At first sight
Expert rating
Pros
- Affordable price
- 360 degree pan and 180 degree tilt will cover the entire room.
- Smooth and reliable motion tracking
Cons
- Requires constant power (no battery)
- Smart features locked by Arlo Secure subscription
Our verdict
The Essential Pan Tilt Indoor Camera is a great budget buy for monitoring pets and children. It offers wide coverage and reliable performance at a price that makes this 2K model an easy choice.
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Best prices today
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$49.99
Today's Best Prices: Arlo Essential Pan Tilt Indoor (Model VMC3073-100NAS)
Arlo's Essential line of home security cameras aims to make the company's technology more accessible with affordable cameras that are easy to install while still providing features that most people actually use. The line already includes indoor, outdoor and battery-powered models, and now includes swivel and tilt options.
The Essential Pan Tilt Indoor Camera is the newest member of the family and is an affordable way to provide full room coverage without upgrading to more expensive Arlo Pro or Ultra equipment. Please note that this is a camera for indoor use only; We Reviewed the Arlo Essential Pan Tilt Indoor/Outdoor Camera October 17. (Editor's Note: Yes, the very subtle difference in product names also confuses us, which is why we've also included the full product SKU above.)
Design and Features
The Essential Pan Tilt's interior chamber has a small, discreet design that won't stand out on a bookshelf or side table. The motorized head can rotate 360 degrees or tilt 180 to cover floor to ceiling. You can also save shortcut positions, so instead of having to swipe across the room each time, tapping will take you straight to the points you're interested in; say, a crib or a front door. Motion tracking is built-in, so if the camera spots a person or pet, it will follow it until it leaves the frame.
The camera comes in two flavors: a budget HD version ($34.99) and a sharper 2K model ($49.99), reviewed here. The difference shouldn't be significant at close range, but the extra 2K pixels produce sharper edges and retain more detail when the clip is enlarged. This could mean making it easier for you to recognize a face, spot the logo on a delivery driver's shirt, or spot what's in your pet's mouth. If extra image detail is important to you, the 2K model costs a modest $15.
Arlo's camera rotates 360 degrees and tilts 180 degrees with motion tracking to keep track of moving objects.
Michael Ansaldo/Foundry
Arlo rounds out the package with features you'd expect from a modern security camera. Dual-band Wi-Fi helps maintain a stable connection, one-touch privacy mode mutes video and audio when you want downtime, and standard security features like night vision, two-way audio, and a built-in siren are built in.
To unlock your camera's smart features, you'll need Subscribe to Arlo Securities. The Plus plan costs $7.99 per month billed annually for one camera or $17.99 per month for unlimited cameras. If you pay monthly instead of annually, the rates are $9.99 and $19.99. Upgrading to Premium (about $24.99 per month, billed annually) gives you 24/7 professional monitoring, emergency response, and cellular/battery backup. Arlo Home Security System can stay online even if Wi-Fi goes down (this level of service is probably not practical if you only have Arlo cameras).
With the paid plan, you also get AI alerts that detect people, vehicles, animals or packages, animated preview notifications, and event captions., along with more accurate filtering to reduce false alarms. Arlo offers a 30-day free trial with the purchase of the camera.
Setup and Performance
Installing and running the Essential Pan Tilt Indoor Camera is virtually painless. Plug it in, open the Arlo Secure app, add your device, and follow the instructions. The app will help you connect to Wi-Fi and pair your camera in just a few minutes.
The main screen displays a live preview of the camera's image, and tapping it gives quick access to pan and tilt controls. They're responsive and the camera moves smoothly, although it tends to glide past its stopping point. This made it easier for me to use custom positions for areas I wanted to check frequently, such as front doors and patio doors. They're easy to set up by nudging the camera using the joystick in the app and saving the position for later.
In everyday use the camera performs well for its price. Video is smooth and provides enough detail to make out faces in the room. The night vision feature does an adequate job of capturing video in dimly lit hallways or bedrooms, although you won't get as much clarity as with more expensive Arlo models.
The Arlo Secure app makes it easy to view live feeds, arm and disarm your camera, and set custom pan/tilt positions.
Michael Ansaldo/Foundry
In my testing, motion detection tracking worked well, and notifications were timely and accurate. Each one includes an AI-generated event header describing the action captured: Instead of a vague “motion detected,” I received alerts like “Person detected at home” or “Animal detected in room.” This was useful for quickly sorting alerts, but the labels are pretty basic.
As an Arlo Secure subscriber, you can also enable Face recognitionwhich identifies familiar faces and tells you when you see specific people. The feature isn't turned on by default—you'll find it in a separate settings menu, marked with a “person” icon at the top left of the app—and you practice it by adding photos from your phone's camera roll or tagging people as they appear in clips. If you're getting too many notifications, the app lets you define activity zones so the camera only reacts to motion in the areas that interest you. This helps reduce the number of unnecessary warnings.
Detected events can be easily found in the Feed tab, where entries are organized into a simple timeline. From here, you can connect to a clip, view motion events, or view animated previews—as long as you're on the Arlo Secure plan.
Arlo also bakes in safety modes. You can set the system to Armed, Home Armed, or Standby modes, depending on whether you want full coverage, selective coverage, or no arming at all. Automation allows you to go even further, allowing you to schedule your camera to arm when you leave the house, for example. Everything is simple and does not require digging into the menu.
Is the Arlo Essential Pan Tilt Indoor Camera Worth Buying?
At under $50, the Arlo Essential Pan Tilt Indoor Camera seems like an easy buy for anyone who wants to keep an eye on kids, pets, or general indoor activity. The 2K model is the best deal for the modest price, but any version should provide good performance for the money.
If you don't mind plugging it in and can live with Arlo's subscription model, this is one of the best inexpensive indoor cameras you can buy right now.
This review is part of an in-depth TechHive review best home security cameras.
