ARLO Ultra

VERDICT

The Arlo Ultra shoots the most detailed security camera footage we’ve ever seen, but 4K recording won’t work out of the box.

- David Ludlow

EVEN THOUGH THE Nest Cam IQ Outdoor (Shopper 378) was the first camera we reviewed to have a4Kresolution, it downsampled the footage to 1080p for uploading to the cloud. That makes the Arlo Ultra the first security camera we’ve seen that can actually record in Ultra HD resolutions, meaning it produces some of the best footage we’ve seen. Since the camera is completely wireless, this is even more impressive.

LOW RES

However, you can’t record in 4K straight away. Although you get a year-long subscription to the Arlo Smart service at the Premier tier, which gives you 30-day video history for up to 10 cameras, this only supports 1080p recording, rather than the camera’s native 4K.

If you want to upgrade to 4K recording, you have to add on the option and pay an additional £1.49 per month per camera. This seems a bit cheeky to us, given that one of the main selling points for this camera is its 4K resolution.

Fortunately, there is a way to get 4K recording for free –or, at least, the cost of a microSD card. Slot this into the Arlo Ultra’s hub unit, and you can turn on local 4K recording. Unfortunately, this option has its problems too, not least that you can’t view footage stored on a microSD card via the Arlo app; you have to remove the memory card and plug it into a PC. By default, Arlo even disables 4K streaming: you can turn this on in the app, but doing so disables the automatic tracking feature, where the system zooms into detected movement.