Battery excessive draining at one location

[Capsgator]

I have one location where the battery drain is excessive and need to configure.  To ensure it wasn’t the camera or the battery, I swapped the camera with another … same issue.  I swapped the battery with another.. same issue.  So I know it’s the location.

I can’t for the life of me figure out what’s draining it.  I don’t get many alerts in that area.  In the settings I keep shrinking the activity zone to compensate.  Could it be grass or bushes moving?  What could be the deal with this one location and are there other settings to consider?

[jguerdat]

It's likely signal strength and/or quality. Repositioning the camera even a little can make a big difference but also check for other wireless devices that could be interfering with the signal. Is the camera connected to a hub or to your WiFi? Moving a hub away from the router or moving the router to improve the signal to that camera can help. Use of a WiFi extender may also be useful if connecting to WiFi.

[Capsgator]

Connecting to WiFi and it has direct line of sight to an AP about 20 ft away.  It’s one of only 2 devices that regularly hit that AP.

[jguerdat]

Depending on various complications, 20 feet doesn't preclude strength and/or quality issues. What is the house construction? Have you checked for other wireless devices nearby? Have you tried swapping cameras around to verify that it's the location and not the specific camera?

[Capsgator]

Good questions… so there is actually nothing in between the AP and the camera.  The AP is under a soffit, and 20 ft away the camera is mounted under the same soffit.  No building materials.  Another camera mounted about 5 ft away from the AP under the same soffit pointed in a different direction has no issue.  I’ve swapped both cameras separately and both batteries separately and it appears isolated to that one location.

[StephenB]

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@Capsgator wrote:

In the settings I keep shrinking the activity zone to compensate.  

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Activity zones don't help battery life - and they mask the real amount of streaming that the camera is doing.

Every time the camera detects motion, it streams it to the Arlo Cloud.  The Cloud then applies the activity zones, and supresses any recordings/notifications if the motion is out of the zone.  So the camera uses the same amount of power, no matter how the zones are set.

If you want to troubleshoot battery life, you need to disable the activity zones, and see how much video recordings you get per day (approx minutes).  Then adjust the field of view, or the motion sensitivity to improve the battery life.  When you've done that, you can reapply the activity zones to reduce the unwanted notifications/recordings.

[Capsgator]

great idea.... ill do that now.  i had no idea that activity zones govern what is stored to the cloud and what is discarded.  i will definitely do that.  i think im down to two possible scenarios... 

1) you decribed it... too much motion setting it off non-stop

2) AP hopping.

thank you... will check.

[Capsgator]

Just an update… still no resolution.  I’ve locked the camera to a single AP which cleared AP hopping as a culprit.  I turned the sensitivity down to 1 and it’s still going down by 10% a day.  My only thought now is that there are bushes below the camera that are constantly setting it off.  My only option I think at this point is to get a solar panel to ensure it’s constantly being charged.

[StephenB]

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@Capsgator wrote:

My only thought now is that there are bushes below the camera that are constantly setting it off.  

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Try inverting the camera - the motion sensitivity is higher at the bottom than it is at the top.  (Also use the video setting to rotate by 180 degrees to compensate).