Arlo Solar Panel causing Arlo Pro 4 cameras to go offline

[GregAld]

Let me preface this first by saying I love my Alro cameras. This issue is just driving me crazy.

I have three Arlo Pro4 cameras and three Arlo solar panels. Recently two of the three solar panels have been causing two of my cameras to go offline as soon as I connect them. I've had to reset both of cameras multiple times. They would only stay online for a few minutes, then go offline. When I removed the solar panels from the camera, I no longer had the issue. So the issue is clearly related to the solar panels.

The odd thing is that I have had both of these solar panels hooked up to these cameras for almost two years now with no issues. I was mystified. I’m an IT Support Lead for a living. So instead of just logging a ticket, I researched the issue on the Support site to try and resolve it myself. I tried the following troubleshooting steps:

Ensured that the firmware was up-to-date on both cameras.

Tried the suggestion of and charging my batteries to 100% and then reattach the panels.

Finally I switched both of the solar panels to different cameras and had the same results.

My assumption is that the solar panel are have become defective after less than two years of ownership.

Date Ordered: 11/3/21

Total $191.40 ($63.80 each)

Please let me know if Arlo stands behind its products and what you can do for me to replace these solar panels

Thank you very much

Greg A

[presotto]

I replaced the solar panel and the problem persisted.  I eventually gave up and replaced the pro 4 with a pro 5s because I noticed moisture getting into the case.  The pro 5s is running off of wifi instead of the base station.  After a week the 5s gave up because the panel wasn't charging it (I think).  I saw green streaking on the panel connector so I assume there was water getting in (I live next to the ocean and have fog).  I cleaned the connector, charged the 5s off my computer and now its been going 2 weeks fine and the panel is charging it.  I'm now using the pro 4 as an indoor camera.  I am using silicon around the connector now to keep moisture out.

I've had pro 2 cameras for years and had a panel failure and batteries die.  However, with 9 cameras, failures were really rare.  With the pro 4's and their solar panels, I've had a dozen failures in less time.  I blame most of it on the brain dead magnetic power connector that just shorts out if not sealed (and even then sometimes).  The problem is in the connector itself, I've taken several apart and the panel is producing power but the connector is either shorted or open circuit (I've seen both).  In two cases the connector has also killed the camera or made it unreliable.  If I were to start again from scratch i'd probably go Reolink.  I have one Reolink solar powered camera and the only thing I miss is specifying the activation area.

The other thing that has made arlo less appealing is the disappearance of email alerts.  My wife and I are both heavy email users and, though we both have Androids, don't do well with push notifications on the phone since we are usually sitting in front of a computer.  Reolink does both still and, because the email comes from your account directly from the camera, are much more responsive than Arlo is. 

I've really liked Arlo over the years but this steady stream of failed devices, ever slower alerting, and disappearance of email alerts is getting me down.   Also Reolink lets me have videos pushed to my own computers so I can create my own web experience.

[presotto]

Tried the degrease.  worked for a while.  Just running silicon sealant around the connector after attaching it to the camera has so far worked for a month including lots of wet weather.

[BKB23]

just an update as of today, I am not having any issues.

[ejdavis]

@ShayneS I have the same issue as others with the solar panel and Arlo Pro 4. I've had an open ticket with support for 4 months. Do you know if a solution is near?

[ShayneS]

@ejdavis 

I am waiting for additional info from the team. I will report back as soon as I have more info to share with you. 

[Tatey]

I have the same issues arlo pro 4 and disconnecting with 2 of my cameras when I connect the solar panels. My solution was buying new solar panels from ebay and it works fine now for both cameras! Great work arlo best to buy aftermarket panels guys as arlo doesn't want to support their products 👏 

[BuffaloBob]

Two of my Pro 4 cameras batteries died while connected to Arlo solar panels and both had water between the camera and connector. One worked after cleaning and the other would drain a fully charged battery in a day. Until I noticed the app had a popup message flash up something about connecting it to a Arlo charger.  The other one stopped charging and had a lot of water droplets inside and one of the spring contacts has moved into the case. 

[SHUTE]

Has there been any resolution to this issue as i am having the same problem.

I have x3 Arlo apro4 cameras and x2 solar panels connected to a base station VMB4540.

