Adventures in home security…

Recently my son bought three Nest security cameras and placed them around his house. The last time I was at his place, he gave me a demo on his phone app.

I was impressed, and my wife and I thought it would be a good idea, even through no one has ever loitered around our houses, yet alone broke into them. I shopped around and narrowed my choice in favor of the Arlo Pro 2.

I drove to the nearby Best Buy and bought a two-camera package. These systems aren’t cheap, but the Arlo, unlike Nest, offers 7 days on-cloud storage absolutely free. First, Best Buy screwed up and gave me the wrong definition cameras (720 vs.1080), so I had to return to the store, negotiate the exchange and get the right items.

The next day, I proceeded to unpack my purchase, get the system hooked up into my wifi, downloaded the phone app, etc. One hour into that process, I couldn’t make the second camera work, so I called the manufacturer, got routed to the Philippines and not only had a bad phone line, but also a technician who spoke incomprehensible English and didn’t understand me either.

I have experienced this many, many times already. In short, the guy couldn’t help me, so he offered to replace the camera, but with this caveat, I should return the defective unit at my expense. I asked him to repeat and told him that I’d gladly return the whole system to Best Buy instead and get a full refund, which I did.

By then, the whole process had shaken my confidence in the product, pushing me to bag the whole security camera idea. At least for now.