Arlo Home Security System review: Basic, but highly capable

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Long known for its excellent home security cameras, Arlo introduced its first DIY home security system in late 2022. Distinguished by its multi-function sensors that can do everything from detect whether a door is open or closed to alerting you to a water leak, an Arlo Home Security System covers the basics and then some for most users.

With Arlo’s move to add elements of artificial intelligence to its security system—in the form of Arlo Secure 5—we decided to take a fresh look at the product. Arlo Secure 5 isn’t a hardware product, it’s a new service offering within Arlo’s higher-tier subscription plans. Specifically, it leverages AI to “provide more meaningful, detailed alerts so users can make informed decisions about their security and safety.”

The Arlo Home Security System is a compelling value and deserves to be compared to the second-generation Ring Alarm Security Kit.

Arlo Secure 5 adds specific person recognition, meaning it can distinguish family, friends, neighbors, and other people whose faces you’ve stored in a library from strangers; vehicle recognition; again, tied to specific vehicles; and, finally, a feature called Custom Detection. This tool—still in beta at the time of our review—lets you train Arlo’s AI to identify just about anything. Arlo’s suggested use cases include “knowing if the garage door is open, lights were left on in the basement, or the dog is on the couch.” But since this is an AI feature, the sky is theoretically the limit. (I mean, you could train Arlo’s AI to tell you if the sky is blue.)

Since AI is unlikely to be the first criterion security system buyers are likely to consider, let’s first talk about the hardware in the Arlo Home Security System. This has not changed since our previous review, so this coverage will look familiar. If you want to skip to our AI experience, click the relevant table of contents entry in the left-hand margin.

Specifications and other basics

The system is designed around its impressive, sensor-filled hub, pictured at the top of this page. This small numeric keypad has more features than expected, including not just buttons for arming and disarming the system, but also an integrated siren, an onboard motion sensor of its own, and a smoke/CO alarm monitor that can listen for the telltale squeal of a standard smoke alarm. (Note that the hub does not itself detect the presence of smoke or carbon monoxide, you’ll need to provide those devices.)

The other pieces of the Arlo Security System puzzle are its all-in-one sensors, each one a chicklet-shaped device that promises many different functions in a single gadget, including:

• Magnetic open/close sensing, for use with doors and windows
• Motion sensing
• Water leak detection
• Temperature change (freeze) detection
• Tilt detection (for use with garage doors)
• Ambient light intensity change detection
• Smoke/CO alarm listening (as described for the base station)

A $200 starter kit includes the base station and two of these do-it-all sensors. An additional $100 gets you five additional sensors along with the base station, and there’s an add-on cellular/battery backup device ($80) to keep the system powered and connected to the internet for up to 12 hours should your power and/or broadband connection fail (you’ll need to pay for a subscription for internet backup, as I’ll explain later). You can expand the system with a plethora of other Arlo accessories, including security cameras, on an a la carte basis, but third-party devices are not supported.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart home systems.

A $200 starter kit includes the base station and two of these do-it-all sensors. An additional $100 gets you five additional sensors along with the base station, and there’s an add-on cellular/battery backup device ($80) to keep the system powered and connected to the internet for up to 12 hours should your power and/or broadband connection fail (you’ll need to pay for a subscription for internet backup, as I’ll explain later). You can expand the system with a plethora of other Arlo accessories, including security cameras, on an a la carte basis, but third-party devices are not supported.

From a hardware standpoint, the Arlo system is attractive and unobtrusive. The sensors are rather large, but they’re handsomely designed. They come with magnets when you deploy them as door/window sensors. The keypad is demure and slim, with illuminated buttons that provide an at-a-glance indication as to which mode the system is in: Home (monitors door/window sensors, but not motion sensors), Away (all sensors are monitored), or Standby (nothing is monitored).

A red panic button is also available that sounds the hub’s onboard siren. This button can also alert emergency responders—if you opt for a professional monitoring plan, that is (more on this later). All the lights on the keypad illuminate when you pass near it thanks to the built-in motion sensor and quickly dim when you walk away.

Installation, setup, and daily use

True to its promise, Arlo sets up quickly and easily, following a download of the Arlo app and a quick QR code scan. Sensors are also quick to pair, though they must be snapped open to engage the coin cell battery inside before they auto-pair to the base station. Arlo devices communicate on their own proprietary sub-gigahertz band; the company says its sensors can be placed up to 500 feet away from the hub. Note that the Arlo hub itself connects to your Wi-Fi network via the 2.4GHz band only.

