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I just setup an Arlo Pro security camera (made by Netgear) and found it interesting that the system didn't explicitly have me configure a WiFi connection. The setup process consists of hard-wiring the base receiver to my network, then simultaneously pressing sync buttons on both the base receiver and camera.

So, do Arlo Pro cameras connect via WiFi or some other form of wireless to connect to its base receiver?

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    The pairing process doesn't need you to enter your home WiFi password, so the assumption is that Arlo provides it's own network.
    – Sean Houlihane
    Apr 21 '17 at 9:27
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If, on the other hand, we look the user guide, we will see that WiFi is providing a 100% cordless connection from the camera to the base station and Ethernet is the way for connecting the whole system to the Internet.

The thought of connecting WiFi for Internet is not correct according to that document. Also connecting wire to Ethernet in previous step does not mean that local home WiFi would be involved to pairing process in any way. These are separate steps for separate functions and always base station and cameras share a WiFi that belongs to them only and is created by base station, not your local WiFi station.

Answer to the question: cameras connect to base station directly via WiFi.

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    There seems to be an additional short-range wireless mode used in the pairing process. Maybe Bluetooth rather than NFC, but that's a guess.
    – Sean Houlihane
    Apr 21 '17 at 9:26
  • @SeanHoulihane If it's WiFi, it may be some sort of triangulation because they explicitly ask you to keep other cameras further away during pairing.
    – tbm0115
    Apr 21 '17 at 16:25
  • @tbm0115 This is probably more for interference minimisation than anything else - or possibly they use a minimum-power transmit, and hope noone will MITM the pairing process.
    – Sean Houlihane
    Apr 21 '17 at 17:13
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Based on the information in the product datasheet, this device communicates wirelessly via 802.11n-compliant protocols over a 2.4GHz channel.

data

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    While helpful, this doesn't answer the question of how the camera communicates with the base station. Is the WiFi for the base stations own use or is it used to communicate with its child cameras, thus utilizing Ethernet for its Internet connection?
    – tbm0115
    Apr 11 '17 at 14:12
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    @tbm0115 apologies for not answering the question directly. I did not find any info in the data sheet specifically about this; all I found was that the device is stated to be "wire free" (page 2)
    – julian
    Apr 11 '17 at 14:15

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