I have made a new Arlo Connect test build available, v1.0.16 (Build 18).
Please note: this is a temporary test build intended only for the users helping me verify the issues discussed in this thread. I would not recommend installing it for normal daily use yet.
This build includes several changes based on your feedback:
Improved handling when starting Live View shortly after a snapshot.
Added direct Arlo mode control to the Base Station device in Homey. You should now be able to select Standby, Arm Home or Arm Away directly from the device.
Added additional diagnostics to help identify older Arlo Audio Doorbell models that currently do not appear during pairing.
Could you please test the following?
Snapshot / Live View
Open the cameras that previously sometimes returned Arlo did not return a stream URL.
Please try Live View several times, particularly after Homey has loaded or refreshed the camera image.
Base Station modes
Open the Arlo Base Station device in Homey.
Try changing between Standby, Arm Home and Arm Away and verify that Arlo actually changes mode.
Arlo Audio Doorbell
Please try adding an Arlo Doorbell again.
Even if the Audio Doorbell still does not appear, please send me a Diagnostics Report immediately afterwards. Build 18 contains additional raw device information specifically so I can identify how Arlo reports your Audio Doorbell and add proper support for it.
If anything fails, please send a Diagnostics Report as soon as possible afterwards and briefly tell me what you were doing when it happened.
If you are testing one of the issues above, you can install Arlo Connect v1.0.16 / Build 18 from the Arlo Connect Test page https://homey.app/a/com.creson.arlo/test/ in the Homey App Store.
Thanks again for helping me test this. Your feedback is extremely useful.
When I first open a camera devices it automatically starts the live stream. It fails, looks like it loads a snapshots first? But if i retry I get the live stream. I could not get any live streaming before so thats good progress.
Here is a report: 9ececc5b-8635-4c89-aa0f-9836074291bb
Works fine to change all 3 modes, changes are reflected in the Arlo mobile app. However if I change the mode in the mobile app, its not reflected in the Arlo Homey app until I restart it.
Doorbell
Dont know if it was the update or something on my side. I use a different login for the Homey app and the doorbell was not “shared” with this account. It now finds the doorbell and adds it, hace not tested any further
Thanks for testing and for sending the diagnostics report.
Your report was very helpful. It showed that Arlo was already returning a valid RTSP stream URL, but Homey sometimes tried to use it before Arlo had actually confirmed that the camera stream was fully active. That explains why the first attempt could fail while a retry a few seconds later worked.
I have now made another test build available: Arlo Connect v1.0.17 / Build 19.
In this build I changed the Live View startup so Arlo Connect waits for Arlo to confirm userStreamActive before handing the stream over to Homey. On my own cameras this now gives the expected sequence and Live View starts correctly on the first attempt.
I also fixed the Base Station mode synchronization you mentioned. Changing Standby / Arm Home / Arm Away from Homey already worked, but changes made in the Arlo mobile app were not reflected back in Homey. Build 19 now refreshes the current Arlo location mode automatically, so changes made in Arlo should appear in Homey within about one minute.
Regarding the Audio Doorbell: good catch about the shared account. If it now appears and can be added, that part is already very encouraging. Please test the button and any other events when you have time.
Could you please test Build 19 for:
Live View on the cameras that previously needed a retry, preferably several times.
Changing Arlo modes in the Arlo mobile app and verifying that Homey follows the change automatically.
The Audio Doorbell button/events if possible.
If anything still fails, please send another Diagnostics Report immediately afterwards and mention which device you were testing.
Test version:
I am holding off on adding more features until I get some feedback on Build 19, so this test stays focused on stability.
Once these fixes are verified, I am planning a Take Snapshot Flow action and better Homey device timeline entries for useful Arlo events such as mode changes and successful Live View starts.
Live view still fails on first attempt. I restarted the Arlo Connect App, entered a device, it failed, retried and video started. Here is a log from the attempt:
dfa49817-550e-44aa-b6a2-e648d6dab54f
Also going back and forth between devices will cause the devices to time out when trying to start a video. Maybe because the video is stared and stopped multiple times. This is an issue in the mobile app as well, if you click the start/stop button multiple times.
Ideally for me the video would not start automatically when you enter a device, but press a play button if you want the video to start to save battery and not overload the system. I see that if you select a camera as a widget you can choose if the video should start automatically. I dont know if thats possible for the device itself, just a thought.
Arlo modes now sync with the mobile app.
Audio doorbell events works, I can use them in a flow.
Does this mean you can force a camera to take a new snapshot? Now when you refresh it just loads the old snapshot stored
The good news is that your testing now confirms two things:
Arlo modes are synchronizing correctly between the Arlo app and Homey.
The Audio Doorbell events are working and can be used in Homey Flows.
Regarding Live View, your diagnostics show that the remaining issue is slightly different from what I initially expected. On the failed attempt Arlo returns a stream URL and reports startUserStream, but it never reaches userStreamActive within the timeout. On later attempts the same camera reaches userStreamActive normally and the video starts.
Your observation about switching quickly between cameras is also very helpful. Arlo seems to be sensitive to starting and stopping streams repeatedly, and the fact that you see similar behaviour in the Arlo mobile app supports that.