For the most part, using the Arlo system is simple and intuitive in both the app and on the keypad. In the app, the three operational modes are replicated where expected on its home screen, and you can easily drill down to see log information for both the keypad and individual sensors by simply tapping on the relevant icon.

A master log of all activity across the entire system can be found under the Feed tab. The information logged here depends on the mode you’ve put the system in, although this can be thoroughly customized.

In Standby mode, for example, only changes in ambient lighting are logged. But if you prefer, you can change the system to also log motion events, water-leak detection, door and window open/close events, and more while in Standby mode. The other two modes can be customized in the same fashion. You can also create automations to arm/disarm on a schedule and more.

Operationally, I encountered no real trouble with the system, except that occasionally open-door chimes—which are enabled by default—would not play. This turned out to be an intermittent problem, however, and it eventually began working correctly.

Professional monitoring options

As with most home security systems, you will need to sign up for one of Arlo’s subscription plans to unlock all this system’s features. The company sells various plans, and it can be confusing to understand what is and what is not included with each one. The bottom line is that there are two means of obtaining the professional monitoring service that is essential to a full-featured home security system, in which 24/7 remote operators are notified of emergency events in your home—medical, police, and fire—and can dispatch first responders accordingly.

When you purchase the system, or at any point after, you can sign up for one of three subscription plans: Basic costs $7.99/month for one camera or $12.99/month for unlimited cameras and provides little more than a 30-day video history. The Plus plan at $17.99/month adds AI detection features, while the Premium plan at $24.99 per month adds professional monitoring. Paying by the year gets you a 20 percent discount; otherwise, there is no long-term contract, and you can cancel your subscription at any time.

Each of the three services integrates support for Arlo’s security cameras and video doorbells, and the Premium plan includes cellular backup in the event your broadband connection fails. To take advantage of that service, however, you’ll need to also purchase Arlo’s Cellular & Battery Backup module. That device costs $79.99, and it snaps to the bottom of the system’s keypad.

Alternatively, you can sign up for one of the company’s Arlo Total Security packages. These have no upfront costs: the cost of the hardware is included with a 36-month subscription. You can cancel the service and return the hardware within the first 30 days; after that, you are committed to paying for it. You’re essentially financing the hardware and the service—via the third-party financing outfit Affirm—at zero percent interest. After three years, you’ll need to sign up for a new professional monitoring plan—the service will not automatically renew.

It’s worth noting that Arlo offers a one-year warranty on its hardware. So, in the unlikely event any of the components in the system should fail due to a manufacturing defect after that first year, you’ll remain on the hook to pay for the remaining two years even if parts of it are inoperable.

Arlo Total Security plans

There are currently three Arlo Total Security plans to choose from, two of which include professional monitoring. The entry-level Starter plan costs $9.99 per month for 36 months and includes Arlo’s keypad and two sensors, plus 24/7 monitoring. The $19.99-per-month Essential Video plan provides two cameras only (no keypad) with 30 days of video storage—but no monitoring.

The third Arlo Total Security plan—Advanced Video—costs $29.99 per month for 36 months and does include a monitoring plan. The hardware in this kit includes the keypad, 5 sensors, two Arlo Pro 5S 2K security cameras, a doorbell camera, and 30 days of cloud storage for the cameras.

Testing Arlo Secure 5’s AI features

You can only get Arlo’s AI features, including its beta Custom Detection system, with a subscription plan that includes 24/7 monitoring. That includes the Plus and Premium security plans, and the Essential Video and Advanced Video Total Security plans.

I attempted to test all these AI features, but Arlo doesn’t offer much guidance on how to set them up or use them. In lieu of instructions, Arlo directed me to a CNET article and said that using it “should be fairly straightforward.”

Arlo’s AI system is not straightforward.

To start with, it’s managed via Arlo’s web portal instead of its mobile app, which creates an extra obstacle. Arlo’s web portal isn’t nearly as user-friendly as its app, so it took some digging (and reading) just to figure out where the AI settings were buried. Eventually I uncovered them, under Settings, then under my location’s name, at the bottom of that page. Note however that without a supported plan, these options don’t show up at all.

