How to Reset an Arlo Camera (2026): Sync Button vs App, Direct-WiFi vs SmartHub

Quick Answer: Arlo’s direct-WiFi cameras — Arlo Essential, Arlo Pro 6, Ultra 2, Video Doorbell, and Wireless Floodlight — each carry their own Sync/Pairing button: hold it about 15 seconds until the LED blinks amber, per Arlo’s own factory-reset instructions, and the camera reboots into pairing mode. Older Pro and Ultra cameras that pair through a SmartHub or Base Station are trickier — their Sync button mostly just re-pairs the camera to the hub, and a true factory reset usually means resetting the SmartHub itself, which drops every camera on it offline at once. You can also reset any online camera from the Arlo app (Settings → select camera → Remove Device), without touching a button at all. Either path leaves cloud video from an active Arlo Secure plan untouched, since it’s tied to your account, not the hardware.

The split that trips people up isn’t restart-vs-reset like most brands — it’s which device you’re actually resetting. On a SmartHub setup, resetting the wrong thing can take out a whole camera system instead of the one unit giving you trouble.

Direct-WiFi vs SmartHub — which kind of Arlo camera do you have?

This is the same fork our Arlo camera offline guide already covers for troubleshooting: newer Arlo hardware talks straight to your router, while older Pro and Ultra models route through a hub with its own connection to babysit. Reset the wrong link and you’ve either fixed nothing or taken down cameras that were working fine.

How to factory reset a direct-WiFi Arlo camera

Covers Arlo Essential, Arlo Pro 6, Ultra 2, the Video Doorbell, and the Wireless Floodlight — any current Arlo camera that connects straight to your home Wi-Fi with no SmartHub required.

1. Locate the Sync (or Pairing) button on the camera body — position varies by model, usually on the underside or an edge near the charging port.
2. Press and hold for about 15 seconds. Per Arlo’s own factory-reset documentation, the LED starts blinking amber once the reset triggers.
3. Release the button once you see the amber blink. Don’t let go early — an incomplete hold is the most common reason a reset doesn’t take.
4. Wait one to three minutes. The camera reboots and drops into pairing mode automatically.
5. Re-add it in the Arlo app as a new device, rejoin it to Wi-Fi, and rebuild any activity zones or notification settings — the reset wipes all of that along with the Wi-Fi credentials.

If you’re resetting and replacing cameras across more than one property or business location, a free Amazon Business account unlocks quantity discounts and tax-exempt purchasing on multi-camera orders.

How to reset an Arlo camera from the app (no button needed)

Works for any camera that’s currently online — the fallback for cameras mounted somewhere the physical button is hard to reach.

1. Open the Arlo app and sign in.
2. Go to Settings, then select the camera you want to reset.
3. Choose Remove Device and confirm. Some app versions surface this instead under Settings → Advanced → Factory Reset.
4. The camera drops off your account and reverts to factory defaults; re-add it from scratch to set it back up.

An offline camera can’t be reset this way — if yours has already dropped off Wi-Fi, our Arlo camera offline guide covers getting it reconnected first, since the app can’t reach a device it can’t see.

Resetting a SmartHub-connected Arlo camera (older Pro and Ultra)

This is where Arlo differs most from Ring, Nest, and Blink’s direct-WiFi cameras. Older Pro and Ultra models connect over a proprietary wireless link to an Arlo SmartHub rather than to your router — functionally the same pattern as Blink’s Sync-Module cameras, which our how to reset a Blink camera guide covers in more depth.

• Resetting just the camera’s Sync button mostly re-pairs it to the SmartHub it’s already registered with — it doesn’t wipe the hub’s own configuration.
• Resetting the SmartHub itself (a recessed button on the back, held about 15 seconds until the LED flashes amber) clears its entire paired-camera list. Every camera connected to that hub goes offline until you re-add each one individually.
• Only reset the SmartHub if the problem is hub-wide — a single misbehaving camera on an otherwise healthy hub usually just needs its own Sync-button reset, not a full hub wipe.

Will a reset delete your Arlo video history?

No, as long as that footage is cloud-stored. Recordings saved under an active Arlo Secure plan live in your Arlo account, not on the camera, so a device-level reset — camera or SmartHub — never touches them. The only footage a reset can affect is anything saved locally to a SmartHub’s attached USB drive: the drive’s contents stay physically intact, but resetting the hub can disconnect that storage from your account until it’s reconfigured.

It’s not just Arlo

Ring, Nest, and Blink each split their reset process differently, but the same underlying question applies everywhere: does this device have its own reset path, or does it depend on a hub? Our how to reset a Ring camera, how to reset a Nest camera, and how to reset a Blink camera guides cover the equivalent steps for those brands — Blink’s Sync-Module cameras are the closest match to Arlo’s SmartHub setups.

The bottom line

Check which kind of Arlo camera you have before you reach for a button. Direct-WiFi models (Arlo Essential, Pro 6, Ultra 2, Video Doorbell, Wireless Floodlight) reset fully on their own — hold the Sync button 15 seconds until the LED blinks amber, or use Remove Device in the app if it’s online. Older SmartHub-connected Pro and Ultra cameras need a judgment call: reset just the camera to re-pair it, or reset the SmartHub if the whole system is misbehaving, knowing that takes every paired camera offline at once. Either way, cloud video tied to an Arlo Secure plan is never at risk. Still stuck after a proper reset? Our Arlo camera offline guide covers the connectivity fixes a reset alone can’t solve, and our best Arlo camera guide is the next stop if the hardware itself needs replacing.