Blue flashing led constantly when plugged with Red IR led always on

[Rectro33]

Hi

Iv got my Arlo Pro 2 plugged in to power today for the first time.  I needed the Active zone features and constant power.  Tonight I noticed the camera IR red led is on constantly when before running off batteries these only light up when detection of motion is found.

I also have this very anoying blinking blue led that flashes fast goes out, then flashes fast in this continously sequence.  The settings Camera Led iv turned off thinking this was top the blinking but it dont?

Im using the original charger and a 3rd party waterproof lead.  I need to turn this off as I dont want this blinking all night.

Thanks,

[Ysabel]

The IR LED on camera would really turn ON once camera is placed on an area where there not enough light.

🙂

[TomMac]

Yes, when on ac power the Pro2 is recording all the time so the illuminators will be on if light is low...

As to the flashing blue led.. Is the camera to far away from the base ( the Q does this if range is near the limits) ?

[Rectro33]

@TomMac My camera plugged in has full Wifi Bars at all times.  The blue flashing led did eventualy go off but Im not sure if that was anything to do with me turning cameras  power off/on.  I did look outside when I turned power off and blue led still didnt stop so I turned power back on.    20min later I had another look while still powered up and the blue led had stopped?

When you say it records constanly do you mean for the buffer to show -3 sec of acture kept recording when triggered off by motion?  It seems odd, my first night without getting false notifications, it seems that the motion was not working at all last night as when I went out there it didnt trigger off any notifications or record anything?  Now I have zones set up I have taken my motion sensitivity from about 40 to 95 so it should be super sensitive in the zones.  Im wondering if while plugged in the camera uses a different kind of IR tech, at least it thats how iv read it?

Thanks, Dan

[TomMac]

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When you say it records constanly do you mean for the buffer to show -3 sec of acture kept recording when triggered off by motion?  It seems odd, my first night without getting false notifications, it seems that the motion was not working at all last night as when I went out there it didnt trigger off any notifications or record anything?  Now I have zones set up I have taken my motion sensitivity from about 40 to 95 so it should be super sensitive in the zones.  Im wondering if while plugged in the camera uses a different kind of IR tech, at least it thats how iv read it?

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Yes, the camera when plugged in is always recording... that's how the 3 second look back feature works. It adds the prev 3 seconds to a trigger/record event

Also as you know the zones are only functional when on ac....they do use a bit different detection method when on ac... sort of a combo of PIR and pixel detect to allow detection zones ( exactly how they do it is unknown )

[Rectro33]

I wonder if this pixel tech needs a tolorence tweak as Im still getting triggers from cars there and again which are out of the zones Iv added.  This is not as bad as with no zone of course, but certainly has triggered off 4 times today so far.

My partner has just come home, walked right into the main zone and walk throu the door, no detection what so ever.  This my first week with the system and its certainly not as easy and trust worthy as I had expected.

Dan

[Gildor1]

Sorry for the obvious question, but did you go into the Settings for your cameras and set the LEDs to "Off"?

[Rectro33]

@Gildor1  Yes thats one of the first things I did.  Im using a 3rd party charging lead, Here and the only way to stop flashing blue LED is to unplug the power from the wall, thne let bettery go down to 99% then plug it back in.  The flahsing blue light stops?  The charge soon hits 100% again but no flahsing led, very odd.  It wont flahs during the day, but when it gets dark thats when it seems ti start flashing blue.  Its a 3 second fast flash, stops for a moment or so the flashes again.  Could the lead be doing this?

As its outside I cant test it without moving the mount position and bringing it inside.  I note that the VRM 4900 new lead charger for outdoor use out on 21st May by netgear has a 8ft cable length, very short dont you think. have they found issues with a longer lead?

Dan

[Gildor1]

I also have mine plugged in (3rd party charger and cord, 20 ft long) but I never paid too much attention to the LED states.  This is from the user manual:

Solid blue - The camera is connected to the Quick Charge 5V power adapter and is fully charged.

Fast blinking blue for 3 seconds - The camera is connected to the Quick Charge 5V power adapter and is charging.

Fast blinking blue for 10 seconds - The camera synced to the base station.

It seems like from your description that the camera loses a little charge (blue flashes) then charges up and the flashing stops and goes solid (?).  I think this would be normal behavior according to the above table. If the blue is flashing all the time when the IR is on, the system thinks you are not at full battery charge, and is constanly charging the battery.  So maybe the IR is discharging the battery faster than the charge/cord cab charge it, so the blur flashed all the time.

If that is the case, then it is possible that maybe the cord is affecting things as the cameras seem to be geared to the specific electrical characteristics of the Netgear equipment. But that just seems weird to me as I would think its the wall plug charger controls the behavior and the wire between the charger and the camera shouldn't effect things.

Sorry, all this speculation does no good for your original question.  If the Settings can't turn the LEDs off, I don't what else to do.  Come on Netgear, you really need to have an option to turn off all the (visible) LEDs so the cameras don't draw attention to themselves.  Its ok for setup, but once done, there should be an option to shut them down.  It would be also be nice if a Netgear electrical tech type could comment on battery charge/discharge and how plugging in the camera effects that. I'll try to look at my camersa tonight after dark and see if I notice similar behavior.

