Test: Arlo Go 2 – 4G Smart Security Camera

There are several reasons why you may be able to see what is happening where you are not. Perhaps you have a summer cottage that you want to keep an eye on, or see what or who moves in the nooks and crannies of your property. There are many reasons, and perhaps the biggest is surveillance. This is also why Arlo’s wireless Go 2 has plenty of smart functionality, as you can adjust many settings for both alerts and push notifications when it detects motion.

Wireless means you can connect over 4G if you’re using a SIM card, which increases the possibilities quite a bit. Plus, it supports Wi-Fi, should you choose to use your wireless network instead – eg 4G as a backup or secondary network.

Arlo Go 2 is a further development of the previous version, Arlo Go, in which they have now invested in improvements to, among other things, battery life and resolution. The larger battery also means that the difference from the predecessor becomes apparent in terms of camera size. Resolution is also improved, which contributes to better image quality, and it has a full 1080p HD resolution on the Go 2, up from 720p on the Arlo Go, which we didn’t test.

Download and adjust

Getting started is easy, just use the Arlo app which explains everything and after fully charging the battery you can configure the camera with a simple wizard that allows you to set up wifi and 4G connectivity via SIM card. You connect the device via 2.4GHz WiFi, which can be an annoyance since it doesn’t support 5G. The Wi-Fi network the phone is connected to appears during configuration, and then a QR code that you show to the camera is simply generated.

After a few minutes, the camera is set up and configured, and you can make tweaks to the settings to make the device behave as you want it to. For example, you can see the signal strength of your 4G connection, battery status, and set a lot of options.

When the setup itself is complete, you can mount the camera, for example, on a wall, put it on a shelf, or place it where you want to monitor it. The camera itself is IP rated to be installed outdoors, which gives great freedom of choice for the placement itself.

SIM card and SD card

To take advantage of all the possibilities offered by the camera’s smart functions, you can pay for the Arlo Secure if you want. The subscription includes cloud storage and functions such as image recognition of people, animals and packages, for example. You can the same storage solution by plugging in an SD card of any size, then events are saved as video footage on this, and overwritten cycles when it’s full.

Notifications on mobile in case of motion and viewing live streaming photos do not require a subscription, but if you want to get, for example, a history of video recordings, intelligent recognition, and decide for yourself which part of the photo to turn on the motion detector – then you have to jump on the subscription .

Full of features

But if we start from what the camera is capable of, it’s quite a lot. The functions are numerous, and in addition to 4G connectivity, it also has a bright light that can be set to activate when moving. In addition, you can activate the siren if you wish, but the advantage is the ability to speak and hear – giving the opportunity for two-way communication for those who need to communicate with it on the other side – for example, delivering packages.

Everything is controlled from the Arlo app. There you can also change video settings, such as rotating the image, switching between different power modes to save battery, and adjusting the area of ​​the image that triggers the motion sensor. Under Device, you’ll also see the battery percentage and other necessary device information, as well as manage storage.

Since the camera also has night vision, you can get a good picture even when it’s black outside, so you don’t have to worry about it being too dark to get a good picture. In this way, it is always possible to watch what is happening in a particular location.

The motion sensor is very sensitive and generates a lot of notifications before adjusting the settings. For those who want to monitor an area in the house with the camera, it’s possible to set different activations for how the camera works, which is really simple and smart. For example, you may want to use a schedule of how movements are recorded, which, depending on where you are, may become a battery-saving necessity.

The Arlo Go 2 has three months of battery life according to the manufacturer, something that seems to be on the coolest team, or perhaps under very ideal conditions. When I test battery life, I discover several things, first that 4G consumes more than wifi (at least if reception isn’t optimal), and that motion playback that triggers recording of video sequences eats up a lot of battery.

When I test with a SIM card in an environment with poor 4G reception, it’s days instead of months. It’s clear here that Arlo needed to bulk up the predecessor’s battery to get battery life to work with the Arlo Go 2. Because if you think about how you position the camera and not reach for it to watch, you can increase battery life. So it will be hard to say exactly how long that will take, as it depends on the surrounding conditions – but a few months is unreliable when using 4G. With a Wi-Fi connection, you can get fairly good battery life and faster response than over the mobile network, if notification time is a factor. In addition, the geolocation function provides the option to deactivate the camera when you are nearby, and to activate the motion sensor when you leave the house, for example.

The times the camera gets stuck is when I’m swaying to move it. Then it is not easy to switch from mobile network to Wi-Fi, which resulted in me having to reset the device. The procedure will be the first configuration again and if you’re lucky it’s painless, for me it required some resets to get it right again.

The app itself is well organized. The settings are present, as are the tweaking and configuration capabilities, but nonetheless it is somewhat difficult to navigate. Perhaps it would also be possible to inform the user more about the error when it doesn’t work as it should, eg when I lose connection with the camera and it still appears to work in the app – even though the battery has been removed. This way, I’m experimenting with the app as somewhat buggy and with potential for optimization for the user.

Conclusion

With a viewing angle of 130 degrees and Full HD resolution, as well as the possibility of night vision, the image from the Arlo Go 2 is very good. The image can be zoomed in in real time when watching a broadcast, and the detail is very good to see what is happening in the location where it is installed. The motion sensor and different zone settings make it configurable in a good way, as well as the possibility of local storage of the video it records.

An addition is also the possibility of two-way communication. But the biggest feature of all is, of course, the SIM card slot, which enables 4G connectivity – from wherever you want, as long as there’s coverage.

The disadvantage is the cost of the subscription when you want to use more advanced functions, which is almost necessary to be able to fully use the capabilities of the camera. Battery life is also something to consider, and for a quick analysis of the conditions the camera will be used in to see how long it can or will go between charges. However, it is possible to purchase a solar cell array to charge the camera continuously, something that should work well for those who want to monitor, say, their summer cottage.

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