That Time We Talked About Arlo Home Security System

35?

35.

This is episode number 35 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We are so excited that you could be with us today. Uh, we have a really cool show today. We're gonna be talking about some security cameras for you guys. It's just Kevin and I in the studio, so it's gonna be lots of fun.

Yeah, man, there's just so much stuff out there. Trying to figure out what you wanna buy, it's a big deal.

Yeah, and the summertime is upon us, and if you heard our episode, I think it was, what was that, episode 33? Talked about getting your house ready to go out of town with the folks over at Unlocking the Magic. For me, having something in place where you can kinda have an eagle-eye view as to what's going on in your home is important. I mean, it's a peace of mind thing. You don't necessarily have to use it, But it's nice that it's there.

Sure.

So, but man, we kind of jumped right in and we skipped the fun introduction parts.

Okay, what fun introduction would you like to have here?

Well, I mean, we need people to click on the subscribe button.

Okay, do it.

Kevin, have you done that yet?

I did. In fact, in my Pocket Cast app, I clicked subscribe to our own show so that it automatically downloads so that I know We get one download every single time an episode drops.

Is that where we're getting that one download?

That's it.

Man.

It's me.

Thank you, Kevin.

I listen to it also. I'm weird, man. I like, is that narcissism or is it just me wanting to know how it sounds?

I don't know. What I'm more curious about is I've run across these guys that listen to podcasts at like 2 times the speed.

Oh.

Have you found these guys?

Well, now that you say it, that's an option with Pocket Casts.

It's an option in all of them.

Oh, okay.

These guys are not innovating anything, all right?

Dang it.

They're just regurgitating other people's code. Let's just be honest.

Okay, fine. Either way, I've not tried that. Do you sound like chipmunks whenever you do that? I don't know.

I haven't tried it. I'm kind of afraid.

I don't want to do it.

My voice is weird enough.

That's true. We sound a lot alike.

A little bit.

Yeah.

So dude, I did have a— I had a weird one this week.

A weird one. Okay.

A weird one. So, I mean, if you like odd stories—

I do.

Yeah, they're fun. Um, so I, I actually had a customer call me, and so, well, okay, so this is why this is interesting. There's, there's a couple reasons this is interesting. Okay, for one, we often talk on the show about how there's certain kinds of homes that you and I are not as familiar with. Sure. Specifically because we live in Texas.

Yeah.

And, and so I was called out to a home here in the area that has a basement.

Oh, that's really unusual for Houston.

Isn't that weird? Yeah, I mean, like, for those of you that live up north and some other states where—

Well, even northern Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, these places have basements because it's tornado place. Right.

And it makes sense there. Like, down here, they would just be what they really are, swimming pools.

Exactly.

So anyway, this house has a basement.

Okay.

And actually a pretty extensive basement. And so the basement, It mainly consisted of like water heaters and air conditioning units and different things like that.

Okay.

And so it was really just like this 12 by 15 room. And, and so they had told me that they had had people in the house working on insulation and, uh, that the guys that were working on the insulation refused to come back to the house because there was a dead animal in the basement.

Oh.

And so they said, we just need somebody to, to go and get it. And I just happened to be the only one available. And it was one of our better customers. And I was like, you know what? I'll be there.

Sure.

I'll take care of it. So, I get there and she's like, well, it's in the basement but you gotta go over the wall and he's back there.

Over the wall?

Right, over the wall and—

So, there's like a half wall in the basement?

Yeah, there was like this wall and it was basically this 2-foot gap between the floor and the floor of the basement.

Oh.

After you were out of the big room which had the water heaters and the air conditioning.

And so, I got up there.

I mean, it's a massive house, man. I mean, we're probably talking like 15,000 square foot home.

Wow.

And, and so like you get up in this void and it just runs all the way underneath this house. And, and that's where people get up underneath it and do some work and things like that. So I get up underneath there and there's actually like automotive rollers, you know, that work underneath cars.

Yeah.

To get around.

Oh, cool.

Because it, you know, it's only like 2 feet.

Sure.

So you gotta kind of wheel yourself around.

Okay.

So I was like, all right, I gotta go find this dead thing. And so usually when there's something dead like that, that if you just follow your nose, it's pretty easy to find. And I get up in there and, you know, it's, it's an enclosed area, so I'm like, this should be pretty easy. And I don't smell anything right away. And I'm like, well, this is kind of weird. And so I, you know, I'm kind of rolling around, which is just an odd experience anyway, because I'm not underneath the car, I'm underneath the house. And, um, and, and there's like different sections with walls in it. Yeah. Anyway, so I, I had like one of those headlamps on.

