Arlo Pro 4 security camera review

The Arlo Pro 4 is a strong contender for one of the best security cameras on the market, thanks to supreme smart home integration, 2K video resolution, affordable cloud storage, and no base station. It's not a cheap or perfect camera. But after testing it for a few weeks, we think it strikes the best balance of advanced features and price compared to other high-end cameras like the Google Nest Cam and the Ring Spotlight Cam.

It's a great option for people looking for a high-end outdoor camera.

Arlo’s latest in the Pro series is a streamlined camera that just about anyone can install and connect to tons of smart home devices like lights or smart displays. And it can also boast an entirely wire-free setup—in an upgrade to the Arlo Pro 3, it doesn’t require a base station either. We’re all for reducing bulky and pricey equipment requirements.

• Arlo Pro 4 camera
• Rechargeable battery
• Magnetic charging cable
• Wall mount and screw kit
• Quick Start Guide
• Video monitoring decal

Arlo has consistently appeared in our lists of best cameras over the years because the brand consistently makes products that perform exceptionally well in terms of quality and connectivity.

It can be pricier than competitors like Reolink, but if smart home options are important to you or you’re an Apple user, Arlo has more options to connect with.

It’s also got impressive motion zone customisations and the widest field of view (160°) of cameras we recommend. Motion zones let you cut down on motion alerts by ignoring busy areas like pathways or a bus stop near your house. And if you want to cover a wide area, a bigger field of view will help you do that with fewer cameras.

The Arlo Pro 4 has great video quality, thanks to a 1440p (2K) video resolution, which is better than the 1080p on most other security cameras. Videos were clear with a lot of detail, making it easy to identify objects, animals, and people in the frame.

One of the Arlo Pro 4's best features is its night vision in colour and infrared modes. The colour night vision uses a built-in spotlight to light up subjects near the camera when there's motion. It's useful for getting a little more detail, but it's not as discreet as the infrared night vision setting.

We noticed a delay between an action and when it shows up during a live video stream. The delay depended entirely on our internet bandwidth, so you shouldn't have problems with a speedy internet connection.

Compare Arlo Pro 4 video quality in different lighting environments

We appreciate the Arlo Pro 4's 160º field of view, which is much wider than a typical security camera (around 130º on average). Such a broad perspective outdoors means less cameras needed for an area like a backyard—saving you money and hassle.

Although the field of view is great for capturing a lot of detail, you can adjust it in the app to 125º or 110º—both of which can work well for recording video indoors.

There's also an option to automatically zoom and track people moving in front of the Arlo Pro 4, which is more helpful outdoors when subjects are farther from the camera. We prefer to turn this setting off indoors because it can be jarring with closer objects.

Compare Arlo Pro 4 fields of view

You can adjust the brightness of the video for different situations. While the camera's night vision performed best with maximum brightness, a lower setting during the day helps avoid washing out the video's color.

Unfortunately, the brightness doesn't automatically adjust as needed, so we recommend choosing a medium brightness so you don't need to change settings often.

To record video with the Arlo Pro 4, you can switch between five settings:

• Disarmed turns off all recording, but you can still record videos when viewing a live stream.
• Armed allows the camera to record video whenever there's motion.
• Schedule records video only during specific times.
• Geofencing activates other recording modes based on your location.
• Custom mode allows you to adjust when the camera records.

Most of the Arlo Pro 4's best features are available only when you pay for an Arlo Secure Plan subscription. Fortunately, Arlo has one of most affordable cloud storage plans around and holds its own against offerings from Ring and Nest.

• Arlo's cloud storage keeps video clips for up to 30 days before deleting them. This is usually more than enough to download important clips you want to keep longer. Arlo recently removed the five-camera limit on its pricier plans so you can have as many as you like. This huge improvement helps Arlo compete better on cloud pricing with Nest and Ring.

• Activity zones allow you to specify areas the camera should ignore when tracking motion. These help focus the camera on high-risk areas like doors, hallways, and windows. These are easy to set up, but the controls can be imprecise on smartphone screens, so using a tablet or logging into your Arlo account on a web browser is a better option.

• Smart notifications can help you identify a person, animal, or vehicle. Unfortunately, they weren't always accurate during our tests—at first, they alternated between dubbing the cat a person and animal, but became more reliable over time (with the camera farther away).

Arlo also offers the Secure Plan Plus, which is the most expensive plan at $21.99 a month), but in Australia, the only extra feature it includes is 4K video storage. Since only the more expensive Arlo Ultra records in 4K, we'd recommend saving your money and option for the Arlo Secure plan.

The battery life on the Arlo Pro 4 is quite good for a wireless camera but decreased by around 50% over a couple of weeks. We suspect that part of this decrease was an unreliable Wi-Fi router that dropped connection multiple times a day, which likely made the Arlo Pro 4 use more power trying to reconnect.

Arlo offers three power management options in the video settings menu:

• Best Video uses more power to provide better video quality.
• Optimised tries to balance power consumption and video quality.
• Best Battery Life uses less power at the expense of video quality.

