SECURITYCAMERAS
100 AUGUST 2019|COMPUTER SHOPPER|ISSUE 378
ALTHOUGHIT’SNOTas priceyasits 4K
stablemate, the Arlo Ultra, the Pro 2will set
you back apretty penny.For the base station
(which includes abuilt-in siren) and asingle
camera, expect to pay£308, and additional
cameras come at apremium, too. The
two-camera kit is £485, the three-camera kit
£605 and the largest four-camera kit £799.
Thankfully,it’s not lacking in features.
The Pro 2can stream 1080p video live to
your smartphone,and to save you staring at
your screen all daylong, it has sound and
motion sensors and will send alerts if either
is triggered. Click on anotification and you’ll
get ashort video showing exactly what
triggered it and the option to switch to a
live view to find out what’s going on.
SCARETRIGGER
To minimise on false positives –which can
come thick and fast if you have apet, for
example –you can set the camera to work
only between certain hours, or to disengage
when you’re at home by detecting your
location. Youcan also set an alarm to go
off from the base station when motion is
detected. The alarm goes up to 100 decibels,
more than loud enough to startle any
would-be burglars.
The Pro 2isatherefore acompelling
security product, and asurprisingly
versatile one at that. Youcan keep it in
the house or outdoors (the cameras are
weather-resistant to the IP65 standard), it
can capture footage in night vision, and it
lets you mark specific parts of the image for
motion detection, just in case there are parts
of its line-of-sight you’d rather not monitor,
such as swaying trees that could unwantedly
set off motion detection.
By default, the footage is only recorded
when motion is detected or sharp noises
are picked up.This footage is stored in the
cloud forseven days, with 1GB of cloud
storage included, and the free service
supports up to five Arlo cameras before
you have to start paying.
If you want to save more footage,you’ll
have to stump foreither the Premier (£6.49
per month) or Elite(£10 per month)
subscriptions, which bump up the cloud
storage to 10GB or 30GB for30or60days
respectively.You can also plug in aUSB
pen drive to the hub forlocal recording if
that feels tooexpensive.This is aslightly
better solution than plugging external
storage intothe camera itself,asifthieves
ARLO
Pro2
★★★★★
£308•From http://www.amazon.co.uk
VERDICT
Ifyou’vegotthecashforit,theArloPro2is
temptinglystackedwithfeatures
steal the camera, theywon’t also be making
off with the video evidence.
Youcan upgrade to non-stop 24/7
recording (CVR) as well, foryet another
cost: £7 per camera for14days, or £13 for
30 days. It will need to be plugged intothe
mains forthis to work, however.
ENDURING QUALITIES
On that note, there are anumber of ways to
power the Pro 2. Youcan connect it to the
mains if you want, but it’s designed to work
wirelessly and does so brilliantly.The Pro 2
has abattery inside that can be charged via a
Micro USB cable in the camera housing. To
ensure this isn’t toomuch of aproblem, the
Pro 2ships with around, half-ball mount that
you can either screw to the wall or stick to a
surface with an adhesive pad. The Pro 2
attaches to this magnetically and can be easily
pulled down whenever it needs charging.
In our experience,this won’t be very often.
We checked after 14 days and the camera was
still on 65% charge,soatop-up should only
be required every six weeks or so.Ifthat still
sounds like adrag but you don’t want to
attach it to the mains, Arlo also makes a
solar-panel kit foroutdoor cameras. That will
cost you another £80, however.
There’s no escaping the fact that a
relatively high-end smart camera system such
as this will prove expensive,although in
fairness to the Pro 2it’s slightly cheaper than
the Nest Cam IQ Outdoor.It’s also better-
featured than the likes of the Ring Stick Up
Cam and the BT Smart Home Cam, the latter
of which only records in 720p.
That said, if it’s acombination of specs
and value that you’re after,the D-Link
DCS-2802KToffers aset of two cameras for
£300 –slightly less than the Pro 2’s single-
camera kit. This also has the flexibility of
battery power,atthe cost of some higher-
level features and ashorter free cloud
storage period of 24 hours.
ARLOTHERE
The Arlo Pro 2isanexpensive piece of kit, but
it’s hard to think of any missteps it makes
along the way. The footage it captures is
excellent, the motion and audio detection
works well, and it’s pleasingly flexible.
Forsome,the sheer number of features
on offer will be overkill, but foranyone who
wants the extra bells and whistles –literally,
given the standard Arlo kit doesn’t come with
asiren –there’s scant else that matches the
Arlo 2Pro forall-round flexibility and quality.
Youcan connectittothe mains if youwant, but it’s
designed to work wirelessly and does so brilliantly