Yeah.

So I, you know, we kind of got in like some darker areas down in there, and I was like, I'm gonna turn the corner and there's gonna be like some giant rat that's ready to like chew my nose off.

Disgusting.

Um, but anyway, I turned the corner and there's just like this mass of fur on the floor, but it's flat.

Oh.

And I'm like, like, it's, it's pretty wide. And I'm like, what is that? And so I get over there and I was like, oh, this is what they're afraid of. It was a mummified What? Yes. So like the skin of the possum had like solidified and like mummified. Oh, and so like there was just the outline of his skin and his fur had just like fallen off all around him.

Oh, yuck. Possums are so disgusting to begin with.

Yeah, and they don't look any better without their fur, let me tell you.

Oh man.

Uh, what's, what's it, what's it in The Princess Bride?

Rats of enormous Yeah, it's the R.O.U.S.'s.

Thank you.

That's Rodents of Unusual Size.

Thank you. Yeah, that's pretty much what he looked like except much smaller.

Oh man, that's gross.

So there you go, hairless possums in Princess Bride. Um, wow. So anyway, we, you know, we had to go in with the respirator. I mean, because it was, you know, it was disgusting. But sure, you know, we had to go in with the respirators and the gloves and the trash bags and the whole thing and get that— get all that cleaned up. Um, but we got him out of there so those, those weenie insulation guys could go back in and do their jobs.

That— I put me in that category.

Which one?

The weenie insulation guy.

I was making sure it wasn't the dead possum category.

No, no, man, that's—

No one should want to be a dead possum.

No, we had a dog that—

You're much better looking than a dead possum.

Really?

Oh yeah.

Oh man, that makes me feel good.

I mean, it's, it's not a tall ladder to climb.

You're not really actually complimenting me. That's just, uh, okay. We had a dog once that, um, he, he killed a lot of possums.

Oh yeah?

I was thankful. Sure. I mean, yeah, he would, uh, he would kill him and he'd put him in places that we wouldn't normally see him.

Like, we just smell special presence.

Oh yeah.

So let me, let me speak on behalf of the possum here for a second because he's actually a, a very good animal to have around around even though they're quite ugly and disturbing looking. So like they love— well, at least here in South Texas, I mean, and I assume possums' eating habits are pretty much the same no matter where you are. Like one of their favorite things to eat are ticks. Oh, ticks are awful. Yeah, so they're actually a good source of natural pest control on your property if you can keep your dog from killing them, which I mean like dogs are, you know, naturally they kind of I think because they're so closely related to like cats. Yeah, they kind of view them—

They don't move that fast, so they're easy to get.

Yeah, I mean, like they'll play possum and dogs don't know any better than something that's playing dead because they're kind of stupid.

It's a toy.

Yeah. Um, so, but yeah, they're actually really good to have around. I mean, because they, they, they eat a lot of bugs.

I still hate them.

I mean, they're ugly and nasty and, and weird looking and like, man, if you— that, that's a weird YouTube Hole to go down, like people that keep them as pets.

What?

Yes.

Oh, that's— no, I don't wanna—

Because they like, they'll slobber on you.

What?

It's— I'm telling you, man, look it up.

No, I'm out.

I'm sending you some stuff.

I'm out.

I'm gonna send you some links.

I'm gonna block you. We're no longer friends. Wow.

If I had to watch it, you should take a peek.

So, okay, well, so security cameras.

Yeah, let's get back to that. This week, we're going to be taking a look at the Arlo line of security cameras. A big reason we want to do that is because summertime is right around the corner. Having security cameras on your property is just a smart idea.

Sure it is.

It's really more peace of mind because it's not going to stop thieves, but it's definitely going to be a good deterrent. Part of the reason we wanted to do this review is because I'm out at people's homes all the time, and I'm consistently seeing these go up.

all over the place.

Um, and, and, you know, they're getting some mixed reviews and things like that, but I think part of the reason that they're winning is because, you know, to have someone come out and install a security system is pretty expensive.

Yeah. Anytime you have to drop lines somewhere for like power or, uh, Ethernet, you know, network connectivity, anytime you have to do anything like that, you, you just need to expect that there's going to be a high bill for that.

