NETGEAR, who is the leader in home security cameras, with nearly 45% of the market share, has just announced its latest home security camera in the Arlo Pro 2. This new home security camera gives the customer the option of using it either as a wired camera or wireless. The battery inside can last between 4 and 6 months, and with the mount being magnetic, it makes it easier to pop out the battery and recharge it when needed. This allows you to put the camera outside and not worry about having to find a place to plug it in and run cable outside. Of course, this isn’t new to the Arlo Pro 2, as NETGEAR’s previous cameras also had this feature. But it is nice to see it remain.
What is new with the Arlo Pro 2 is the recording resolution has been bumped up to 1080p, from 720p. Now it’s not quite the resolution that Nest is using with its Cam IQ, but the Cam IQ also needs to be plugged in, so there are some tradeoffs here, and 4K isn’t really needed with a security camera right now. In order to get to 1080p resolution NETGEAR did need to increase the battery capacity, but also the amount of onboard storage, so you are able to still keep a few hours on-board locally before it uploads to NETGEAR’s cloud service.
Arlo Pro 2 also has faster motion detection, therefore it can alert you to motion well before anything actually happens, there is also a 3-second lookback, so you can lookback and see what happened. And this is all available through the NETGEAR app. It can record 24/7, instead of just looking for motion and then beginning to record, but only when it is plugged in. As you’d expect, that does use a good amount of battery, which will cause you to have to charge it much more often. Now you will also need NETGEAR Continuous Video Recording plan for this to work.
NETGEAR is also debuting its Alexa integration with the Arlo Pro 2. If you have an Echo Show (or the Echo Spot later this month), or an Amazon Fire TV, you can use Alexa to start streaming the camera’s feed onto your Echo Show, Echo Spot or your Fire TV with ease. This way you can see what’s going on, without having your phone nearby. Which is a pretty neat trick to have available to you. Arlo Pro 2 does also work with other services like IFTTT, Samsung SmartThings, Stringify and Wink, just to name a few.
The Arlo Pro 2 is being sold in a few bundles. Those that are already in the Arlo ecosystem, can pick up a single Arlo Pro 2 for $219.99. Those that aren’t will need a base to work with the Arlo cameras, and you can get the base plus two Arlo Pro 2 cameras for $479.99, or get four cameras and the base for $799.99. NETGEAR says that any of its bases will work with the new Arlo Pro 2. So even if you have an older Arlo camera, that base will still work just fine.
