Arlo Pro 4 requires wired connection?!

[Techsince1984]

Just ended tech support chat and learned that activity zones can only be used while this “wireless” camera is connected to A/C power! It started giving that message to on screen a few days ago after I charged it to 100%. Two days later the battery charge had dropped to 60% though nothing in its environment had changed and my other Arlo cameras worked fine without similar messages or extreme sudden drops in charge. Deceptive product advertising or did I miss a disclaimer that not all functions are available when operating wirelessly?

[StephenB]

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@Techsince1984 wrote:

Just ended tech support chat and learned that activity zones can only be used while this “wireless” camera is connected to A/C power!

That answer is incomplete.

When connected to AC power, the activity zones are processed by the camera itself.  As a result, they are available even if you do not have a subscription.  However, this processing takes too much power to be used when the cameras are on battery (the video needs to be captured and processed all the time).

When run on battery (or connected to solar panels), the activity zones are processed in the Arlo cloud.  This requires a subscription.  All detected motion results in video being streamed to the Arlo cloud.  If the cloud determines that the motion is outside of the zone, the recording and notification is supressed.  One consequence is that activity zones do not affect battery life at all.  They only reduce unwanted notifications and recordings.

FWIW, most Arlo cameras work this way - although there are some models that can't process activity zones in the camera itself.  Those models always have their video processed by the Arlo Cloud.

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@Techsince1984 wrote:

It started giving that message to on screen a few days ago after I charged it to 100%. 

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Likely the subscription expired (or was dropped) around that date.

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@Techsince1984 wrote:

Two days later the battery charge had dropped to 60% though nothing in its environment had changed 

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Something must have changed, since as noted above, activity zones have no effect at all on the battery life.  Wind is one thing that can cause a lot of video activity (due to thermals in the air, waving branches, etc).

One thing I regularly suggest is removing all activity zones, and then estimating the amount of video being recorded over a few days.  Then it should be clear whether the power drain is due to the video streaming or whether it is caused by something else.

When it is caused by the amount of video streaming, then adjusting the field of view and/or adjusting the motion sensitivity are good things to try first.  Then recreate the activity zones to reduce nuisance notifications.