Right. And, and so like Right off the bat, this is a DIY-made system. You can hire a professional to come out and install this thing, but right off the bat, this is a wireless system.

It is not made to be professionally installed. Correct.

Now, in some instances, you can hardwire it in for power and different things like that, but it is built for Wi-Fi. It is built for the DIYer to be able to put up a convenient security camera system around the perimeter of their home. Yeah. So, and I think the assumption is, is that most, most homes have 4 corners. So like a typical system would have 4 cameras, right, to, you know, give you complete coverage of the home.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So as we kind of get into this, I think we have a little bit of information we want to give. And then we've, we've seen a couple of people who have asked some questions specifically about it. So we want to answer those questions. And so to start off with, uh, one of the things that we should say up front is there have been a couple of iterations of this, uh, system out there.

Yeah, I think they were on like the 4th generation of these things.

Yeah, so yeah, so and they've got a couple of different options, but, um, their very basic, uh, system, uh, was called the Arlo Wire-Free. It was a very old system. They upgraded to the Pro. Very old meaning Hmm, probably not that old.

It's probably like 3 years ago.

In their realm, after having this many new devices, it's old. Um, so it's called the Wirefree. Then they upgraded that to the Pro, uh, followed by the Pro 2, right? Followed by the Ultra, right? And then they also have one called the Arlo Go, which is one that we're not going to spend a whole lot of time really talking about today.

But— And then soon to come out, the Super Duper Ultra.

Sure. But, but I will say, so the Arlo Ultra is the main one we're going to talk about today because it is the newest, right, most advanced one.

Right.

I will say that they've had to do some upgrades on this, that they, they released it and then pulled it back, basically saying we had some issues with it. They tried some firmware updates and just didn't work, so they pulled it back and relaunched it, so to speak, with with a brand new system. So, uh, but, but just a few things about it. Um, it is—

And real quick, I mean, we're gonna be— someone over on Twitter named, uh, @moncy_sedatedjane, uh, asked the question like, what are the main features of the Arlo Ultra? Sure. And so we wanted to reach out to her and, and be sure and get her question answered. I mean, so like, so like, what, what are, what are some of the big features on the Ultra that we've Yeah, so a couple of things right off the bat.

It is the only one of their systems that offers 4K video recording.

Yeah.

So, um, you know, you know as well as I do that whenever you increase the video resolution, you increase the ability to just see things.

Yeah.

So, you know, whenever you've got a, a camera that is a distance away from the thing that it's recording, um, as much detail as possible is going to be helpful if you have encountered a situation where there's a thief or a robber— those are the same things, why did I say that? Um, like, like someone who's trying to invade your home, whether it's take something from that or try to get in. Um, you know, the more information you can give, the better.

Did you say a thief or a vandal?

That, that would have been much better vocabulary. Either way, um, so 4K— Or a vagabond. Yeah, weary.

I can keep going.

Okay, please don't. Um, so the 4K is bum.

Wow.

Do you— did you pull up a thesaurus? What is going on here? You either know a lot about these people or you have a thesaurus. I'm going with thesaurus.

Um, it's called my brain.

Oh, okay.

There's—

now we know more about you. Um, So after 4K, another big deal that they kind of upgraded to, uh, was what they're calling color night vision. So think of it this way, um, their older versions had infrared. Infrared is great in that it allows for you to see stuff when it's completely dark outside, right? However, you're getting a black and white, fairly, uh, pixelated image at that point.

Yeah.

But what these new cameras with the Arlo Ultra offer offer is basically a spotlight on the camera itself, which— so instead of needing like a motion detection light, these cameras have its own very bright spotlight to enhance, uh, color night vision. Um, so it just gives you a better, better picture at night. Yeah, basically. Um, so you can catch all those vagrant possums trespassing on your property. Yes. Yeah, all of those.

So I will say this, like, one of the cool things about the 4K that used as sort of like a demonstration is the ability to zoom in on images and things like that.

Yeah.

And so, you think about how far away, maybe like your front door is from the street. And so, the difference between a 1080p image versus a 4K image is, depending on how far that distance is, with a 4K image, if there's a weird car parked in the street or in your driveway or something like that, you ought to be able to zoom in and actually get the license plate number.

Right. Whereas even with 1080p, you may not be able to.

