48hr battery drain

[BelmontStreet]

Hi all- I just purchased an Arlo Pro 4 Wireless Security Camera for my brick rowhouse. After installing the camera, it was completely drained of battery within 48 hours. I replaced it, and have the same issue with a new camera and battery. (All camera settings are set for battery optimization, and the camera is  only recording 5-15 videos of 10-20 seconds per day.) I’ve spent hours on the phone with Arlo customer service and they have no ideas. Has anyone here experienced that? Any suggestions or ideas? Thank you

[StephenB]

Are you using activity zones?

Have you tried moving the camera to a different location (as a test)?  Perhaps indoors, about 10 feet or so from your router (or base if you use one).

[BelmontStreet]

Yes to activity zones — it’s only recording less than 2 minutes per day. 

But that’s a good suggestion. I’ll try moving it closer to the router and see if that helps - thanks! 

[StephenB]

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@BelmontStreet wrote:

Yes to activity zones — it’s only recording less than 2 minutes per day. 

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Activity zones are processed in the cloud.  Every time the camera triggers, it streams video to the cloud.  The cloud then supresses recordings and notifications if there is no motion inside the zone.

Since the camera behaves exactly the same way whether zones are configured or not, the activity zones do not help battery life.  But they do make it impossible to tell if excessive triggers are causing the power drain or not.

So the next step in troubleshooting is to remove the zones, and see how many minutes of video per day the camera is actually streaming.

[BelmontStreet]

Very helpful explanation, thank you. Our home is in a bustling downtown neighborhood, so if the camera reacts every time a person walks down the sidewalk or drives by, that’s going to be quite a lot. (Though there much be a way for people who live downtown to have cameras?) Will try that next and see how often it’s triggered. 

[jguerdat]

A possible solution (albeit potentially expensive) is to use another camera aimed so it only captures the sidewalk/porch and have it trigger recordings for itself and/or the doorbell. If you do this, remove motion detection from the doorbell rules you have and just let the other camera do the triggering.