Only one of the cameras that is connected to a panel is dropping out have also tried all the solutions such as restarting disconnecting and charging to 100% via wall plug charger and reconnecting to the solar panel and it just dops out again any where from 5 mins to 3 hours. i have had this set up for just over a year before this issue started. NEED A SOLUTUON TO THIS ARLO!

[ShayneS]

This should now be resolved with the latest firmware version: 1.080.22.1_42_39af8c3

Please let me know if you are still experiencing this after your devices have updated to this latest version. 

[presotto]

currently running 1.080.22.1_42_39af8c3 and sealing the connector with sealant.  So far so good even with heavy fog.

[SHUTE]

Still having the same issue.

Cameras and base station all up to date with firmware so reconnected the solar panel and instantly got a pop notification saying "Arlo recieved a factory reset request" and the camera dissappeared from the app. I added it back into the app and reconnected the solar pannel and it remained connected for about an hour however not charging just draining the battery during that time as i kept checking on it. Then it took the camera back offline. I had to remove the camera, disconnect the solar panel and then add it back to the app again. This is piss poor from a supposably good brand given the solar panels are only just over a year old. FIX THIS ISSUE

[ShayneS]

@SHUTE 

Thank you for letting me know, I notified the team and I'll report back as soon as I have more info.

[ShayneS]

@SHUTE Do you happen to have any timestamps on when the offline or removed evens occurred? 

[SHUTE]

 1534 when i got the factory reset notification instantly after i connected the solar panel. After that the camera dissappeared from the app and then had to add the camera back to the app and reconnected the solar panel. That lasted about 2 hours when i decided to check if it was still good around 1800 and it had taken the camera offline. Dont have an exact time for that as i was annoyed and frustrated because i had to then disconnect the solar panel again, demove the camera from the app and re add it to get it to work again. 

[ShayneS]

@SHUTE Thanks for this, I provided to the dev team and I will update you as soon as I receive more info. 

[bill340]

I have the same problem with 2 Pro 4 cameras connected to solar panels.

Latest firmware is installed.

Is there already any solution???

[SHUTE]

Havnt had a solution yet, still waiting.

All my cameras and base station have latest firmware and still same issue.

May need to cancel subscription, ditch all the arlo and get a better kit if they cant fix this

[presotto]

f you have a voltmeter handy, measure the voltage between the pins on the panel.  From one of my previous posts about panels killing my pro 4s:

"On working ones, it seems like there is a  7+V DC difference between the most forward pin and each of the other two.  On my dead ones I'm seeing 7VDC on one and about 1.5 on the other.  I'm also seeing a voltage difference between the forward pin and the magnet which is just crazy, like the connector itself is screwed up.  I now have enough dead panels that I may start carving up the connectors to see what is happening."

I later took the connectors apart and found that the resistor in them was gone and there were shorts in some and visible oxidation on the contacts.  If you put the panel in the sun, and you don't see the 7+V diff, the panel's connector is gone.  In my case the panels were still working but noone sells that connector to replace it...   I've bought new panels and all but one pro 4 started working correctly.  I also spread silicon sealant around the connectors to make sure moisture didn't intrude again which seemed to be the problem and haven't had a problem since.

IN one case the pro 4 was also gone, probably because the case was also leaking.  It was wet inside.

[presotto]

And, by the way, I now have 3 reolink argus eco ultras.  They don't need a base station or a cloud server.  Videos can live on a card in the camera, and be ftp'd and/or emailed to you.  The cameras does object recognition etc.

I now have a mix of cameras.  The arlo's still have a feature i like that the reolink's don't, i.e., they can have multiple modes that I can just change once in the app so that I have an away mode and a day and night at home mode, so when I'm on a trip they are always on and alerting.   Reolink can do that on their wired products that have a base station but not on the wireless ones that I got to replace the arlo.  They only have a single schedule.  SO I put reolinks whereever I just want them to always be on.

Also, I got pissed that arlo stopped doing email alerts which is what actually got me to look at reolink in the first place.  I've gotten email alerts back for my arlos by putting a wifi sd card in my base station and writing a program to scan it every few minutes and send me email if anything changes.  Unfortunately, that loses the ability to recognize objects because arlo does that in the cloud.

I do find the arlos 4s and 5s to be more sensitive than the reolinks.  In a side by side, they tend to detect things further away which can be good and bad.