Arlo Essential power outage

[rtsisu]

I had outdoor Arlo Essential cameras with DC chargers installed at my lake home 200 miles from my residence.  They were to be used as an addition to my security system.  The location has frequent power outages and I have now found out that the cameras remain offline after an outage and wifi returns. I cannot reset them from my home.  This design flaw was never disclosed by Arlo prior to purchase.  Any suggestions ??  

[StephenB]

---

@rtsisu wrote:

Any suggestions ??  

---

The cameras are supposed to reconnect when the wifi comes back up.  They can use a lot of power looking for the wifi during the outage, and that might have drained the batteries.  That could have caused the problem (though of course the adapters would have started delivering power again when the main power was restored).

Do you know how long the most recent outage lasted?

Also do you have other remote means to check that the internet service, etc is all working again?  A tripped circuit breaker, or a failed router due to a power surge could also factor into the problem.

Not much you can do remotely - when the cameras are off-line the app can't communicate with them.

One option going forward is to protect your router (or wifi system if you use a mesh) with a UPS.  Then the wifi stay up during short power outages anyway.  I find that my internet stays up also.

[rtsisu]

The power outage lasted 4 1/2 hours.  It has now been 3 days since the outage. The internet was restored immediately after the power outage as I receive a notification.  The home also has Samsung wi-fi Smart Things control and the hub was connected immediately after power  was restored.  The cameras are not integrated with Smart Things or my Honeywell security system.

[StephenB]

---

@rtsisu wrote:

The power outage lasted 4 1/2 hours.  

---

The cameras really should have reconnected then.  Hopfefully they are still working.

FWIW, I think a 1500VA UPS protecting the router+hub would have kept your internet running over this outage.  Generally they can deliver 50w for about 3 hours, and the router+hub should require much less than that.  Protecting just the hub would have kept the cameras connected to the hub wifi but not the internet.