Netgear Arlo Smart Home Security Camera Kit Review
Netgear Arlo Final Thoughts and Conclusions:
Setting up a home camera system is no easy task as it is unique to your particular situation, time consuming, expensive and relatively tough to do. The Netgear Arlo Home Security Camera Kit helps solve a number of these issues! We found the Netgear Arlo was super easy to install thanks to being 100% wireless. You dont have to run wires in an attic, basement or crawl space for the power and data lines and that in itself is pretty epic. You should easily have this kit up installed and up and running in under half an hour. With the Arlo you can move around the cameras at will and the two extra mounting plates included in the kit make it easy to move between locations if needed. You just pull off the magnetic camera and attach it to the next bracket or wherever youd like. We also like the fact that this is an expandable solution that allows you to run up to 5 cameras off a single base station for free.
The image quality from the 720p cameras was more than acceptable and we were happy with the video and screen shots in all lighting environments. We left the image quality at the standard setting, but you can increase it and decrease it from the standard setting. If you went to maximum image quality settings you’ll decrease the battery life though, so keep that in mind. The things you can do with Arlo are only limited by the 150 foot wireless range as the cameras are waterproof and can be placed most any location you can think of.
At $349.99, the Netgear Arlo might look to be inexpensive when you first look at it, but once you dive deeper into the premium services and battery costs we found that you could possibly spend hundreds of dollars a year to keep this system up and running after the initial purchase. If you dont need premium services and buy your batteries online ahead of time the running costs of an Arlo kit would be greatly reduced. If you plan on getting an Arlo system we highly suggest on buying your batteries online. On Amazon we a number of CR123A rechargeable batteries, but found that they were 3.6V and 3.7V. You want to stay away from the higher voltage batteries as it will likely damage the cameras. We have asked Netgear what rechargeable batteries they suggest and will get back to you with an update when we find out.
Update 01/16/2015 @ 6pm CT – We heard back from Netgear about rechargeable batteries and they said that all are okay.
“Rechargeable batteries are OK per our engineers even at the higher voltage.” – Erich Volkert, Senior Director of Product Management at Netgear
This means you should be able to get away with low cost rechargeable batteries, which is a game changer for those worried about the cost of batteries. We took a look at Amazon and found a 4-pack of CR123A rechargeable batteries with a charger for $10.89 shipped. There are also other brands out there as this 6-pack of CR123A rechargeable batteries with a charger runs $23.99 shipped and has 4.2 star our of 5 rating on over 325 reviews on Amazon.
It really rubs us the wrong way that Netgear is charging to unlock camera features. Charging for cloud storage is one thing, but to charge extra for camera features for an item someone bought outright is wrong. We expressed our concerns to Netgear and heard back from Damir Skripic, Senior Product Manager at NETGEAR and Erich Volkert, Senior Director of Product Management at Netgear. They told Legit Reviews that they agreed with our point of views with the paid premium software features and that they “will be making changes shortly that will make both friend accounts as well as schedules an unlimited feature on all plans.” This is great news and certainly changes some of our overall thoughts on Arlo knowing those features will soon be free.
If this is out of your price range the original NETGEAR VueZone Wire-free Video Monitoring System that was introduces in February 2013 is now available for $168.67 shipped. That price might sound lucrative, but keep in mind that the maximum resolution of that kit is 640×480 and a much less refined user experience. The Netgear Arlo is a step up on pretty much everything,so we are glad Netgear came up with a new name for this kit.
If you want to give a home security camera system a shot we highly suggest looking into the Netgear Arlo, which you obviously already are. We are really excited by what Netgear has done with Arlo and hopefully down the road they’ll come out with an Arlo 2 kit that features more improvements. One of the largest improvements or design changes we could think of would be the ability to have the Netgear Arlo work with your current Netgear Wireless router. We had to give up a Gigabit LAN port on our Netgear R8000 Nighthawk 802.11AC WiFi Router. When there are only four ports available we hate to give one up!
Legit Bottom Line: The Netgear Arlo Smart Home Security System features absolutely wire free cameras and is the easiest to setup home security system we have ever used!