Arlo Essential 2K XL review

Product name: Introduction

• Type: Outdoor wireless camera
• Connectivity: 2.4GHz Wi-Fi
• Ecosystems: Alexa, Google Home, SmartThings

Arlo is one of the biggest names in home security cameras and, while the feature sets can always be guaranteed to tick pretty much all the boxes, there is a wide range of models, at massively different price points, to choose from.

The good news is that Arlo made things a bit more simple at the entry-level end, with the launch of its Essential range a couple of years back.

The range, of which a new generation of products have just launched, not only comprises indoor and outdoor security cameras but a video doorbell too.

On test here for this review, we have the Arlo Essential 2K XL Outdoor Security Camera that, as the name suggests, is the larger of the two outdoor Essential 2K cameras that the San Jose brand offers.

As you can see from the image below, it’s a fair bit chunkier than its non-XL partner in crime:

With a two-pack costing around the same as the top-end Arlo Pro 5, you aren’t getting all of the bells and whistles that an Arlo security camera can offer, but the 2K XL is still a superb option with a staggeringly long battery life.

Read our full Arlo Essential 2K XL Outdoor Security Camera review to find out more.

Design and installation

• Largest Essentials camera
• Familiar black and white finish
• Easy to install with mounting plate
• Can be used with or without SmartHub

From the outside the 2K XL looks like any of the Arlo range over the last five years. That’s not a bad thing though; let’s be honest – it’s a toned-down aesthetic that other brands have tried to replicate over the years.

The XL, therefore, features a white body with a black front, allowing it to blend into its surroundings, with some nice curved edges on its otherwise rectangular shape. 

Where the XL stands out from its non-XL brethren is that it’s much more bulky at the rear, with its 57.27 x 96.56 x 82.59mm form factor allowing extra room for that big battery, which I’ll talk about more of in a bit.

Weighing in at 454g, it’s quite heavy for a wireless camera but you’ll have no issues mounting it with the included plate, which simply requires a couple of screws drilled in to hold it in place.

That plate lets you pop the XL over the top and then you’ve got a ball and socket joint to angle the camera to the exact position you want.

Rather than the proprietary magnetic charger that older Arlo cameras use, the new Essential range use standard USB-C, with the port protected by a waterproof cover. You can, therefore, charge with any USB-C cable but you will need to take the camera down to charge it as there’s no removable battery.

You can also, if you want, keep the battery topped up by plugging one of Arlo’s solar panels into this USB-C port.

Unlike the higher end Arlo cameras, which use an Arlo SmartHub base station, the 2K XL can connect directly to your home Wi-Fi (2.4GHz). You can use the SmartHub option if you want also.

Therefore, if you’re thinking of using it outside, make sure you have the Wi-Fi coverage to allow it to connect.

If you’re using a mesh system you might get away with attaching it to the outside of your house and getting a good, solid connection. If you can add a mesh node to your garden, then you might be able to go even further, and have the added benefit of good outside coverage.

The Essential XL 2K is a weatherproof camera with an IP65 certification, allowing it to be used outdoors, as well as indoors.

There’s no privacy shutter, but it does boast both a siren and a built in spotlight that will illuminate up to 7m when motion is detected.

Features

• Subscription needed for most features
• Live view footage in the app
• Uses Arlo Secure app

Once you’ve got the XL synced up with your home Wi-Fi using the excellent Arlo Secure app, you’ll see it appear as a device in the app, alongside any other Arlo cameras or doorbells that you already have.

It’s also the same app the brilliant Arlo Security System uses and, if you have that in place, the XL becomes an extra weapon in your home security defence setup, with integrations with alarm triggers, home/away mode and the like.

In the Arlo Secure app you can view a live stream from the devices page, or you can tap the camera to go into a more detailed page that includes a scrollable list of events, presented in a nice timeline. However, to see those events you’ll need an Arlo plan in place; which I’ll talk about more soon.

The Essential XL 2K offers compatibility with SmartThings, Alexa, Google and IFTTT smart home platforms.

