Review: Arlo Essential 2K Outdoor

As we’ve seen in previous tests of the Pro model and the mobile model, Arlo is an experienced surveillance camera company. They typically have good build quality, advanced and well-thought-out features, and reliable operation. The problem is that they cost more than their competitors, especially because they often require a hub, which adds to the overall cost. But with the Essential Series, Arlo brings its expertise to more affordable products on par with the competition.

Installation

Once the camera is charged with a USB-C cable, it can easily be connected to the Arlo app by following the instructions. Unlike the Pro series, the Essential doesn’t require a hub and can be connected directly to the wireless network. Unfortunately, it does not support Apple Homekit like the more expensive cameras in the series. The camera can then be set up with an articulating wall mount that screws into the camera. If you want to use the camera indoors, it’s flat enough on the underside to simply stand on a shelf or on top of a cabinet.

Operation and handling

The app gives you a good overview if you have multiple cameras and you can instantly switch on the dialogue function to talk to someone standing in front of the camera. If it’s dark, you can switch on the spotlight and if it turns out to be an intruder, you can activate the siren to scare them away. A unique feature is that by logging into My Arlo in the browser, you can get the same view as in the app. This gives you the feeling of being inside a security centre.

There are three modes that the cameras can be set to: Away, Home or Standby. And with geofencing, it’s easy to automatically activate the modes when you leave home or come home. For each mode, you can decide what it should do if it detects motion. To avoid false alarms, you can mask out the field of view. What we do notice is that on the Essential model, we get significantly fewer advanced features like automatic face tracking, adjustable wide angle and the like. Battery dropped by 30 per cent in 3 weeks with a number of motion alerts per day.

Video quality

While you can’t expect the same high video quality as the Pro model, it’s still a cut above the rest. The higher resolution is noticeable and we see more detail in the image. The video stream has fewer issues with artefacts, and this is especially evident if you’re on the home network and can stream in 2K. Even in the dark, it stands out as it focuses better and you get better sharpness than many competitors.

Cost of ownership

As usual with Arlo, there are a lot of really advanced features, but unfortunately they all require a subscription. They include cloud storage, better notifications, and person and animal detection. Without the subscription, you can only see motion alerts and live streaming video. More or less useless. However, you can purchase the base station, which allows you to record video on memory cards. Either way, it’s an unwelcome extra cost on top of the camera.

Conclusion

Arlo feels like a reliable and professional choice as they’ve drawn on experience from their significantly more expensive cameras for this ‘base model’. It’s easy to install, the app works well and you get good video quality. But there are hidden costs. If you want advanced detection and cloud storage, you’ll need a subscription, or for local storage you’ll need a base station. If it wasn’t for that drawback, it would have been an overall winner.