Gen 2 essential solar panel

[Markwboyd]

I have an essential gen2 camera and the solar panel, genuine, will not keep it charged, it has minimal triggers causing recording. The icon shows that it is charging. But has since gone flat.

My Gen 1 had a bigger solar panel which had no issues.

The current setting is optimized 

[JamesC]

Markwboyd,

Are you using activity zones? How much activity is the camera seeing?

JamesC

[Markwboyd]

Hello

No not using activity zones. And very few triggers of recording. Under 10 per day.

[Swirl3]

These Solar panels just don't have enough wattage to charge batteries unless you have direct sun all day.  Any slight angle from the sun seems to not have enough wattage to charge the batteries.  Poor charging design.  I'm ready to remove and return.  I am happy with the quality of the 2k, its what I expected and the most I needed.    

[AtomA]

I have to pull out the usb c and replug it back in sometimes for the camera to charge via a solar panel. And I only use 1 activity zone which picks up stuff few times a day but not picking up road traffic which is good.

It's been almost a week and was down to 90% on the battery which was in blue on the app and only started charging today after reinserting the solar panels usb.

So far if you find yourself seeing a camera down on charge all of a sudden I've notice an app problem with push notifications or in feed in the app. Noticed it's been activating my camera and keeping it running. Took me a while to figure it out as I usually have the volume down on my phone but had the volume up one day n heard my dog barking through it with no recording playing from feed and not activating the camera from dashboard but happens after getting notifications of something. Unknowingly had a camera on all night which went from 90ish to 15% in 10 hours just streaming from the app.

[jguerdat]

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@AtomA wrote:

I have to pull out the usb c and replug it back in sometimes for the camera to charge via a solar panel. And I only use 1 activity zone which picks up stuff few times a day but not picking up road traffic which is good.

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Activity zones still require recordings so the servers can decide whether or not to delete a recording according to your settings. To get a true account of recordings, delete any zones and total up the number of minutes per day of the complete set of recordings. >5 minutes per day is the spec for battery life but numbers well above that can still deplete the battery since the solar panel is just a trickle charger (and doesn't work at night).

[AtomA]

I gather solar panels don't charge at night. But don't self activate during the day is the problem having to unplug and replug.

[jguerdat]

I agree about the issue of having to unplug the panel to get it working. Plug it into a different camera (swap cameras around to make it easier) to verify that it's the panel or camera.

What about the zones and total recording times?