Arlo on Amazon: http://am-redirect.com/link.php?keywords=netgear+arlo+pro
Arlo is Netgear’s security camera system for your home or business. Basically allows you to monitor your house or property for unusual movement and then record videos or take photos of your intruder. Not only that though, if you record your car or whatever, you’ll have video evidence if it gets damaged. Whatever you want to monitor with a camera, this setup can do it.

Netgear sent me the Arlo Pro, which contains two wireless cameras and a base station. There are several other versions with different numbers of cameras. This version retails at about £480. The system is modular, so you can also add cameras at a later date. As you might expect for that price, the hardware is exceptionally well made: solid, good quality plastic. Smells good too. As well as the cameras and base station, you get batteries for cameras, magnetic mounts for the cameras, and a quick start guide in several languages.

The system is incredibly easy to set up. You just follow the simple quick start guide. Basically involves putting the batteries in the cameras (they’re fully charged from the factory), downloading the app to your smart device (Android, Apple or Amazon Fire) and then pairing the cameras.

The system works on its own wireless network. Therefore the cameras must be close enough to the base station or you’ll have to use a wireless extender to increase the range. The camera detects movement or sound using an infrared sensor and automatically starts recording video. The cameras send that video to the base station, and the video is stored on the cloud. You can pay for extra video storage solutions, but straight out of the box for free the camera will store the last 7 days of video. If you want, you can also plug a USB drive into the base station.

You then access the video footage using the excellent Arlo app on your smart device. You get optional notifications whenever the camera is triggered.

The cameras can be placed inside and outside. It is weatherproof, so there’s no problem putting it outside. I pointed the camera out of a first floor window (not the ground floor) and it was able to detect passing traffic and pedestrians.

Alternatively, you can put it anywhere inside. Inside or out, you can rest it on a surface, there’s also a tripod mount, and a magnetic mount. The mount is incredibly strong and makes it easy to position the camera exactly as you want. The box even contains screws and raw plugs for putting the magnetic mount on your wall. You’re not just limited to daytime recording. I found that the camera works exceptionally well in low-light conditions – it changes to black and white in very low light. There’s also a night mode, which uses infrared light to illuminate dark places.

The camera has a number of features that can be controlled using the app. In the app we first see the last retrieved image from the cameras. We can also look at a live view from each camera. From that we can manually take pictures and video. You can also see the library of clips that have been recorded and play them back, download them or delete them.

The battery life on the camera is pretty good, as the camera is only activated when its recording video or when you’re in live view. With the camera filming moving traffic a few times a minute, 24 hours a day, I got got 3.5 days out of a single charge. That’s pretty well the worst battery life you can expect. I also put a camera in my garden which recorded video about 20 times a day, and it’s been over a week and it’s still got 75% battery life. Charging is done by USB and takes a couple of hours.

From the app you can also control the movement sensitivity. So if the camera isn’t detecting enough movement, or it’s triggering too often, you can fix that. You actually have a lot of control over when video is recorded. For example, you can schedule monitoring so that it’ll only work at a certain time, or you can activate geofencing, so that it’ll only monitor when you move a certain distance away from your home. You can set up recording rules too – This allows you to do cool things like detect motion of someone coming up the stairs on one camera, and immediately recording video on another camera.

There’s also a siren, so you can scare animals or people off. And two way communication, so you can politely tell people to go away. It’s also worth saying that you can turn off audio communication, so that the video clips don’t contain sound – which gives you much more privacy.

This system works seamlessly and it is superb quality. I was extremely impressed with how easy it was to set up and use. It is expensive, but it is a top quality product.