Absolutely agree that 8ft is way too short for an outdoor cable.  Mine are 20 ft and I still had to use an extension cord once I got the wires routed inside the house.

[Gildor1]

So, I checked mine now that it is dark.  Solid lit blue and red LEDs, even when I am in view of the camera and it's recording me. No flashing at all that I saw.

[Rectro33]

@Gildor1  Thanks for doing the check.  Mine is a 16ft power cable, and Im using the charger that came with the arlo Pro 2.  

Last night I tried restarting the base station blue light still flashing, pulled power plug out of wall for camera, all blue lights went out. I left it for a few min and plugged it back in, no blue light flashing, but also no solid blue light.  I looked at power charge and it was 99% which soon went back to 100%.  Maybe if I had the Led full charge setting on id have a solid blue light.  The flashing  blue light didnt come back and power charge at 100% all night, very odd.

Today I will bring in my garden camera and see if the blue led flashes during charge.  What you said about it being in charge when at night due to more power being used maybe a thing to look at, however why didnt the flashing come back on while it was charging again after I had pulled and push the power in?

Iv read last night that some had issues with plugging the charger into a extentiion socket, and that it worked when plugged directly into the wall, this of course is imposible if you dont have a wall socket close by.

[Gildor1]

Just as a data point, I have long cable runs to power my cameras.  The cords actually go into my garage where I don't have many plugs.  I have an extension cord plugged into the wall, a power strip plugged into that cord, and then extension cords plugged into the strip.  The cameras plug into those latter extension cords.  Aside from putting in extra wall plugs, that is the only way I can AC power my cameras.

[Rectro33]

Iv got my garden camera indoors and charged that with original charger and cable.  The user guide must not have been updated to the Arlo Pro 2 as when charging the blue led does not flash.  It states that it flashed blue when it has a quick charge 5v pluged into it? I assume that as the Netgear charger is a 5v it is a "quick charge".  Neither camera had flashing blue led while charging?  The blue led does show solid when its full if thats turned on in the settings.

Both cameras do not flash blue tonight so far, iv not done anything so it makes no sence that for nights on end its been flashing blue, now its not?  Iv wasted many hours, in fact the whole day trying to get the cameras to even work with random time outs, buffering, freeze frames, then as if by magic it started to behave itself for rest of day?    Im still getting the odd freeze, lowe frame rates.

Dan

[jguerdat]

First, the quick charge capability uses a charger that supplies both 5v and 9v. 5v won't quick charge. Next, the blue LED should only come on when first plugged in as well as when fully charged, not when charging.  You can turn that off if you want - it's only used to let you know of a full charge.

For the video issues, what is your ISP upload speed as measured by speedtest.net? What happens if you move the cameras closer to the base for testing?

[Rectro33]

The Netgear charger says 5v-9v so assume this is a quick charge.  Odd thing is the camera never flashed last night.

Im with Talk Talk fiberoptic.  On speed test Im getting 43mps down, 14 up, and 25 ping.  I tried a wifi analyser but it made little sence to me as it recomended chan 11, and when I put it on chan 11 did another test it recomended the chan it was on original which was 1.  I tried moving the base station to a location where I could move it further from router, all made no difference.  Im also getting some pixelation at times captured in the recording.

[Rectro33]

The blinking has come back on again.  Its plugged into mains with original charger.  The LED full charge is off.  If I turn it on its constant blue with a slight blink with it pushing through.

https://youtu.be/CMeO66-tv1Q

[GFawkes]

I am, currently experiencing the same issues. My blue light flashes constantly on one of my cameras in the dark when connected to power - even though the LED is turned off in the Web interface.

Has a solution for this been found?

[Rectro33]

Hi

I gave up in the end and sent my Arlo 2 kit back.  I just had so many issues this being one of them.   I got some couple of Reolink cameras, used BluIris software on my old PC, problems solved, much cheaper solution.

Dan

[JessicaP]

Hey @GFawkes,

Is the blue LED flashing slowly or rapidly? It might be having problems trying to sync with the base station. Is your Arlo camera close the base station?

[GFawkes]

Its fast blinking for 3 seconds which according to the manual means that its connected and charging, even though the battery bar is solid (=fully charged) and also reads 100% + power connected. The problem is that it keeps repeating this flashing cycle over and over as with the original poster.

I have tried a different cable and am using the original Arlo power supply.

The camera has been in this location in the garden for nearly 6 months but I only connected it to a power supply last week as the motion detection is poor without power. It has recorded reliably for the most part for months and does not drop off, so although the signal varies from 1 - 2 bars i am sure its not that.

[JessicaP]

What Arlo camera do you have that is causing the problem? Are you on the latest firmware for both your Arlo camera and base station?

[GFawkes]

Its an Arlo pro 2 camera - FW is 1.125.11.3_26229 hardware H3

The base station is vam4000r3 with firmware 1.12.0.0_27099

I believe this is the latest versions?

[JessicaP]

Thanks for checking; looks like you are on the latest version for both. If you are getting only 1 or 2 bars, it might be having troubles trying to connect with the Base Station. Try to reboot your Base Station and see that helps your Arlo Pro 2 not flashing constantly.