Right. It's less— you're gonna have a further distance, you know, the further the distance, the less likely that 1080p is gonna be a clear image where you can get, you know, those accurate numbers off the license plate. Or really, like, you know, just someone who like sort of passes through the yard, you could get a better accurate description of that person by zooming in. And, you know, you're just gonna have a better picture overall to, you know, protect your property.

Right, exactly. It also has a much wider viewing angle. So there are 3 on the Ultra, there are 3 viewing angles, um, and they've got one that's 180-degree angle, which is the widest they've ever offered. They've got a 155-degree viewing angle, and then the standard, which is what has been in all of the other cameras, which is 130. So, um, there's a big jump. between the Arlo Pro 2 and the Ultra in the amount of viewing angle that you get. You get a 50-degree increase in viewing angle on the Ultras.

Hmm.

So, uh, that, that's one thing that's big. Uh, the other thing, um, that's kind of a standout is the battery life. So one of the things that is a plus and a minus about these is is the fact that they're wireless. That's a plus.

Yeah.

However, anything that's wireless has to have a battery. Got a power source. Absolutely. So, um, basically you go— you have doubled the battery capacity in the Ultra versus the Pro 2. So those are kind of the, the big ones. There's a couple of other things. Um, for instance, uh, the Pro 2 the, the hub had a siren on it. So if there was something going on and the siren needed to be activated, the hub was actually what started, uh, sounding. Whereas in the Arlo Ultra, it's the actual cameras that have a siren in it. So a little bit, a little bit different. It's a little more targeted at that point.

Yeah.

Um, the bases are a little bit different, um, in how they mount. Um, There's a magnetic system with the Ultra 2— sorry, with the Ultra— that is just a little bit more flexible. It gives you more flexibility in installation. But other than that, those are the primary differences. Now, they're big differences. Sure, those are, those are big differences. And if nothing else, the 4K is a massive, massive difference.

Yeah, with the Ultra and the, and the 2, does Does the 2 also have the auto zoom and tracking?

Yeah, they both have the, um, the motion detection.

Okay.

And I believe, um, no, the Ultra is the only one that has the auto zoom and tracking. The Pro 2 does not have that. So that is an actual real benefit. So, so basically both of them run off motion detection. That helps save battery, right? It's not running unless they sense some sort of motion. But the auto zoom and tracking gives it an extra ability to focus on whatever is actually moving.

Right. And like I said before, one of the examples they give is like, you know, being able to zoom in on like a license plate or something like that. But like with the auto zoom and tracking is like that camera will actually, you know, follow the motion that's going in and zoom in. And because it's that 4K image, it's going to have a clearer picture as to what's actually going on.

Yeah, absolutely.

And it's automated. to actually zoom in and focus in on the activity that's happening. Yeah. Regardless of whether or not it's nefarious.

Absolutely.

It could just be you eating Cheetos on the couch.

And yet it's gonna pick you up.

And we got it in high def.

Yep. Now, a couple of things are different about the hub itself. One of the things that is different is that the Pro 2 It does not have the same connections that the Ultra has. So the Pro 2 utilized a USB port for storage, right? So there's 2 different ways you can store the, uh, the video that you record.

Well, and I think this is actually a question that we found on Twitter.

Yeah, it was.

By, by a guy named Daniel Anthony at, uh, I can't even— what is it? Dan Arnold I don't know if that's how you actually— but that's his handle. But he was asking if the Arlo 2 had, you know, he was basically— he, from what he was reading, he assumed that the only way that you could get video off of the Arlo system was through the cloud system that they offer.

Yeah, so, so that is a little bit of a misnomer. And here, so let's talk about it this way. So the, the Arlo Pro 2 had free cloud storage.

Okay. The Ultra for like a year, right?

For— no, I think it was free.

Okay.

Uh, for a certain amount.

Okay, I got you.

The Ultra is subscription-based only.

All right.

So you get a free year with the Ultra, right? After that, it's basically $9.99 a month. So, so $10 a month, right?

Um, $120 a year.

$120 a year. However, that only is going to record and store 1080p video.

Gotcha.

If you want 4K video, they've put a premium on that, partly because there is a lot more storage needed for a 4K video versus a 1080p.

Right.

