Cameras offline and batteries die quickly

[f2noles]

I bought an Arlo Pro 2 system last week and set it up.  I'm using the geofencing option.  Literally, within 4 days, I got a message that one of the cameras had 5% left on the battery.  I charged that battery and the same afternoon, I had another low battery and another camera offline.  I charged both of those batteries and resynch to the base.  The next afternoon, two cameras are offline.  What is going on?

[jguerdat]

How many total minutes per day of recording and live viewing are you doing? What's the signal strength for each camera? Are they inside or out? What's the house construction?

[f2noles]

I've maybe recorded 30 seconds of video all week and live viewed maybe 3 minutes a day tops?  My house is made of brick with 3 cameras outside and one camera inside.  The inside camera and 1 outside camera have great signal strength, but the two that keep losing connection have about half signal strength when they manage to connect.  The inside camera was the first one to lose it's battery charge even though it always has great signal strength, unless my internet drops during the day without me knowing it.  I have a wifi extender that is closer to the back yard and the two cameras with bad signal, but it doesn't have a cable port (I saw something about moving the base to an extender with a port on another posting).

Thank you in advance for any help you can provide.

[jguerdat]

The brick construction may be an issue - the denser the materiral, the harder for signals to penetrate and then there's the substrate that may be needed to hold it (stucco houses apparently use a wire mesh that's proven to be problematic. And then there's the ductwork, etc. in the direct line between the base and camera that can also block signals.  Having signal strength/quality issues is the most likely scenario for the battery drain but not the only one.

BTW, Internet dropping wouldn't depelete the battery but power outage would since the cameras would be trying to connect to a nonexistent base.

[f2noles]

So how do I get better signal strength?  I've read where I need to get the cameras closer to the base, but the base is plugged into my wifi router which is in the middle of the house.  Even if I had a long internet cable to use to move the base closer to the cameras, that would be rather unsightly (ethernet cables are rather bulky and often bright colors). As I said, I have a wifi extender that works great, but it doesn't have an ethernet port.  Honestly, I didn't know such things existed but a quick google search has enlightened me.  Is that the best option for now? I think I have a huge ethernet cable that I could try first.

[jguerdat]

Use of the long cable would be useful for testing purposes before buying more hardware. If that solves the problem then a WiFi or powerling extender with Ethernet ports would work fine and reduce clutter.

[f2noles]

I must have thrown out my 100 ft cable, so I'm testing with a 25 ft.  My back camera has 2 of 3 on signal but the other 3 are full strenth.  I'm going to give it a couple of days and see what the batteries do before buying any hardware.  The spot where my extender is now located might be the ticket.  Thanks so much for your help. By the way, since I've had to charge a couple of cameras twice now, I've noticed that the little rubber plugs on the charging port aren't so easy to keep closed is that a "feature"?

Do you mind if I keep this issue open until I decide if the base location is the problem?

[jguerdat]

Not a problem - keep us posted.

As for the plugs, they can be a pain if somehow deformed. Check the interior of the plug and the connectorsinc edebris can sometimes be found in each.

[f2noles]

Things looked pretty promising yesterday, all 4 cameras stayed connected all day long and the batteries stayed charged.  I checked again this morning at 5:45am and everything was fine.  By the time I made it to work at 7:30, 3 out of 4 cameras had gone offline.  A few hours later, one came back online but 2 stayed offline all day.  That was all I could take -- I took the system back to Best Buy.  Thanks for your help though.