Arlo Ultra 2 4K review: Beauty comes at a price

Considering cord placement, power points and Wi-Fi proximity is such a first-world problem, but I love the convenience of a wireless security camera. But with placement convenience, there's often a trade-off when it comes to quality. Sometimes the stream will lag, or the audio is a tad buggy. The Arlo Ultra 2 4K truly makes you wonder how a wireless camera can have such exquisite video and audio quality. However, as breathtaking as it may be, its beauty comes at a price. 

Straight out of the box, the Arlo Ultra 2 looks and feels like a boujie camera. Its sleek, monochrome design follows in the footsteps of its previous iterations and keeps true to the shiny luxe design we associate with Arlo cameras. It’s not just a pretty face either. It’s weatherproof, so it’s built to withstand harsh Aussie winters, scorching summers, and everything in between. 

The Arlo Ultra 2 is without a doubt the quickest security camera I’ve ever assembled. As a tech writer, I’ve set up my fair share of security cameras. There’s no thinking or guesswork in setting up the Ultra 2. Just take it out of the box, follow the instructions, download the app, and connect it to your Wi-Fi. 

Although the Arlo Ultra 2 is weatherproof, you may have an issue or two setting it up outside. Unless you have an approved or preinstalled mount you can stick the camera, its outdoor setup isn’t renter-friendly. If you don’t have a conspicuous ledge to place it on or you don’t own your home, you’ll need to get creative. We tried using 3M tape to stick it to the patio door, but the camera was too heavy so it didn’t hold. It does come with screws though, so if you’ve got the green light from your landlord, you can mount it where you please. 

According to Arlo, you can expect the battery to last about six months between charges. We found that to be pretty ambitious. With our current settings, placement in a high-traffic area, and ensuring it’s off when not in use, we found it to last about a month. While it's easy enough to pop it on the charger for a few hours, we do wish the battery lasted longer, especially at such a high price point.

It’s no exaggeration to say we’re irrevocably in love with the quality of this camera. It streams in 4K quality and takes pride in its clear, crisp video and audio, even at night. It doesn’t lag, and it’s easy to peruse the inner workings of your living room with the 12x zoom and the 180-degree field of view. 

The integrated spotlight is a unique feature, but it does need some configuration. The spotlight ensures that any footage recorded at night is in colour, not black and white. When the sun begins to set, or somebody enters its POV during the night, the spotlight activates. It’s a useful tool for outdoor cameras and will no doubt scare off lurking intruders. It can be fickle for cameras situated indoors, though. 

Both myself and my partner have been blinded by the spotlight upon waking up in the morning and walking out into the camera’s POV. If you want to keep your eyesight, you'll need to turn the camera off before you hit the hay.

While you can theoretically turn off the spotlight feature in the app, I've still been caught out and blinded numerous times. To make matters worse, even when the spotlight illuminated the indoor space, visibility was non-existent. It does depend on where you place the camera though, as we found the colour and visibility exceptional when placed outside.

While the set-up of the camera was as easy as can be, you’ll need to adjust the motion sensitivity. I left the motion sensitivity as is initially, and in the first ten minutes of the setup, I was inundated with over 20 notifications. Each time my dog lifted its head or shifted positions on the lounge, I received a notification. You’ll need to adjust your motion sensitivity settings, or even turn off pet detection if your dog loves to do zoomies around the house and you want to use it for genuine intruder detection. 

It also frequently detects animals as people. While we love to think of our furry family members as our children, it was frustrating (and kinda spooky) receiving frequent notifications about a ‘person’ roaming around our house when it was just our dog looking for her toy. 

What we loved about the motion detection is that once it detects a pet or a person, you’ll receive a screenshot of the stream with the notification. That way, you can deduce if it’s something you need to tend to right away, like a postie, or your dog just doing parkour around the house. We also love that you can ask the camera to record up to two minutes of your pet once they’re detected. The footage can be accessed in the app so you can save it directly to your camera roll.

HomeKit-compatible security cameras are few and far between, so we were thrilled to have one to add to our repertoire. The Arlo Ultra 2 4K is also compatible with Amazon Alexa, Samsung SmartThings, and Google Assistant.

The crystal clear quality of the Arlo Ultra 2 4K is unlike anything we’ve seen before. The two-way audio is crisp, and in no way crackly or laggy. But this quality comes at a price. The steep upfront investment is not a one-and-done. If you want to keep with the astonishing quality, you’ll also need to fork out for the subscription service. We’re conflicted. We’re in love with the quality, however, we just can’t justify such a high ongoing cost for features we know and love.