So if you want that, it's $1.99 per month per camera. So you kind of have to be choosy. Uh, you probably want that front door to be be your, your maybe your 1 or 2, right, uh, cameras that is picking up the 4K and being stored, uh, because that's an extra $2 a month. So, um, but there's this whole question of do I need cloud storage versus local storage, right? So, uh, to answer his question, the Pro 2, you, you had a USB port that you could just plug in an external hard drive, and however large that hard drive was was how much video you could record and have stored locally. With the Ultra, there is no USB port. Instead, there is a little hidden

compartment in the bottom that allows you to insert a micro SD card.

That's super cool.

Yeah. So it is, maybe it's super cool that they have that.

Yeah.

However, For someone who's looking for an easy just USB, they may look at it and go, oh, I can't store locally anymore. I can only store in the cloud. That's not true.

Right.

You can store locally, but you're gonna be limited by the capacity of your microSD card, just like you would be with an external hard drive. It's just that the microSD card is gonna be significantly more expensive to buy a high capacity than a hard drive.

And so really at the end, you just gotta decide how lazy you are.

Sure.

Like, for me, I mean, I don't know that the SD card would be worth it. I mean, I don't want to have to go fetch that thing every time I want to look at my data.

No, and honestly, they would say that using, using the local storage is more difficult if you're trying to catch someone.

Sure.

Because if you have something uploaded to the cloud, you could give someone access to that. They could go check it out. You don't have to try to upload video somewhere.

Yeah.

To someone else, like an authority. because uploading video, I mean, it takes time.

Yeah.

And it takes storage, and it takes a lot of things that you may not have in order to catch someone. Whereas, you know, if you find out— I mean, one of the cool things about this is, so if it's got motion detection, if it detects motion and you want it to, it'll send you a push notification to your phone. Hey, it's detecting motion.

Yeah.

You can open up your phone and immediately see, oh, there's someone at my front door that shouldn't be there. They're trying to take a package. One of the cool things is this has a 2-way radio on it, so you can actually talk through the app back to, you know, through the camera to whoever you're wanting to talk to. So it's a little bit of a deterrent there. But also, let's say they go ahead and run off. They're like, nobody's here. I, I heard that coming from that, from that, uh, video camera. They take off anyway. You can contact the authorities, give them the information to get that video, and immediately they have access to it.

Yeah, I was gonna say If, if, if I were a thief and I saw one of these cameras, you know, just to be safe, I might go ahead and just steal the camera.

Sure.

And I mean, like, you know, not that we encourage thieves to listen to this podcast, but I mean, like, you know, let's say like they're intelligent enough to go like, hey, there's one of those Arlo cameras. Well, if I take the camera and they're only storing video on the little microSD inside that camera, all I got to do is take the camera and then they don't have any images of me. Whereas if you have it on cloud, it It's, it's already captured them and it's got to be there and you have that information to give the authorities.

And yeah, so the difference there though, butthole, is that none of the cameras are the hub, right? And the hub is the only place the micro SD card is.

Oh, that's where the SD card is?

Yeah, it's not on the cameras. So they can take the camera all day long and all they have is an input device.

Oh, okay. I completely misunderstood that then.

Yeah, so the hub, you know, it's like a router, right? Like you have your router and then you have your devices that are connected to the router. The hub is kind of the thing that sends out the signal and, and does all the work.

Yeah.

Whereas the cameras are just the devices that are connected back to the hub.

Well, there you go, thieves. You just got to go steal the hub.

Yep. Good luck. Now you got to get it in the house. In the house.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

So that presents a whole lot of other issues. And, you know, hopefully, um, you've even got one of your cameras inside the house, and so you're getting that image as well.

Yeah, so like speaking of which, we, we actually found this story on, on Twitter with this, uh, the guy called Cold Canuck Keith, uh, @ColdCanuck. Uh, apparently he was having an issue with some of his medications going missing.

Yeah.

And he installed— he put his— he was storing, uh, from what I can gather from the, you know, I'm gathering you have to sort of infer the information based on what he, you know, the limited— Got a few characters. The characters you can use on Twitter. But apparently he was having an issue with his medication going missing that that he was storing in his office closet. And so he put one of these Arlo cameras in his office closet and caught the cleaning lady cleaning him out.

Oh, well, isn't that handy?

Yeah.

Wow.

It works.

Yeah, good luck. So that, you know, and, and that's kind of a prime example of what you can do with something like this. I mean, I'm not, I'm not saying that you need to, you know, catch snoopers all the time, right? Um, but if, if you just want a little bit of peace of mind, these systems are going to be hugely helpful for you.

Yeah.

