As with the indoor camera, the outdoor version uses Arlo Intelligence for face and vehicle recognition, as well as other smart alerts. If something triggers an alert, the AI will generate a description of the motion event that tells you exactly what’s going on. You can also create custom alerts for different situations, like if your garage door is left open or a porch light is left on. With smart alerts enabled, the camera will differentiate between motion caused by people, packages, vehicles, and animals. It will also recognize flames and send an alert if a fire breaks out.
To use those AI features, though, you’ll have to subscribe to an Arlo Secure plan. A subscription is also required to view the motion event recordings the camera stores in the cloud.
The base Secure Plus plan costs $7.99 per month (billed annually) for a single camera and unlocks 60 days of video history, Smart Activity Zones (letting you highlight areas of your property you want to receive alerts from), and Arlo Intelligence features, including event captions, person and vehicle recognition, and audio and fire detection. If you have more than one camera, you can cover them all with the unlimited plan for $17.99 per month. Bumping up to the $24.99 monthly Secure Premium plan gives you everything from the Plus tier, including unlimited cameras, plus 24/7 monitoring, one-touch emergency response, and certain home insurance discounts.
For comparison, cameras with built-in local video storage, like the Aqara Camera Hub G5 Pro, typically cost more up-front. The G5 Pro has 8GB of integrated flash memory and offers cloud storage plans starting at $4.99 per month. And some models with subscriptions offer much less expensive plans, along with local storage support: for instance, check out the TP-Link Tapo Indoor/Outdoor C120.
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(Credit: Arlo/PCMag)
The Pan Tilt Security works with Alexa, Google, SmartThings, and IFTTT applets, but it doesn’t support Apple’s HomeKit, a feature of the Matter-enabled Aqara Camera Hub G5 Pro. It uses the same Arlo Secure mobile app (available for Android and iOS) as the Indoor camera. It appears on the app’s device screen in a panel that displays the last captured image alongside a gear icon for accessing the device settings menu, a play arrow for viewing a live camera feed, and an Emergency Response button.
Tap the play arrow to open a live stream that can be viewed in full-screen mode by tapping the two arrows in the upper right corner. At the bottom edge of the live video are buttons for manually recording, taking a snapshot, muting the speaker, and initiating two-way talk. There’s also a button that opens a large four-way dial for panning and tilting the camera, and another that turns on the spotlight.
Tapping the Emergency Response icon opens a screen where you can activate a siren, tap a button to call a friend, or contact an emergency-response agent. The device settings menu lets you configure Wi-Fi, enable auto-tracking, set video and audio preferences, create activity and privacy zones, adjust motion sensitivity, and adjust the siren volume and spotlight brightness.
To view recorded video, tap the Feed button at the bottom of the home screen. This opens a list of events with thumbnails of the associated video. Tap any thumbnail to play the video, read the event caption, and share, save, or delete the footage.
