Camera battery went down to zero without being recharged by panel

[Eliz47]

Solar panel worked fine for one month. Plenty of sun yesterday and (after charging my cam indoors) I reattached panel to cam. Camera battery went down to zero without being recharged by panel. I think the panel had failed. Full sun, no debris, good usb-c connection. Worked for one month. #VMA6600 Essential 2 Solar Panel

[jguerdat]

Use the app to go to Settings, Support and choose your camera model. Scroll down to Contacts to speak to official support. This requires an existing subscription.

[FunkWRX]

I have the same problem, however I believe this is a panel design issue. The design does not appear to take real world events in to account.  First a photovoltaic is only about 17% to 20% efficient. That means a 2W panel can only produce about 340 mA's with direct perpendicular sun. Secondly lithium batteries do not have a linear charge curve. They require significantly more current to charge below 70 percent of capacity. arlo does not provide the specifications for the battery but a standard lithium (3 cell, 1.2VDC/cell) 3.6V configuration has a capacity around 3000mAh's. that means the panel would need to produce approximately 2.1A's at start up, up to around 70% charge capacity for an hour with full perpendicular sun. This means a well designed panel would need to produce minimum 13.2W, arlo's VMA6600 panel is way under sized. FYI No where on earth can you get perfectly perpendicular sun to the panel unless it is motor driven.  yes I know they state it is for trickle charging, but that is only good down to that 70% charge, below that it is a loosing propitiation. Give it a test; plug your zero charged camera into a USB charge noting the output current stated on the charger and time how long it takes to get to full charge, bet you get somewhere in the 10-14 hour time frame depending on the USB charger. That is full out put for hours, more hours than we have sunlight except in the middle of summer. So unless of course it is their design intent is for you to mount it in a low and accessible location so you can periodically remove the camera an plug it into a USB charger... wait then the criminals could just walk up in the blind spot and remove it defeating the purpose...