topic Re: Battery Indicator in Arlo

Battery Indicator

Ralphmd — Thu, 29 Sep 2016 18:29:17 GMT

One Camera went offline recently and after rebooting it showed a low battery.

The batteries have been installed for about 4mths.

I now realise the battery indicators on desktop and iphone apps all show full capactiy and are not changing.

Why aren't they working?

Re: Battery Indicator

Ralphmd — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 23:28:49 GMT

Apologies usIng the wrong group, cannot move or delete

Re: Battery Indicator

Fort_Knox — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 08:11:54 GMT

I also have encountered this problem and posted a reply in the Arlo app section. The same post is pasted below:

I totally agree. My system has been running fine the past month but suddenly one camera became offline in both the iOS app and the web application.

The day before (well, actually all days before) this particular camera had all three bars on battery status. One of the other cameras was down on one bar, due to much more recording and movement sensing. Funny thing is that now, the camera that previously was down on one bar suddenly showed full battery status (like the rest of my cameras).

I power-recycled the offline camera and it came back online. Only thing is that now this camera is down on red battery status and all other cameras show full battery status.

Magic? Don't think so. The software must, by some reason, mess up the cameras battery status so that one camera shows another cameras status. I hate to say this but the software is so buggy. I never know if I can trust the system or not. When it works it's great. When it doesn't - well, I guess you realize what I think.

Now maybe someone is going to tell me to restart the system - check. Then the suggestion would be to reinstall the whole system - NOT. I'm not spending another day respositioning all cameras and then reprogramming all rules and schemes. This can not be the almighty solution all the time. The ONLY solution is to make the software stable and reliable.

Re: Battery Indicator

jguerdat — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 13:19:59 GMT

Can't speak for why this is happening but my battery indicators seem to be working properly. I have gotten low battery emails but won't get them for a while since batteries seem to still be good. I recently had one camera go to 2 bars and another last night. Why it works fine for me and not others I have no idea.

Re: Battery Indicator

TomMac — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 13:46:24 GMT

jguerdat wrote:
Can't speak for why this is happening but my battery indicators seem to be working properly. I have gotten low battery emails but won't get them for a while since batteries seem to still be good. I recently had one camera go to 2 bars and another last night. Why it works fine for me and not others I have no idea.

Well, I think it sort of works...

I got last week a email for low batt... but the carmera was not in use and I think the normal pinging of a cam picks up the low battery.

It just appears this week the drop off was ( appears ) to not update the level. No reason why 2/3 bars should go dead in under 3 mins use.

It had been sitting at 2/3 bars for a week or so ( wasn't conccerned as its a non-critial cam ).

Also only other note was I was changing the iris levels to the cam.. no reason that would change much either.

Re: Battery Indicator

Boat52 — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 14:17:27 GMT

One of my cameras stopped working. I put in brand new batteries with a distant expiration date. Even checked the voltage and the batteries were perfect. Yet the battery indicator did not show full charge. Reset base station and that did not help. Removed batteries and changed order they are inserted. No success. The camera works perfectly, but the battery indicator still will not show full charge.

Re: Battery Indicator

TomMac — Sat, 09 Apr 2016 20:01:47 GMT

What were the voltages on the batteries ??? New cells should read 3.2v not 3v as listed on the cell itself.

Re: Battery Indicator

Fort_Knox — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 08:39:08 GMT

Batteries were down to 2,75 - 2,8 volts. i got the email alert AFTER power-recycling the camera (with the old batteries)

Re: Battery Indicator

TomMac — Sun, 10 Apr 2016 13:07:05 GMT

Fort_Knox wrote:
Batteries were down to 2,75 - 2,8 volts. i got the email alert AFTER power-recycling the camera (with the old batteries)

At those voltages, the cells are DOA.

Sometimes you can trick the battery algorithm... as it senses the starting voltage and I believe works from there until it find not enough as current sags the voltage

Re: Battery Indicator

woseyjales — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 02:34:10 GMT

I haven't gotten a low battery e-mail in ages!!! I guess y'all are getting them??? If you are, why am I not???

Re: Battery Indicator

JamesC — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 16:36:43 GMT

Boat52,

Is this camera on the latest firmware? Check by logging in to your Arlo account, navigate to, Settings > My Devices > select the affected camera > scroll to the bottom of the screen.