I also like your suggestion about not automatically starting Live View when opening a camera device. I have checked Homey’s current video API documentation. The standard device view requests the stream from the app when the frontend decides to start watching, but I have not found a documented option that lets an app disable autoplay or replace it with a Play button in the normal device view. The camera widget appears to provide more control over that behaviour. I will investigate this further.
For the next live-streaming improvement I am going to look at handling a failed stream start more gracefully — cleaning up the failed attempt and retrying internally instead of returning a stream URL when Arlo has not actually confirmed that the stream is active.
For now I am going to keep Build 19 unchanged while I collect the remaining test feedback.
Thanks again — this is exactly the kind of testing that helps identify the tricky Arlo behaviour.
Some additional logs, this is when I cant get the live video working again.
1b2fafe8-bff0-49e2-a702-2a3f926c120d
After the log was created I restarted the app and it works again.
Another thing I noticed is that the Homey web app works better than the Homey Android app. On the web app the video stream usually starts on the first attempt
The fact that restarting Arlo Connect makes Live View work again is particularly interesting, as is the difference between the Homey Web App and the Android App. This gives me a much better direction for investigating the video/session handling.
There is also a new test version of Arlo Connect available now, and I would really appreciate it if you could test it and let me know how it behaves on your setup.
In particular, it would be very useful if you could test:
Whether Live View starts on the first attempt
Switching back and forth between different cameras
Starting/stopping Live View several times
Whether there is still a difference between the Homey Web App and Android App
Whether restarting Arlo Connect is still required if the streams stop working
If it fails again, a new diagnostic report from the test version would be very helpful.
I’ve tested the new version here as well, including switching Arlo modes back and forth, and everything is behaving correctly on my setup so far.
I also like your suggestion about not automatically starting the video when opening a camera. A manual Play button would make sense for battery-powered cameras and could also reduce unnecessary stream start/stop requests. I’ll investigate what Homey allows us to control in the regular device view.
Great to hear that Arlo modes now sync correctly with the Arlo mobile app and that the audio doorbell events are working in Flows.
Thanks again for all the testing and detailed feedback!
Mikael
The latest version does not work very well. After a while everything stops working, no live streaming or other notifications, cant even get in to the app settings of Arlo connect, it times out. I will try to get some logs
Thanks for letting me know — that definitely sounds like something is going wrong in the latest test version.
If possible, please try to create a Diagnostics Report before restarting Arlo Connect, while it is in the state where Live View, notifications and the settings page have stopped responding. That would be especially useful, since it may show what is causing the whole app to become unresponsive.
If you can, please also let me know approximately how long the app had been running before it stopped working, and whether you noticed anything specific just before it happened — for example starting/stopping Live View several times, switching between cameras, changing Arlo modes, or receiving a motion/doorbell event.
After you have collected the diagnostics, restarting Arlo Connect should hopefully get things working again temporarily.
If the test version remains unstable, feel free to switch back to the current stable version for now. I would rather have you on a reliable version while I investigate this than keep you on a test build that causes the whole app to hang.
Thanks again for testing — this is exactly the kind of issue I want to catch before releasing the changes.
Your latest diagnostic gave me a useful lead. The app initially worked normally, but later the repeated reads of the current Arlo mode started failing. Since the cameras, notifications, Live View and settings all use the same Arlo connection, I want to rule out the automatic mode synchronization as the cause of the complete lock-up.
In this build I have therefore temporarily disabled the automatic mode polling. The Live View and doorbell fixes are still included, and changing the Arlo mode from Homey should still work normally.
The most important test now is simply to leave this version running for a while and see if Arlo Connect remains responsive.
If it stops working again, please create a diagnostic report before restarting the app, if possible. That would be extremely useful.
The possible rate limiting makes sense, especially if the app was being tested heavily at the time.
Good to hear that it has otherwise been stable overnight. I’m still working on improving the Live View startup, but I agree that reliable mode control is more important than video streaming for normal Homey use.
The goal is definitely that Arlo modes should be reliable enough from Homey that you can remove the IFTTT workaround completely.
Also great to hear that the doorbell notification with snapshot is useful — that was exactly the kind of use case I hoped it would enable.
I have another test build coming with some additional Live View startup improvements, so I’ll send that over when it’s ready.
Streaming and doorbell notification did not work. Tried several times on all cameras. But changing mode did work, and after changing mode to arm and back to disarm, streaming did start working again.
Just a quick update — Arlo Connect v1.0.21 is now live.
This release includes a number of improvements based directly on the issues you helped uncover, especially around stale/expired Arlo sessions and live streaming reliability. We also added native camera On/Off control in Homey, including Flow cards and state synchronization with Arlo.
From now on, I’d like everyone to use the stable/live version from the Homey App Store rather than any previous test build, so we are all testing the same release.
Thank you again for all the testing and detailed feedback. It was genuinely useful in tracking down a pretty tricky session issue.
If you happen to try 1.0.21, I’d be very interested to hear whether live streaming and mode changes feel more reliable for you now.
Hi! I’ve added doorbell battery status in the Test version.
Could you install it from the link below and check whether your doorbell now shows a battery percentage in Homey? https://homey.app/a/com.creson.arlo/test/
If it doesn’t appear, please send me a diagnostics report while the Test version is installed.
