Battery staud

[rdilauro]

One of our ARLO Ultra cameras went from 50% charge last night till this morning where I see the message Battery needs to be charged. I am not the primary email for alerts so I assume I did not the the battery liw alert. But now I wanted to turn that camera off. But Under settings I can’t do this now. What’s alarming, I just put three Ultras in the same protection area. All at 100%. The two others (all outdoors connected to solar chargers) are at 80% or better. SO, I either have a bad battery ( I have 10 spares) or I have a setting that is causing this one to drain so fast. In is in an area that will trigger alarms much more then the other cameras.

At this point I assume I can’t do anything remotely to correct. So then for now, it’s climbing the ladder up a tree to replace the battery

[Dannybear]

If the problem camera is in a location where it detects movement constantly such as moving tree branches then the camera will keep recording. Be aware that the motion detection is activated by a infrared sensor not by the camera video lens. This means that the motion sensor can pick up object motion outside of the camera view portal.
When using smart notifications the video is streamed to the arlo server where the analysis is made to notify.
One way to reduce this is to desensitise the motion trigger by going into the mode/mode rules for that camera and setting it to a lower value.
E.g. I use a custom mode when the day is very windy and in the camera rules I lower the motion sensitivity by 50% and turn off audio detection because wind gusts.

[rdilauro]

I understand all of that. I set the motion detection to below 20%
Has not made a differencem. I can continue lowering thresholds, but so far that has not made a difference

[Dannybear]

If you’re not getting false triggers then is the camera intermittently loosing connection, what distance is it to the base station and are there any obstacles in the way.
The first question to ask is if this has just started recently and what is the outdoor temperature as batteries can drop their charge when cold.

[rdilauro]

The ARLO Go2 camera does not use a base station.  Its either WiFi or Cellular connected.  Our right now is Cellular connected.

And yes this problem first started to happen when the temperature started to drop.   Once the solar chargers stopped working (below 32 degrees) is when we first started to notice how quickly the Go2 batteries would drain.

[rdilauro]

I apologize for not responding to one of your statements.

Regarding setting up special modes for different weather conditions.   I understand what you are saying, but from a general customer's perspective, they are not going to be defining different modes for different conditions.

They purchase this camera to provide 24x7 monitoring of their assets (just as I did).  But so many of these customers do not fully understand all the various options that can be used in Setting or in Mode.

It took me a little while to figure all of this out.  It helped that I have 35+ years in IT, so configuring and troubleshooting technical problems is fun for me.  I've talked to a few customers who have purchased this Go2 camera.  They dont know, nor do they want to know all the ins and outs.   The camera is installed, they take all the defaults and expect the camera to do what it is suppose to do.

Thats in a perfect world.  You know, I know that in reality you need to understand the equipment you are using to maximize its benefits.  One user told me, its like buying a new car.  All they want to know is how to start and stop it.  Not interested in all the bells and whistles.  That works.

I still go back to believing this is a design problem.  You would not all of a sudden start hearing complaints from users about the same thing.

[Dannybear]

I am a little confused now since you posted this subject in the arlo camera board rather than in the board for the specific camera model.
Additionally you initially identified the cameras as ultra model but have now changed to go2 models.
If the detail initially provided was more accurate then I would have never answered the post and wasted your time as I don’t own a go2 model nor an ultra but thought I could help since the ultra uses a base.
In regards to your comments about using the extra features, totally agree with your comments but if your providing an IT service then you would be best to speak directly with arlo support about these issues.
I also am electronic minded an so like a challenge to fix things.

[StephenB]

@rdilauro: The Go 2 cameras are new, and there are several complaints here on it's battery life.  I suspect there are bugs in the power management - it wouldn't be the first time that Arlo needed to follow up with firmware fixes for poor battery life.

The Ultra on the other hand has been out for a while.  It could be a failing battery, though you could also try swapping the cameras and see that makes any difference.  Given the storm, that will probably need to wait until you can do it safely. 

In most cases I've had better luck adjusting the field of view (as opposed to changing the motion sensitivity).  And no matter what I do, there are some cameras where I still get a lot of motion recordings at some seasons of the year.  Shadows, moving trees/bushes, stuff blowing in the wind, etc.

Selectively upgrading some Ultras to the XL battery is something else you could consider - particularly helpful in winter, when it can be too cold for the panels to charge the cameras consistently.

[rdilauro]

Im sorry that I confused you.  

We had two problems, one was with one of the Ultra camera batteries dropping from 50% to below the ability to do anything remotely in 10 hours.

The bigger problem is with the ARLO Go2 camera battery.

Again, sorry I confused the discussion.