Camera Battery life is not good

[Thomaslje]

Hello. I have an Arlo Essential Spotlight camera, somehow it has been loosing battery like crazy, I charged my camera to 100% I think it was last week or so and already now it is at 0%. I am not recording crazy, it is only recording when I leave and enter my door, so normally it is once I go to work, get home and then a few times in the evening.

Battery mode is set to balanced, how do I check what might be causing this, first time when I got the camera i februar it lasted like the normal stated time, but now as mentioned the battery drops like a dead fly.

So I got a notification on low battery the 28 april and today 4 of may it has gone down to 0%.

[StephenB]

Are you using activity zones?

[Thomaslje]

Yes I am, me camera is pointing at my door in the hallway and I have another door close by to my home office, so that is why I have setup the activity zone, I do not work at home tho.

Another question, should my powerbank for phones be able to charge the camera, I have plugged in the powerbank earlier today and it showed the camera charging, but now it says offline in the app like it has no power.

[Thomaslje]

The Strange thing is that my Camera was at one point showing 28% battery after some time with the powerbank and now all of sudden it is showing offline in the app, I am pretty sure if I take down the camera and plugg it into a wall outlet it will after a while show online aging and charging and then at some point show 100% but then last time after that I had the poor battery life.

[Thomaslje]

I have now taken down my camera and charged it by my samsung wall charger and it is now by 58%.

I will see when I put it up aging how long the battery last, can I do anything to check what is eating my battery.

[StephenB]

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@Thomaslje wrote:

Yes I am, my camera is pointing at my door in the hallway and I have another door close by to my home office, so that is why I have setup the activity zone, I do not work at home tho.

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Activity zones are processed in the cloud - so while they do supress recordings, they do not improve battery life.

I suggest disabling the zone for a day or so, and then estimate the amount of video the camera is streaming to the cloud each day.

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@Thomaslje wrote:

Another question, should my powerbank for phones be able to charge the camera, I have plugged in the powerbank earlier today and it showed the camera charging, but now it says offline in the app like it has no power.

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Not sure about the Essential (and this might depend on which Essential camera you have).

Other camera models (for instance Pro3/Pro4/Pro5) will enable more hardware features if they detect the camera s connected to an AC charger. This uses quite a bit more power.  While the camera can distinguish between an AC charger and an Arlo solar panel, it often will treat a power bank like mains power.  If it does that, it can drain the battery (and power bank) pretty quickly.

[Thomaslje]

Thanks, I will try that and see how much it records, the strange thing is that I remember it like the camera the first time lasted alot longer than now, also a strange thing is that the first time I charged the camera it was with the powerbank and seemed to work fine, maybe I can set up the camera in another way so that films a better angle as of now the only way to not get it to save the film is to have activity zone up.

[StephenB]

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@Thomaslje wrote:

maybe I can set up the camera in another way so that films a better angle as of now the only way to not get it to save the film is to have activity zone up.

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No problem with using activity zones to reduce recordings.  But adjusting the camera to reduce as much of the unwanted triggering as practical will improve battery life.

[Thomaslje]

It is just strange, the first time I remember it having long battery life and also even If I had bad battery life it should not be 2 weeks. 

[Thomaslje]

Hello. Status update, I set the camera to charge the night over and installed my camera on the mount aging yesterday 05/05/24 in the morning and then I left my home to be away for the day and then came home, so I would not say it has recorded more than 2 minutes of video, but as I have set it up with Activity Zones, it have walked in the camera frame alot more so it might amount up to 1 minute extra or more as I walk back and forth to my home office,

I also walked into frame today when I had to go to work.

My battery level is now down to 83%, that is way too fast is it.

[Thomaslje]

I am just checking now and here in denmark UTC +1 08:30 I am down to 64% of battery, how is that, what can I do to check it. 

[BrookeN]

Please reach out to support. Within the app on your mobile device click on the silhouette on the top left ~ support center ~ the device that you are needing assistance with then choose the behavior you are seeing. 

[Thomaslje]

Thanks, I will do that, cause it is not working, it has lost power aging and it was only a week or so.