Um, and, and again, you, you might look at some of this and go, um, wow, that's a lot of money for a security system.

Yeah.

Uh, and, and, and I'll be honest, it is. At the time of recording right now, um, to, to purchase a 4-camera system Uh, the, the Ultra version, which has the 4K, um, 4 cameras and the hub, it's $999. Yeah, so right at $1,000. And so you look at that and you go, man, that's a, that's a chunk of change.

Sure.

But if you go to a box store and buy a security system that's $199, right, and it's got 4 cameras as and it's got a hub just like this one does, you're probably gonna pay more than $800 to have someone— yes, to have someone else install it.

Well, and so here are a couple of things that I found that were of interest to me. One is the weatherproofing on these cameras. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, rain or shine, you know, these things can be outside, they can exist in the elements and still function at a high level.

Yeah, most of them say that they work down to -40 degrees and up to 113 degrees.

So suck it, Alaska. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone else, you can use this.

Right.

But the other thing that was cool is this is one of the few platforms that I've seen that really works with all of the ecosystems across the board. So like if you have Apple Watch, Apple phone, you know, Apple Home, you can use it with that. If you have the Google Hub, you can use it with that. And if you use Alexa devices, specifically the Echo Show. It'll work with those. And so what that means is, like, on your Apple Watch, you can bring up live video of your Arlo system on your watch. If you have the Google Home Hub, you can bring up that live video on that hub. If you have the Echo Show, you can also bring up that live video and push

notifications to those devices through your Arlo, which is really, really helpful.

Yeah, the only thing that it doesn't provide support for right now that I know of, and there could be others out there, but the only one that I know of is it does not— they currently do not have support for HomeKit, for Apple HomeKit, so that it works in conjunction with your other devices hooked up to HomeKit. That's different than what you're talking about.

Yes.

You're talking specifically about—

Watches and phones.

Absolutely. But my understanding is they're working on support to get it hooked up with a device like HomeKit so that when something is triggered, something else might can happen.

Right.

Those sorts of things. So it's just not there yet.

Which would be cool if they did.

Yeah.

Because the reason being is because Apple doesn't have that other device yet, like the other other ecosystems do. I think part of it is that Apple has really dominated the market with the iPads and things like that. So, you can put those apps on your iPad, you can put that app on your phone, you can put that app on your watch. People who are interacting with Apple devices, they don't care if it shows up on their MacBook or their Apple TV, because they usually have those other devices around them anyway. Whereas the Google, specifically the Alexa devices, those just don't have as many external devices as Apple does. that are in those environments.

Yeah, you're not taking an Alexa puck around with you. Right, right.

So it just, it just makes more sense that they haven't, because Apple doesn't have a device like that. And the one that they do currently have is just ridiculously overpriced.

Right, so no one wants that.

No, not at that price point.

I mean, there's people buying it, obviously, but it doesn't have the support that that the Alexa or the Google Assistant has yet, and it's just not quite as practical.

I will say this, I think it would be really cool if they developed the app for like the Apple TV.

Yeah.

So like, you know, if there was a situation going on, you could actually pull it up on your TV.

Sure.

If you wanted to.

Yeah.

You know, not that it would like interrupt your Netflix binging, but like, you know, you'd get like a little notification.

Yeah. Well, do we have any other questions, or is that kind of all we got?

Those are all the—

Okay, one of the things that wanna bring up is if you go to, um, a place like Amazon, you're looking to buy this thing and you start looking, you're like, oh, we've got some 1-star reviews. In fact, that when you scroll down currently today as we're recording this, um, there's someone who's written a review here and it's a 1-star review. It's the very first review that you come to is a 1-star review.

Yeah.

And it says, I give this a 1-star review because it's not backwards compatible with existing base stations. And if you start reading it, here's what happened. They just bought— they had an old system like an Arlo Pro 2, and they bought a new camera like the Ultra, the Ultra camera, just one camera, because they wanted to expand their system. And it didn't— it wasn't backwards compatible, so it didn't work. The new camera didn't work with the old base, and so they were—

Frustrated.

Getting 1-star reviews out of frustration that they simply didn't understand.

Right.

So one of the things that I would caution you anytime is just forget the 1-star reviews. Most of the time, people that are giving 1-star reviews— most of the time, yeah, this is not across the board— but a lot of times it's there's some sort of user error and they just don't understand, or they're mad because, you know, something happened in shipping and it came and it Didn't work, and so now they're mad, so they give a 1-star review, right?

