figure out proper action.

App can be even smarter by having an option of buffering/opening the <live feed> in the background while user is looking at the picture and making decision on proper action, so if <live feed> is clicked moment later, it will open video a lot faster.

This will make system a lot faster, will save batteries, will allow faster reaction to the alert. Also without AI involved there shouldn't be any additional costs to Netgear and a separate subscription won't be really needed. If Netgear/Arlo wants to charge for something, well, just make expanded notifications $10-30/year option. I would rather have this than dumb AI "Smart" subscription. It also won't interfere in any way with e911 subscription offering or "call a friend" option. 

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P.S.: As of right now there is no option to simply cancel "Smart" subscription and general Arlo support personel can't help either. User has to jump through hoops to get rid of the dumb smart system. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

[jeremyflattau]

Hi @Gensus, thanks for the feedback. I am able to comment on the inconsistency of the 'Other' push notifications being sent as I work on object recognition over here at Netgear. When an object doesn't move significantly or only slightly, this object is recorded but doesn't send a push notification. If you could confirm this with the recordings you are getting of your cats without the push notifications--are they standing pretty still or not moving much? If not please let me know so I can dig into the problem further. As a beta tester you should be getting a survey at the end of the testing period where you can provide your thoughts on the features you are testing. The comment you left above is quite helpful and I suggest sharing the same thought and any other suggestions you might have in the survey you will be sending in. 

Thanks, 

Jeremy

[Gensus]

Hi @jeremyflattau, that's the point. I want to be in control of notifications. I don't like it when system thinks that event is not important or insignificant. Event that "smart" thought as insignificant was actually important in my case. You can introduce a feature to limit the number of notifications, if arlo thinks that movement is insignificant (it sure will help some people), but there should be an option to be notified of everything.

I finally got rid of that "Smart" feature and feel so much better now, that I know that I won't miss an event that is important to me.

The only part of "smart" subscription that I liked was the picture in the notification, but it also wasn't sent with every message. Picture was sent I think only when Arlo could recognize the object. I would rather have the first frame with every notification without any "smart" analysis. In my experience (after going through my recordings library), the first frame will show what caused the alert at least 90% of the time. The other issue is that picture was small/cropped in the notifications. If after a click/touch of that notification I could see that picture (first frame) in full screen, I can determine right away if I should watch the "live view", "library" or just dismiss.