How can I get the most out of my Arlo Mobile minutes plan for my Arlo Go camera?

Your Arlo Go camera only uses Arlo Mobile plan minutes when the camera interacts with the Arlo cloud.

Your Arlo Go camera uses the most minutes when uploading video to the Arlo cloud, which happens under the following two conditions:

• Your Arlo Go camera records video based on a motion or audio trigger event.
• You stream live video from your Arlo Go camera.

Additionally, when you access the Arlo app, a very small amount of data is used to collect the Arlo Go camera real-time information status.

Your Arlo Mobile plan comes with 15, 120, or 225 minutes of video per month. This is the lowest possible amount of minutes included with your Arlo Mobile plan. You will always get at least this many minutes of video upload time every month.

However, you might get significantly more minutes of video upload time depending on your camera’s settings and signal strength. This is because we measure the amount of data your Arlo Go uploads, not the number of minutes. Each minute of video uses a different amount of data depending on video resolution, signal strength, and the amount of activity in the video.

The number of minutes and video clips listed in each plan is based on several assumptions about your camera’s settings and usage. If you optimize your Arlo Go camera’s settings for Best Battery Life, it will use lower video resolution and less data per video clip. Therefore, you can increase the total number of minutes of video available for upload and get even more out of your Arlo Mobile plan.

The number of minutes and video clips listed in your plan is based on the following assumptions:

• Your Arlo Go is using the maximum possible video resolution of 720p HD (Best Video). Videos with a lower resolution use significantly less data. The Best Battery Life video setting uses the least data.
• Your Arlo Go has excellent signal strength. If the Arlo Go camera has poor mobile signal strength, it might be unable to upload video to the Arlo cloud on the first attempt.  Errors during video upload can cause retry and retransmission, consuming additional data. For more information about mobile signal strength, see How many bars of mobile signal strength does Arlo Go need and how do I check it?.
• Your Arlo Go is recording a lot of motion in each video clip. If not much changes from frame to frame, your Arlo Go uses less data to upload the video.

If you change your Arlo Go camera’s power management settings to Optimized or Best Battery Life, you get more minutes of video upload time than the amount listed in your Arlo Mobile plan. For more information about changing video resolution, see How do I change my Arlo camera’s power management settings?.

If you set your Arlo Go camera’s video recording length to less than 30 seconds, you get more video clips than the amount listed in your Arlo Mobile plan, although you do not get a higher total amount of video upload time. For more information about changing video recording length, see How do I adjust Arlo video recording length?.

You can make the most of your Arlo Mobile minutes by reducing the number of unwanted videos your camera records. Make sure that you position your Arlo Go camera to capture only the events and video that you are interested in capturing. Each video event uploaded to the Arlo cloud consumes video minutes from your Arlo Mobile plan. For more information, see How do I position my Arlo Go camera?.

Be mindful of how often and how long you access the Arlo app and live-stream video. Live-streaming video will use Arlo Mobile video minutes, just the same as triggered event recordings. Additionally, accessing the Arlo app to collect Arlo Go camera status information will use a small amount of data.

For more information about Arlo Mobile plans, see What Arlo Mobile service plans are available?.