Battery drain after solar charging

[thecarmine]

Hi everyone,

I have 4 Essential spotlight camera,  in 2 different homes (2 different countries), all connected to Arlo's solar panel. All bough in July 2023.

I have noticed issues when they are charging with the solar panel. After the charge, the camera goes offline for some time (4-6 hours). Then they go back online, but battery level drops significantly (20 t0 50% less).
Did this happen to anyone else? Any suggestion?

Thanks a lot!

[BrookeN]

Are you still experiencing this same behavior?

[thecarmine]

Yes!

[Hzlgrsly]

Interested in some feedback on this too.

Also wanting info on if solar panels for a charging method is available for these cameras?

[BrookeN]

@Hzlgrsly here is some info in regards to the solar panel:

https://www.arlo.com/en_be/support/faq/1152212/How-does-the-Arlo-Solar-Panel-work

[thecarmine]

There is literally no activities on the camera.

Again had the same issue. 

this is after charging with cable, then charged with solar panel.

yesterday evening went offline and that’s what I found this morning.

utterly annoying 

[BrookeN]

Is your router dropping at these times by any chance? 

[thecarmine]

just checked, not the case.

[BrookeN]

-Is it possible for you to try and move cameras closer to the AP?
-Or move the AP closer to the cameras?
-Is there a WiFi extender in use?
-What kind of AP are you using?
-Is the solar panel mounted really close to the camera where it could possibly affect the antennas?  If yes can they provide a picture?

[RegularJoe]

  It seems to me that the cameras I have that are far away (150+ feet) from the wifi extender tend to use up battery power faster than ones closer to the extender. Mine are all on Solar panels as far as charging.

  It really got worse when the temp dropped here to the single digits. Got to where the battery just wouldn't take a charge, so 1 of them I took down and brought in and put in on a wall charger. It's kept up since then.

  When cameras are "on", doesn't matter if they're seeing activity and recording or not.... they expend battery power just being "on" (waiting for movement to record) and maintaining communication with the wifi. If it's turned off, it's not using power.

  Try this: If you can live without their input for a day or two, turn them off on the control panel so they're not consuming battery power... and see if the battery power drops any appreciable amount. If it doesn't drop, that eliminates the battery as a problem.

  Hopefully,

[StephenB]

---

@RegularJoe wrote:

  When cameras are "on", doesn't matter if they're seeing activity and recording or not.... they expend battery power just being "on" (waiting for movement to record) and maintaining communication with the wifi. If it's turned off, it's not using power.

---

Not quite.  When the camera is "off" in the settings, it is still staying connected with the WiFi - so it is using some power.  If that were not the case, there would be no way to turn the camera back on.  Whenever the wifi connection to the camera drops, it starts actively looking for the network and trying to rejoin.  That can drain power fairly quickly.

That said, if the wifi remains connected, the cameras use very little power when "off".  So it is a useful troubleshooting step. 

I suggest disconnecting the solar panel if you try this test - if the camera still drains quickly, then it is either wifi, or something going on with the camera.  In that scenario, try moving the camera closer to the wifi to try and rule out a wifi issue.  If it's not wifi, then you can try removing the camera from the account, doing a hardware reset, and adding it back.

If the power drain stops, then re-connect the panel and see if it drains (with the camera still "off").  There have been issues reported here when connecting the panel results in power drain.  Often that is a firmware issue with the cameras.

If power drain remains very small when the camera is "off" and the panel is connected, then turn the camera on, and remove any activity zones.  Activity zones are processed in the cloud, so they don't help battery life.  They do hide out-of-zone activity, so removing them is the only way to see how much the cameras are streaming.  If this is the issue, then reducing motion sensitivity and/or shifting the camera position are the only options.

[thecarmine]

That was exactly the case.

Disconnected the solar panel, charged the camera, now I am not having the issue anymore. Even with low temperatures and without changing location, camera does not go offline and battery does not drain.

Firmware is 1.090.32.1_55_073402.