It also boasts a single microphone, noise reduction and echo cancellation functionality. 

There’s two-way audio so you can speak to anyone near your Arlo Essential camera through the Arlo Secure app on your device, and the cameras is also compatible with Arlo’s Live View feature that allows you to see what is going on when you receive a notification. 

The XL features a built in siren if you need to scare off unwanted visitors. Because this is a battery-powered camera it’s obviously not ‘on’ all of the time. It uses a PIR sensor to detect motion and start recording, thus saving unneeded battery drain.

You can also choose the quality of the video to help to make battery life last a bit longer in the settings, as well as tinkering with motion sensitivity, night vision and the like.

The app manages when the camera records, offering Away, Home, and Standby modes akin to those found in alarm systems. Within each mode, you have the option to designate which cameras are on and which are off.

While manual control is beneficial, you can also automate these modes using IFTTT, or by setting schedules and enabling geolocation within the app.

Streaming security video footage to a smart speaker with a display, such as an Echo Show 8 or Echo Hub, is possible with voice commands for both Google Assistant and Alexa on offer.

However, to get the range of advanced AI features, like person detection, you’ll need to sign up to an Arlo Secure subscription.

That’s the kicker here really; without an Arlo Secure subscription, the out of the box functionality includes just basic motion alerts and the ability to watch live feeds of your cameras.

That means you could get a motion alert and immediately click on it to see what is happening but you wouldn’t be able to go back and see what had happened if you only saw the alert a few hours later for example. 

And you’ll miss out, with no plan in place, on all the clever stuff like smart notifications, where you can choose to be alerted for your choice of people, vehicles, animals and the like and the option to add activity zones.

And the plans aren’t cheap either. Arlo offers Secure, Secure Plus and Safe & Secure Pro in the US. You’ll find Secure Single Cam, Secure Multi-Cam, Secure Plus, and the Arlo CVR Plan in the UK. 

Prices range from $7.99 per month to $24.99 per month depending on what level of protection you want. Check out our guide to Arlo Secure Subscriptions to learn more.

Performance

2K resolution video recording is on offer, as you probably guessed from the name, with a 130-degree field of view.

I had the camera mounted on the back wall of our Florida test lab and, as you can see from the sample video below, it more than covered the whole back yard.

The Essential XL boasts HDR and, shooting at 2560×1440, you can see that it is more than capable of shooting sharp images, particularly during the day time.

At night, the Arlo Essential 2K Outdoor Camera can uses that built-in spotlight to shoot full-color night vision.

The image sensor used isn’t quite as good as the one on the Pro 5, though, so you’ll see that there’s a fair bit of graininess to the footage and that, because it’s using a front facing spotlight, anything close to the sensor such as flying insects, cause a light flare.

The Essential XL 2K has, according to its makers at least, a battery life of between 16 to 24 months.

Obviously we didn’t want to wait 2 years to bring you this review so I can’t verify that exactly. However, we set up the XL at the end of May and now, about 2 months later, it’s still sitting at 78%; that’s with around 4-5 motion events per day.

So, you’re probably likely to get a least a year between charges. When it is time to juice up, a full battery charge time of 13 hours is required.

Final thoughts

It’s a shame you have to pay through the nose for the top Arlo features but, at the price-tag that the 2K XL is on offer for, it’s still a worthy contender at the lower-mid end of the smart security camera market. The video quality is great, the integration with the Arlo Secure app is superb and the battery life is seriously impressive. 

How we test

When we publish our reviews, you can rest assured that they are the result of “living with” long term tests.

Smart security cameras usually live within an ecosystem, or a range of products that – supposedly – all work in harmony. Therefore, it’s impossible to use a security camera for a week and deliver a verdict.

Because we’re testing smart home kit all day, everyday, we know what matters and how a particular camera compares to alternatives that you might also be considering.

Our reviews are comprehensive, objective and fair and, of course, we are never paid directly to review a device.

Read our guide on our review process for smart security cameras to learn more.