My first steps down this road didn’t go well, as I quickly found myself blocked when I was told “Person Recognition isn’t supported in your area,” with no added explanation. The Vehicle Recognition system proved more fruitful, as I was able to identify my wife’s car to Arlo, then get alerted whenever the car came and went from the garage. The catch: My car, parked next to hers, was also recognized by Arlo as her car any time I came and went (whenever her car was not present); this despite mine being both significantly larger and a different color. AI must be trained, of course, but there is no option in the system to correct an inaccurate vehicle recognition; so, Arlo always reports both cars as hers.

The new Custom Detection system is the biggest draw of them all, but if Arlo couldn’t tell one car from another, I was immediately concerned about its ability to distinguish more nuanced objects. My first struggle was to try to figure out how I might test the system in a useful manner. Arlo already detects people, pets, vehicles, and packages, so using it for one of those cases didn’t make much sense. Neither did any of Arlo’s other suggested uses: whether a door was left open or the lights were on. Arlo makes sensors that can directly detect these conditions without having to train an AI on what an open door looks like versus a closed one. Using Custom Detection for these didn’t seem very logical.

Ultimately, I created two Custom Detection rules (a maximum of three are allowed during the beta), borrowing an idea from the CNET story mentioned above, testing the system on a pet toy that is beloved by one of our cats and that is constantly moving around the house. I also went ahead and set up a rule to inform me if the lights were on, figuring I would throw Arlo a bone that it should easily pass.

Setup is easy enough: You use Arlo’s camera to snap two photos: One with the positive “yes” state, and one with the “no.” Take a photo with the lights on, again with them off. Take a photo with the toy in place, another without it. This serves as the initial basis for training the AI, but there’s much more of that to come.

It’s important to note that Arlo isn’t constantly scanning for these conditions, but rather only checks on them when another condition is triggered. Those triggers are limited: if motion is detected, if you change the mode on the alarm panel, or at specific times and days (or some combination of these). In other words, my “are the lights on?” detection doesn’t alert when the lights turn on. It only alerts if someone walks through the room and the lights happen to be on. This is an important distinction, because a standard Arlo sensor will tell you every time the light goes on or off. For most users, I expect the latter is a more useful proposition.

It’s also important to note that, especially at first, Arlo’s AI gets a lot of detections wrong. Arguably, it is more often wrong than it is right. The system would sometimes conclude that the lights were on in the middle of the night. And all manner of objects—particularly our pets, or even myself—were deduced to be toys, or at least in the presence of toys. Users are intended to train Arlo on these false positives—this can be done on the web or through the app interface—but this is a slow, tedious, and overly chatty process. (At some point we can dispense with the uncloseable “Thanks, we’re learning!” pop-up.) As well, if you flip through Arlo’s feed, there’s no easy way to determine whether you have already trained the AI on an image—not even a checkmark in the corner—which means I often found myself tapping on an image only to discover that I’d already trained the AI on it. Ultimately, all that training didn’t do a lot of good. After more than a week of testing, Arlo was still finding phantom pet toys and detecting midnight lighting. It’s hard to calculate an overall accuracy rating, but in a single day I received more than 20 notifications about the pet toy, all of which were incorrect. Sure, this is a beta system, but there is still so much work to be done on it that I wonder if it will ever be ready for prime time. And again, I struggled to find a worthwhile use case for the technology that wasn’t covered better by other devices, whether that’s a simple sensor or a live camera feed.

Should you buy an Arlo Home Security System?

AI features aside (way aside), the Arlo Home Security System is a compelling value and deserves to be compared to the second-generation Ring Alarm Security Kit. Both systems can be built out with additional sensors and other components, but Ring offers the added advantage of third-party support for device classes that Ring itself does not manufacture (smoke detectors, smart locks, light switches and dimmers, and more). The Ring Alarm Pro is even more advanced and integrates a Wi-Fi 6 mesh router, but it costs significantly more.

One of the features that renders Arlo’s offering so unique is the option to spread the cost of the system—and its related service—over a span of three years with zero percent interest. But I’d urge you to revisit the previously mentioned caveats, which don’t apply if you purchase the system outright.

And for those comparing Arlo Home Security to Ring, be sure to consider Ring’s recent professional monitoring price increase.

Updated November 5, 2024: This review was updated in its entirety to reflect our experience with Arlo Secure 5, the most recent firmware and software available for the Arlo Home Security System, including Arlo’s new AI features, which were in beta at the time. We didn’t change the bottom-line score for this product, but AI is not one of the reasons we think this is a good product.

Best Prices Today: Arlo Home Security System