Arlo Essential Wireless Security Camera 2nd Gen with Solar Panel - Outdoor & Indoor Wireless Camera with Integrated Spotlight, Color Night Vision, Motion Sensor & DIY Setup - White, 1 Pack, VMK3050

I’m impressed with the Arlo Essential Wireless Security Camera. It’s easy to set up, provides clear video quality, and works well with my smart home system. The night vision is sharp, and the motion detection is reliable. Overall, a great choice for home security!!

Great value, picture quality is amazing, long battery life , easy to use and set up. Well made and made to last. Works great and recommend it as we have a few of this type of cameras.

Frustrating, setup went well camera connects to a strong wifi signal BUT doesn't stay connected. App just keeps spooling trying to reconnect and it doesn't. My cheaper wyze camera works absolutely fine in the same location. Have tried resetting the camera but that didn't work. I've sent my problem to the community forum just now to see what they'll say. I'll call customer service if I need to or return it to Amazon

I really liked this camera! It is very easy to use and has great features. The image quality is clear, and the setup was simple. Perfect for home security. Highly recommended!

I love this Arlo Essential 2nd Gen camera! The setup was super easy, and it works really fast. The night vision is impressive, providing clear images even in low light. The best part is the solar panel, which keeps it charged without me having to worry about battery life. Definitely a great investment for home security!

I love how easy this camera is to set up and use. The solar panel is super convenient — I don’t have to worry about charging it, and it works great. The video quality is impressive, even at night, and the motion detection is very responsive.

Got 5 of these and 2 video doorbells for my out of state rental property, and I do NOT recommend. The solar panels do charge the cameras, but just barely, I still need to get somebody to go out and charge the cameras when they die, and the cameras with the most activity last for maybe about a month. There’s a lag in the video and audio as well when speaking with somebody on the other end. The activity zones keep getting messed up too after I factory reset. It will alert me so much in areas where there is no activity zones and the support is pretty useless in this situation. I bought a rechargeable battery for the video doorbell as well because their website said it was compatible with the video doorbell, but it wasn’t… they wouldn’t take it back. Overall, would never buy Arlo again as the products and the customer support are unreliable.

Keep in mind that this is an entry level setup and you will probably be okay with it if you are planning on screwing the solar panel to your roof. Let me first explain what comes with the kit and the setup. This kit comes with the essential (lower featured) version of their camera with an adjustable mount so you can angle the camera a bit along with a small solar panel with a fixed mount, which does not let you angle the panel.Setup is relatively straightforward except the still existing software bug that locks during the paring of the camera with your home WiFi. I’ve installed this “essential” camera as well as their Pro S5 camera and 2 different doorbell cameras. Every one of them locked up and crashed between 2-4 times during the same portion of mating with home WiFi. This has happened at 3 different locations using different WiFi setups at each location and Arlo is definitely aware of the problem. As of this writing the only known work-through is to just do the same thing during the setup and eventually the camera pairs with your WiFi system. Hopefully the software team at Arlo gets that nasty and annoying little bug corrected before you read this review.When setting up the included solar panel you need to make sure that you have a location for the mount that is pointed to the south sky because, as of writing this review, there is no ability to angle the solar panel. I see this as an extremely easy fix for Arlo and I totally expect the mount that comes with the panels from Arlo to be adjustable in the very near future. Once you get the solar panel mounted and connected to the camera, it will keep the camera charged but it is not intended to be a fast charging panel. Even in direct sunlight it takes a few days to fully charge the camera if your camera is at 50% or so state of charge. With the non-angling mount you may not have the panel aimed directly at the sun so you need to be somewhat judicious with how you use the camera for the charge to keep up.Now that I’m used to the proprietary software that comes with the cameras it’s okay and can be set to likely work as needed. If you are not familiar with Arlo’s software, set aside a bit of time to play with all the options in the software to get your security setup how you want it. You likely can get the cameras to do what you want but, the software is just not very straightforward and user friendly as some of the competing battery operated security camera systems. Hopefully Arlo will take customer input into consideration and will make the appropriate corrections and changes needed in their system.