Adjusting your Arlo alert settings is straightforward and allows you to customize the notifications you receive, ensuring you're alerted to what matters most. You can easily manage specific motion detections, such as people, vehicles, or animals, directly through the Arlo Secure App.
Step-by-Step Guide to Customizing Arlo Smart Notifications
To fine-tune your Arlo camera's alert preferences and manage which types of motion trigger notifications, follow these simple steps:
- Launch the Arlo Secure App: Open the Arlo Secure App on your smartphone or tablet. Ensure you're logged into your account.
- Navigate to Settings: Tap the
⚙(Settings icon), usually found in the bottom navigation bar or top corner. - Select Your Location: Under the LOCATIONS AND PLANS section, choose the specific location that contains the camera you wish to adjust. This is particularly useful if you manage multiple Arlo systems.
- Access Smart Notifications: Tap on Smart Notifications to view the intelligent detection options available for your cameras.
- Choose a Camera: From the list of active cameras, select the one for which you want to modify alert settings.
- Toggle Motion Alerts: Under the MOTION ALERTS section, you will find switches for various detection types. Tap the switches next to People, Vehicles, Animal, and All Other Motion to toggle them on or off according to your preferences.
Understanding Your Alert Options
Arlo's Smart Notifications offer granular control, helping to reduce irrelevant alerts and focus on true threats or events of interest.
- People: Get alerts only when a human figure is detected. Ideal for monitoring entrances.
- Vehicles: Receive notifications when a car, truck, or other vehicle is identified. Useful for driveways or parking areas.
- Animal: Be notified of animal movement. Perfect for observing wildlife or pets, but can be turned off to avoid alerts from neighborhood cats or squirrels.
- All Other Motion: This catch-all setting alerts you to any motion that doesn't fit the above categories. Keep this enabled for comprehensive coverage, or disable it if you find it generates too many non-specific alerts.
Optimizing Your Arlo Alerts
Beyond simply toggling switches, there are strategies to make your alert system more efficient:
- Reduce False Alarms: If you're getting too many alerts from trees swaying or pets, consider disabling "All Other Motion" or "Animal" alerts.
- Focus on Specific Threats: For security-focused monitoring, ensure "People" and "Vehicles" alerts are active.
- Adjust Motion Zones: Complement your smart notification settings by creating custom motion zones within your camera's view. This tells Arlo to only detect motion in specific areas, ignoring busy streets or public pathways.
- Schedule Alerts: Utilize Arlo's scheduling feature to set different alert preferences for various times of the day (e.g., more sensitive alerts at night, fewer during the day when you're home).
Example Scenario: Fine-Tuning Alerts for a Front Door Camera
Imagine you have an Arlo camera monitoring your front door.
- Goal: You want to know when a person is at your door or a package is delivered, but not every time a car drives by or a squirrel runs across the porch.
- Action:
- Keep People alerts on.
- Turn Vehicles alerts off (if your door views a street).
- Turn Animal alerts off.
- Consider keeping All Other Motion on if you want to be notified of falling packages or other non-human, non-vehicle events.
By thoughtfully adjusting these settings, your Arlo system will become a more intelligent and less intrusive guardian of your property. For further details and advanced settings, always refer to the official Arlo Support Page.
