Battery Issue in cold weather Arlo Essential VMC 2030

[fireman1]

I have five Arlo outdoor security cameras, I live in Ontario, Canada, so we do experience very cold winters.  I puchased three Arlo Pro cameras at least four years ago on a VMB4000 Hub.  These cameras have worked great outdoors except when the temp drops below -20 C.  They go offline at around this temp but always come back on when it warms back up to -15 C or so.  The battery always comes back on to where it was and is never drained.  So I decided to add two new Arlo Essential Cameras to the system.  Easy to do, but had to buy a subscription after three months which I did.  They worked great until we had our first severe dip below -20 C.  As normal all five cameras went offline, then when it warmed up two days later the three Arlo Pros were back up running as they always have, but the two new Essential Cameras, one is showing 1 percent battery left and the other is still offline, so it's probably totally dead.  Very dissapointed since I am out of country and can't even try to charge these cameras now.  Arlo should be advancing their battery technology not going backwards.  Not everyone buying your product lives in Arizona or Florida.  I would not recommend the Arlo Esssential Outdoor to anyone who lives in a cold enviroment because they don't come back on.  Would like to hear from an Arlo representative on this issue, why their battery technology is going in reverse.

[jguerdat]

I'm in Rochester, NY so not totally different from you (unless you're near the Hudson Bay) although our winter has been very mild this year with one exception recently. I had 2 cameras go offline when temps dropped to ~-4F (close to the -20C) and never recovered, indicating dead batteries. After things warmed back up, I went to replace batteries but first removed and reinserted the existing batteries as a test. That brought the cameras back to life with 40+% and 70+% life displayed. 

I have 18 devices installed, mostly outdoors and only 2 were affected like this, an Ultra and a Pro 3. No idea why but it kinda points to a firmware issue. Since you have Essential cameras without the ability to remove the batteries, my solution won't work. I'd suggest removing one from your account, use the reset procedure below and onboard it again as if new. No idea if that will help but...

https://kb.arlo.com/000062438/How-do-I-factory-reset-and-re-sync-my-Arlo-camera

[fireman1]

Thanks for your reply, not much I can do until we return home because I won't be able to re-sync the camera after doing a factory reset.  Angers me that my  three old Arlo Pros come back on at same 85 percent battery level they were at before the cold snap but my two new essential cameras (which were at 85 percent), the batteries are both dead.  Not the direction Arlo should be going with their battery technology.

[jguerdat]

When you're at home ready to try things, use Settings, Support and choose your camera type to contact official support. That will raise awareness to the issue for a possible fix. You can still try resetting one camera so you can use that as part of the troubleshooting steps you can report and which they will likely have you do anyways.

[fireman1]

Thanks for the advice, like you said the problem is I can't do this until I return home in two months, so now I am without two cameras because they are both dead.  Funny the three old Arlo Pros are working just fine.  Arlo has a problem with their battery technology in these new Arlo Essentials.  Would like to hear from an Arlo representative on this issue!