I do get frustrated a lot when I read reviews and it's pretty obvious that someone's just vetting anger based off their own mistake or their own lack of knowledge in a particular area. That's not to say that's always the case. I mean, sometimes people just have poor customer care, customer support, and sometimes these things are warranted for bad reviews, and I appreciate people giving those. Um, but it, it, it does rub me the wrong way when it's like, like, if you just read the description, you would have known that this was the case.

Yep.

And I think that's the case here where like, if you just, you know, just with a little bit of digging, you know, you know, but to be fair, I, I think most of the time people approach products expecting them to these days be backwards compatible. Yeah. So, and, and that may be a shortcoming of, of this company, which is surprising. I mean, I mean, if you don't know, Arlo is a Netgear company. And so in my brain, I would think, well, it would make sense that these things would be backwards compatible.

Sure.

But we're talking about sophisticated systems.

Yeah.

I don't know how to program them.

Right. And, you know, a lot of the reality is at some point there's a reason you're upgrading the system.

Right.

Whether it's because new technology has come out or, and in this case, there's a lot of new technology built into this newer system than older one. And so for them to utilize this new camera that has a ton of features that the old cameras didn't pack, then it— there's no reason to make it backwards compatible, right?

We couldn't have anticipated this, right, as much.

Yeah, right. And, and so, you know, it's not like we're taking a just a generic something that looks and, and functions exactly like the old one and put something else in it. Um, it's, it's different than that. So, um, you just kind of have to understand what you're working with. And also, I mean, if you, if you bought a certain system, um, you know, it probably still works.

Yeah.

And, and buy whatever you need to make that system work. We had a situation with a baby monitor where the, uh, the actual base station went out. The camera still worked fine, but the base station went out where you could like see your kid or whatever.

Yeah.

And they had a lot newer ones and fancier ones or whatever, but I was able to buy it. I mean, it worked for us, and I was able to buy a cheap base for it, um, on Amazon, um, that someone was trying to offload, and it still works fine. We still use that thing. So yeah, um, you recognize that sometimes just what you have works. The— if you have the Arlo Pro 2, or if you can get it for a great deal, it's still a very good system.

Absolutely.

Um, it just doesn't pack some of the features that the Ultra packs.

So yeah.

Be aware of what you're getting.

It's always good to be an informed consumer.

I would equally tell you that some of these 5-star reviews are bunk, as well.

Fanboys out there.

That's right. If everything is perfect, 5 stars, everything is perfect, then maybe you're missing something. I live in the 3- and 4-star world, personally.

Yeah.

Just kind of try to— I want to know the good with the bad. I want to know honest descriptions.

Yeah.

Those sorts of things. Um, but I, you know, if you're looking into a system, a security system, I would highly encourage you to at least consider the Arlo. Um, and if you're interested in, in knowing more about it, uh, and, and you want us to do the research, I'm fine doing that. Send us a question. Send us an email at info@homeownersshow.com, and, uh, we'll do the research for you and get you the information. Yeah.

And if you are interested in one of these systems, we'll have links to all the different packages that Arlo, you know, the newer ones that Arlo has up currently. Yeah.

Just click the show notes.

Yeah. Go to our show notes. They'll have all the links to the different packages you can go pick up at Amazon. If you're a Prime member, you can have the, you know, they'll have it to you in like 2 days. So it's, yeah, it's fantastic. But yeah, if you, if you have not yet, go ahead and hit the subscription button there in the, the iTunes Podcast app or whatever thing you're using. Don't use Kevin's app, it's the worst. But you can, you can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, um, YouTube. YouTube, that's right. Kevin's got the videos up and rolling again.

Yep.

So you can see our ugly mugs.

We ugly.

If you care too. It's good times over on the YouTubes. And you can always send us an email over at info@homeownershow.com, and you can keep up with all the most recent events there as well.

Yeah, you know, and one other thing, and I, you know, we plug this from time to time, we would really value a rating and review on iTunes. Yeah, so if you get a moment moment, go, go give us a rating or review. We'd like to know what you think about us and all of those sorts of things. But, uh, yeah, anything else?

I think that's it, man.

Man, thanks for, uh, thanks for downloading this episode. And, uh, as always, we'll be here every Tuesday, and we thank you for being with us. Until then, we'll see ya soon.