Arlo Battery Draining

[Zschmidt08]

Battery drains with in 3 days after full charge. 

Currently connected to wifi extender. 

[StephenB]

---

@Zschmidt08 wrote:

Battery drains with in 3 days after full charge. 

---

How many minutes of video recording per day?  If you are using activity zones, you need to disable them to see the amount of video activity.

Any issues livestreaming or camera going off-line?

[Zschmidt08]

I believe I have it armed at all times but battery never drained in three days. Also had activity Zones set.

No issues live streaming or going off line.

Was fine until about a month ago. Charged after I came back from a vacation and then started seeing these battery issues.

[StephenB]

---

@Zschmidt08 wrote:
Also had activity Zones set.
.

---

Activity zones don't improve battery life.  They do mask the amount of streaming/recording activity, so I suggest disabling them temporarily and seeing about how many minutes of recording per day you are seeing w/o them.

[Zschmidt08]

I disabled activity zones, set up a schedule. Battery lasted about a week.  

[StephenB]

---

@Zschmidt08 wrote:

I disabled activity zones, set up a schedule. Battery lasted about a week.  

---

How much video activity was there w/o the zones?

[Zschmidt08]

I had 6 notifications in the last week. 

I have it armed for 11 hours each day except for weekends. 

[StephenB]

---

@Zschmidt08 wrote:

I had 6 notifications in the last week. 

I have it armed for 11 hours each day except for weekends. 

---

So 6 recordings?  Or did you get more? 

If that's the case the battery should have lasted much longer than a week.  Are you getting any signs of connection issues (live streaming failing is one obvious one)?

[Zschmidt08]

Yes, just 6 notifications for movement in the last week 30 total for the month it looks like. 

Were in the process of selling our house and this camera is located on the back section of a penthouse roof top condo to monitor the back stair access. People viewing the house is what caused it to send a notification. 

I havent seen any connection issues, and check frequently to monitor the battery life. This is connected to a wifi extender, not sure if that helps. 

Just charged to 100% yesterday and currently at 94% today. 

[StephenB]

---

@Zschmidt08 wrote:

Yes, just 6 notifications for movement in the last week 30 total for the month it looks like. 

---

Just want to clarify this - notifications and recordings aren't quite the same.  With Arlo Smart you can selectively block notifications (for instance, "Animals").  But recordings are still made, even when you don't get the notifications.

Thats's why I keep going back to the number/length of recordings, and not the number of notifications.

[dcfox1]

@StephenB  has some good points. I once deleted a zone to experiment and had double if not more the normal recordings I have when zone is active. So you just wont see them outside the zone if active but cam still records them. 

[Zschmidt08]

Sorry, mix up in terminology.

I meant recordings in total, not notifications.  

Is it possible to figure out total recording time?

In the end, what does this have to do with battery life and is any of this solvable? 

[StephenB]

---

@Zschmidt08 wrote:

In the end, what does this have to do with battery life and is any of this solvable? 

---

Streaming from the camera of course takes most of the power - so the more streaming, the shorter the battery life.  If you have activity zones disabled, you can estimate the amount of streaming per day, since you see the number of recordings and the length of each when you browse the library.  If you only have 6 recordings w/o activity zones, then you aren't doing much recording - though you also need to estimate the amount of live streaming and add that in.

The other main cause of short battery life is that the camera can't connect to the base (or home wifi) reliably. If it can't find the network, it will go into a mode where it is actively looking for it.  That uses the radio and the processor in the camera more heavily, and can shorten battery life substantially.  Normally if this is the problem, then you will see connection drops when you attempt to live stream.   Another thing you can try (as a test), is relocating the camera closer to the base/wifi router, and see if it drains more slowly.

If neither of these is the problem, then there might simply be something wrong with the camera hardware.  In which case, you could exchange it with the seller or contact support.

[Zschmidt08]

I am currently running the camera off of an extender. I double checked through my app and this is the only client attached to that extender. It sits about 10ft away from the camera. The actual router is a floor below on the opposite end of where the camera is set up (hence why i installed the extender). 

Once again after a week of use the camera is totally dead. Total amount of recordings within that time was 2min 20sec. Pretty unreasonable right?

Ill test out the use next to the router instead of extender and see if that helps. If it does, not sure what to do since then only vulnerability to our condo unit is the back stairs, so this is the only place for the camera. 

[StephenB]

---

@Zschmidt08 wrote:

Once again after a week of use the camera is totally dead. Total amount of recordings within that time was 2min 20sec. Pretty unreasonable right?

---

FWIW, it could be a faulty battery, so you might want to exchange it with the seller if that is still possible, or contact support.  

[Zschmidt08]

Great, Ill see if i could possibly be replaced. 

[Zschmidt08 · Accepted solution]

Looks like the issue was Wifi Connectivity to my extender. 

I reset the extender and re configured the camera to the extenders wifi. All seems good now.