We don't think it's possible to get a full six months out of the battery as it says on the box—even under more stable conditions. Our first two weeks of testing used the Optimised setting and after that we put it in Standby. After about two months, we had to charge the battery.

Your rechargeable battery will likely be partially charged before setup, but we recommend topping off the charge during and after setup before mounting your Arlo Pro 4.

There are plenty of customisation options in the mobile app, so we spent an hour or so tweaking settings and familiarising ourselves with the app. Overall, the app has an intuitive interface, but not all of the settings are easy to find at first glance. Arlo divides many settings across multiple menus, especially ones for individual devices. You’ll get the hang of it after a day or two.

The Arlo Pro 4 was almost too effective when we first tested motion alerts. We picked a window frequented by our test cat—a deluge of notifications prompted us to disable notifications until we found a way to reduce motion sensitivity.

The motion sensor in the camera works independently of the video settings. We adjusted it in the Device Utilities menu under Motion Detection Test. After lowering the sensitivity (under 50% in our case), the notifications were less frequent, tracking only large movements.

Arlo can also send audio alerts when the camera detects sound, but you'll likely never use the audio-only setting. The default arming mode uses motion and audio detection, and there's not much reason to use them separately.

Arlo has some of the best smart home compatibility among security cameras, which extends to the Arlo Pro security cameras. Out of the box, you can expect Arlo Pro 4 to work with four smart home platforms: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, IFTTT, and Samsung SmartThings. By linking your Arlo account to one of these platforms, you can make your camera work alongside other smart devices.

Arlo Pro 4's functionality with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant is essentially identical. The most convenient feature is viewing a live video feed on a smart display like an Echo Show or Google Nest Hub. We especially like this for spying on the cat while working or checking on the kids in the yard.

If you don't have a smart display, you can also watch a live stream on your TV using a Fire TV or Chromecast device, which are compatible with Alexa and Google smart speakers, respectively. Having a larger screen is a big bonus, and you can check your cameras between episodes to see if the kids are asleep.

You can arm and disarm the camera using voice commands or routines. This is great for when you're out of the house. Here's a routine you might try: set the camera to arm motion recording when you lock the front door and leave for the day.

IFTTT and SmartThings give you a little more flexibility in using your Arlo camera—mostly with how you set up routines to control devices. IFTTT is great for connecting Arlo to other devices and services that usually wouldn't work with your smart home system. A good example is using other security cameras like Ring with Arlo. This frees you up to use a variety of cameras for your home without sticking to one brand.

The best part about pairing Arlo with SmartThings is that you can link it to other sensors in your home. It helps the camera know to start recording if there's motion just outside the front door or if a window opens that's just out of the camera's view.

Setting up the Arlo Pro camera is straightforward and uncomplicated:

1. Download the Arlo app and create an Arlo account.
2. Put the battery in the camera.
3. Connect to Wi-Fi.
4. Adjust settings to fit your needs.

We had some trouble connecting the Arlo Pro 4 to Wi-Fi because it wouldn't recognize the 2.4 GHz mode on our network, which normally uses a 5 GHz frequency. For a workaround, we connected the camera to a guest network that runs at 2.4 GHz (though we didn't have any problems when setting up on a different router a couple of weeks later). Overall, this minor snag didn't diminish the camera's better qualities.

Arlo makes some useful accessories to help you maximise your camera's potential, but they are costly considering what you're paying for.

The most outrageous prices are Arlo's proprietary magnetic charging cables, which cost more than double what a comparable USB cable would. We can bet that Arlo makes a hefty profit on its accessories in addition to its already expensive cameras.

Fortunately for Arlo, its accessories have excellent user reviews and durability. Other than wall mounts, use caution when buying third-party Arlo accessories, which could void your warranty or damage your camera. Still, it looks like there are some viable alternatives on the market if you don't want to spend $99 for a spare battery.

Arlo provides an impressive number of articles on its support website that explain practically every feature in detail. We found it easiest to use the search bar for navigation. If you don't find an answer in the support section, you can jump over to the Arlo Community forum for another self-serve support option.

Between the support site and forum, you have plenty of resources. In the rare instance where you need direct help, you can contact Arlo over live chat or by calling them on 1800 549 680.

We're big fans of Arlo's customer support approach. It provides comprehensive information to troubleshoot problems or learn about features without talking to an Arlo representative.

If you want the best smart home features in a high-end security camera, Arlo Pro 4 is hard to beat. We love its video quality and endless settings because you can customize the camera to your liking without much fuss.

It's a bit more expensive than most people probably want to spend on a security camera, and the battery won't last six months (contrary to Arlo’s claim). Still, we think that Arlo Pro 4 is a great choice for high performance where a cheaper camera might struggle.

Head over to our wireless security camera review to see how it compares to other top products.

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We installed an Arlo Pro 4 and tested it in a variety of situations to gauge these traits:

While we tested the camera for about two weeks before writing our review, we plan to continue testing over the next few months to see how it performs in the long term—especially battery life. Find out more about how we test and review products in our testing methodology.