Question about Arlo VMS3130 Set of 1

The alarm function works as Freddie.stoller described. If you mean an acoustic alarm function, or a function that alerts the police directly - that doesn't exist here.
I'm not sure if you can activate the motion detector but deactivate the alarm function. That should be possible, but whether it makes sense is questionable.

What do you mean by "surveillance" ?
The Arlo - at least in the standard package - does NOT have a classic surveillance function, i.e. a mode that simply saves video permanently that can be viewed when needed (like the old video recorders). This rarely makes sense - most of the time you only want to record when something is happening. Since this is a cloud surveillance camera, huge amounts of data would accumulate on the Arlo server. You can't save locally with the Arlo! Instead, the motion detector "only saves the action", and if nothing happens, nothing is recorded.

The camera has its own router for Internet access. I don't know if you can even use it as a webcam (without having to go through the Arlo app). In any case, you can't connect it directly to a PC.

It's possible that you can buy a premium subscription with Arlo, which would give you permanent recording. You would have to find out about that.

If you want classic surveillance video recording, I would rather recommend a normal webcam, which is connected to a Raspberry Pi, for example, and stores video on a NAS...

The camera has a motion detection function which can be switched on and off. With motion detection on, an alarm is sent when motion is detected and can be received on a computer, smartphone or tablet. At the same time, a recording is made and saved. This is set to 10 seconds, but can be set as desired. This is what I would call surveillance. If you only want to use the camera as a webcam, then simply deactivate motion detection.