topic Re: Camera Battery life is not good in Arlo Essential Wire-Free Cameras

Camera Battery life is not good

Thomaslje — Sat, 04 May 2024 12:20:51 GMT

Hello. I have an Arlo Essential Spotlight camera, somehow it has been loosing battery like crazy, I charged my camera to 100% I think it was last week or so and already now it is at 0%. I am not recording crazy, it is only recording when I leave and enter my door, so normally it is once I go to work, get home and then a few times in the evening.

Battery mode is set to balanced, how do I check what might be causing this, first time when I got the camera i februar it lasted like the normal stated time, but now as mentioned the battery drops like a dead fly.

So I got a notification on low battery the 28 april and today 4 of may it has gone down to 0%.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

StephenB — Sat, 04 May 2024 12:37:57 GMT

Are you using activity zones?

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

Thomaslje — Sat, 04 May 2024 13:41:00 GMT

Yes I am, me camera is pointing at my door in the hallway and I have another door close by to my home office, so that is why I have setup the activity zone, I do not work at home tho.

Another question, should my powerbank for phones be able to charge the camera, I have plugged in the powerbank earlier today and it showed the camera charging, but now it says offline in the app like it has no power.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

Thomaslje — Sat, 04 May 2024 14:09:23 GMT

The Strange thing is that my Camera was at one point showing 28% battery after some time with the powerbank and now all of sudden it is showing offline in the app, I am pretty sure if I take down the camera and plugg it into a wall outlet it will after a while show online aging and charging and then at some point show 100% but then last time after that I had the poor battery life.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

Thomaslje — Sat, 04 May 2024 19:05:19 GMT

I have now taken down my camera and charged it by my samsung wall charger and it is now by 58%.

I will see when I put it up aging how long the battery last, can I do anything to check what is eating my battery.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

StephenB — Sat, 04 May 2024 20:26:08 GMT

@Thomaslje wrote:

Yes I am, my camera is pointing at my door in the hallway and I have another door close by to my home office, so that is why I have setup the activity zone, I do not work at home tho.

Activity zones are processed in the cloud - so while they do supress recordings, they do not improve battery life.

I suggest disabling the zone for a day or so, and then estimate the amount of video the camera is streaming to the cloud each day.

@Thomaslje wrote:

Another question, should my powerbank for phones be able to charge the camera, I have plugged in the powerbank earlier today and it showed the camera charging, but now it says offline in the app like it has no power.

Not sure about the Essential (and this might depend on which Essential camera you have).

Other camera models (for instance Pro3/Pro4/Pro5) will enable more hardware features if they detect the camera s connected to an AC charger. This uses quite a bit more power. While the camera can distinguish between an AC charger and an Arlo solar panel, it often will treat a power bank like mains power. If it does that, it can drain the battery (and power bank) pretty quickly.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

Thomaslje — Sat, 04 May 2024 21:13:05 GMT

Thanks, I will try that and see how much it records, the strange thing is that I remember it like the camera the first time lasted alot longer than now, also a strange thing is that the first time I charged the camera it was with the powerbank and seemed to work fine, maybe I can set up the camera in another way so that films a better angle as of now the only way to not get it to save the film is to have activity zone up.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

StephenB — Sat, 04 May 2024 22:33:15 GMT

@Thomaslje wrote:

maybe I can set up the camera in another way so that films a better angle as of now the only way to not get it to save the film is to have activity zone up.

No problem with using activity zones to reduce recordings. But adjusting the camera to reduce as much of the unwanted triggering as practical will improve battery life.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

Thomaslje — Sat, 04 May 2024 23:18:28 GMT

It is just strange, the first time I remember it having long battery life and also even If I had bad battery life it should not be 2 weeks.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

Thomaslje — Mon, 06 May 2024 11:00:58 GMT

Hello. Status update, I set the camera to charge the night over and installed my camera on the mount aging yesterday 05/05/24 in the morning and then I left my home to be away for the day and then came home, so I would not say it has recorded more than 2 minutes of video, but as I have set it up with Activity Zones, it have walked in the camera frame alot more so it might amount up to 1 minute extra or more as I walk back and forth to my home office,

I also walked into frame today when I had to go to work.

My battery level is now down to 83%, that is way too fast is it.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

Thomaslje — Tue, 07 May 2024 06:31:07 GMT

I am just checking now and here in denmark UTC +1 08:30 I am down to 64% of battery, how is that, what can I do to check it.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

BrookeN — Mon, 13 May 2024 14:20:40 GMT

Please reach out to support. Within the app on your mobile device click on the silhouette on the top left ~ support center ~ the device that you are needing assistance with then choose the behavior you are seeing.

Re: Camera Battery life is not good

Thomaslje — Mon, 13 May 2024 14:53:09 GMT

Thanks, I will do that, cause it is not working, it has lost power aging and it was only a week or so.