The latest camera firmware is 1.2.4941.

woseyjales,

Are you getting standard e-mail alerts (from motion detection)? Do you currently have any cameras with low battery (alert e-mail is sent at 15%)?

JamesC

Re: Battery Indicator

woseyjales — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 00:00:44 GMT

JamesC wrote:
Boat52,

Is this camera on the latest firmware? Check by logging in to your Arlo account, navigate to, Settings > My Devices > select the affected camera > scroll to the bottom of the screen.

The latest camera firmware is 1.2.4941.

woseyjales,

Are you getting standard e-mail alerts (from motion detection)? Do you have any cameras with low battery (alert e-mail is sent at 15%)

JamesC

I just changed batteries in one of my cameras, that gets the most usage and all my cameras are up to date. I kinda gave up on the low battery e-mail notice because I knew Netgear/Arlo was having trouble with that some time ago and I was just relying on the icon, when it turned yellow, I'd push it to see how long I could actually go.

I just received all the updates and the camera with the low battery/yellow indicator, wouldn't accept the update until I changed the batteries.

Bottom line is, I haven't received a low battery notification since before the beginning of the year.

Re: Battery Indicator

woseyjales — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 00:25:55 GMT

woseyjales wrote:
JamesC wrote:
Boat52,

Is this camera on the latest firmware? Check by logging in to your Arlo account, navigate to, Settings > My Devices > select the affected camera > scroll to the bottom of the screen.

The latest camera firmware is 1.2.4941.

woseyjales,

Are you getting standard e-mail alerts (from motion detection)? Do you have any cameras with low battery (alert e-mail is sent at 15%)

JamesC
I just changed batteries in one of my cameras, that gets the most usage and all my cameras are up to date. I kinda gave up on the low battery e-mail notice because I knew Netgear/Arlo was having trouble with that some time ago and I was just relying on the icon, when it turned yellow, I'd push it to see how long I could actually go.

I just received all the updates and the camera with the low battery/yellow indicator, wouldn't accept the update until I changed the batteries.

Bottom line is, I haven't received a low battery notification since before the beginning of the year.

James, yes I get all the standard e-mail notifications.

Re: Battery Indicator

JamesC — Thu, 14 Apr 2016 17:23:08 GMT

woseyjales,

I have tested this and did receive a low battery e-mail notification. Consider monitoring your cameras until the batteries are low enough to send a low battery notification. Please let me know if you do not receive an alert in the future.

JamesC

Re: Battery Indicator

woseyjales — Fri, 15 Apr 2016 23:47:17 GMT

JamesC wrote:
woseyjales,

I have tested this and did receive a low battery e-mail notification. Consider monitoring your cameras until the batteries are low enough to send a low battery notification. Please let me know if you do not receive an alert in the future.

JamesC

I'll do that James and thanks for checking this out for me. I'll keep you posted.

Re: Battery Indicator

woseyjales — Wed, 04 May 2016 01:09:17 GMT

JamesC wrote:
woseyjales,

I have tested this and did receive a low battery e-mail notification. Consider monitoring your cameras until the batteries are low enough to send a low battery notification. Please let me know if you do not receive an alert in the future.

JamesC

Finally got an e-mail alert at around noon today, while I was at work, 7 hours later, I couldn't use the camera and had just a green screen where I view that specific camera, with a message that I need to change the batteries.

The old batteries read 2.95 and 2.96 volts on all 4 batteries.

Shouldn't I have gotten more of a warning as the batteries probably weren't all that low? In the past I've had the batteries go down to 2.85, or 2.86 volts and I could still view the camera.

Re: Battery Indicator

jguerdat — Wed, 04 May 2016 14:20:03 GMT

The amount of usage could explain why the time between the email and dead batteries happened but it could also be a delay in the email being sent (anything between the base communicating with the servers, the servers sending the email or delay in the Internet. If you have an email client that will display the entire header you can slog through and check the timestamps for each server to see if a delay in delivery is the issue.

Re: Battery Indicator

woseyjales — Thu, 05 May 2016 00:32:09 GMT

Interesting, Thanks JG!!!