Arlo Pro Batteries Drain Fast?

[yxarlo]

Battery drain increased significantly since July 2018. Now drains upto 5% a day. I have had most of the cameras up for over 1 year. A couple more added 3 months ago. All used to last 3 or 4 months per charge, now I have to charge every 2.5 weeks. The only thing changed seems to be firmware updates in July 2018. How do I revert back to old firmware?

[ShayneS]

Stevejb,

  The Arlo development team is currently investigating this issue. We will provide an update as soon as we have more information to share with the community.

[joanr]

This is a boiler-plate answer, word-for-word, from the company that has been offered many times since early June in the the hundreds and hundreds of thread complaints by Arlo Pro owners regarding unacceptable battery drain.  Can't Netgear offer a progress report after 3 months? Or a solutiion?  Not a stand-up company IMHO.

[Jeff34951]

Same here...........was all good since purchase in April 2017.  Noticed rapid decline 6/2018. Did a full recharge including pulling the battery out of all 4 cams on 7/30/2018.........today one after the other sending a 10% warning. 

Now to add to the mix, all 4 locations received different amounts of activity, and run times. Statically (almost) impossible to have 3 of the 4 devices drain and email me 10% warning all within a one hour time frame. I'm curious to see what the reply will be for Netgear..........what say you ShayneS?

[leehabes]

Arlo is replacing my base station to try and solve the battery drain problem. Previously exchanged 1 battery. That made no difference.

[leehabes]

Looks like Netgear is going to be losing many customers. I for one will be returning mine very soon if the problem isn’t fixed.. I saw where the price for a 3 camera system has dropped $100 since I bought mine 6 months ago. Does that tell you anything?

[pc2k17]

@Jeff34951

Just FYI - The likely reason your batteries drained about the same, but have different activity, is because the issue isn't activity related, it's the base firmware. There is either a bug that causes the issue in certain situations or the firmware update routine needs tweaking. Since the vast majority of the 1.9 million arlo users are not having battery drain issue, my guess using my experience as an engineer myself, is it's either environment realted, meaning something specific to your setup brings out the bug, or the firmware update routine fails on some leaving them with "broken" firmware which disrupts camera base communication which in turn drains the batteries.

Either way, new firmware is being tested to hopefully solve this issue for the people who have it.

@leehabes

I doubt a new base is going to help. It's a firmware issue, not a hardware issue. I suppose a new base could get the current production firmware applied correctly and in that case it would appear a new base fixed the issue, but really it just would means that the firmware updates applied correctly on the new base, not that the old base was bad.

[Grr70]

When is the “team” gonna get this fixed? They have been working on it for a while. I’m have lost almost 30% in two weeks! It’s inside my cabin and there is no motion. This is very frustrating because the whole reason bought these overpriced web cams seems to be the actual thing that does not work.

[4aaronalt]

I have 4 of these systems and 4 camera on each. Needless to say you guys need to get this fixed ASAP

[Matador]

Add me to the list of users that has experienced severe battery drain.  I charged them just last week and my batteries are down to 50%, 43%  and 54%.     This is nuts!!!

[AVZ001]

Add me to the list as well.  First charge lasted almost 6 months.  Now not even getting a full month before batteries are drained.

[mfan888]

Count me in on the battery problem!!!  I don't think it's caused by the July update (I didn't even know there was one) because I noticed my problem earlier than that. 

I bought my 3-camera unit from Costco in December 2017.  The batteries lasted about 3 months on the first charge with little use because I only had them on full-time when we traveled during the winter break.  They were mostly off after we got back.  The 2nd charge lasted almost as long, maybe a week shorter.  But, the 3rd charge in early June was when I noticed a significant decrease in duration.  I think it lasted only a little over a month.  I fully charged them about 2 weeks before leaving on a 2-week vacation.  About 10 days into our vacation, I started to receive low battery alerts.  One of the camera battery actually died before we got back home. 

For the past 2 month, I' realized the batteries are only good for about 4 weeks.  I fully charged them in mid-July and had to charge them again in mid-August.  This is with them powered off.  The only times I turned them on was to align the camera after a recharge!  I'm getting the low battery alerts again, so this time I'm going to test how long they last if I kept them on full time....

[Outdoor]

Has anyone been able to rectify bad batteries I’m not sure what to do spent so much time and money think arlo should back their product by refunding everyone

[Dan90638]

This is a software problem that Arlo needs to fix ASAP.  It can't be a battery problem.  All the consumers paid a lot of money for the product based on their advertisement, so if there isn't a fix, it'll become a class action law suit.  Hopefully they'll come up with a solution.  

[Micolabn]

OK, At it again.  I kept detailed records of battery life when the cameras where turned off or on.    On 9/4, when I turned off the camera, and the motion detector and the night vision, it was at 70%.. Today i got an email from arlo said the batteries were bad.   I checked AND WITH THE CAMERA STILL OFF, it was down to 3%.        A 67% drop in 3 days with the camera off.  WTF.

I am using firmware 1.10.0.8-22190, is this the "best"?

Anyone know another company to try?   Or should I just buy stock in batteries?

Really tired of this. I have 5 camera.

[Hlalibe]

Also have the fast draining issue as I mentioned above.

Last time I charged them, 7 days ago, I first removed the battery from the cam for a few seconds, and disconnected the base station from power for a minute.

Today they are still at 100% with motion detection ON 50% of the time and 20 detect events recorded. It seems to have made a difference although to be sure I need to wait a few weeks.

Worth a try for those who have not tried yet, but I know many have tried this and it did not make any difference.

[Outdoor]

I don't believe that people should have to have their money wasted because of a product that obviously has a major flaw which has to do with the battery draining issue.

If this is a way, for the arlo to generate more income off of people, It is not only dishonest, but is a sign of greed.

Thus, if this is true, then, the company should refund everyone for the money and time spent on this issue. Meaning climbing ladders, recharging, do all the procedures that they already know doesn't work.

I have been looking around for a better camera. So now I have to figure out what to do with the ones I have. As it is, I had to buy them one at a time, due to cost. I'm thinking should I hire an electrian so that I can keep them plugged in. Not cost effective. 

Again, I agree with the person who said that either they refund everyone, or class action. 

Personally, I would rather the problem be fixed.

How hard is that?

[Outdoor]

I don't believe that people should have to have their money wasted because of a product that obviously has a major flaw which has to do with the battery draining issue.

If this is a way, for the arlo to generate more income off of people, It is not only dishonest, but is a sign of greed.

Thus, if this is true, then, the company should refund everyone for the money and time spent on this issue. Meaning climbing ladders, recharging, do all the procedures that they already know doesn't work.

I have been looking around for a better camera. So now I have to figure out what to do with the ones I have. As it is, I had to buy them one at a time, due to cost. I'm thinking should I hire an electrian so that I can keep them plugged in. Not cost effective. 

Again, I agree with the person who said that either they refund everyone, or class action. 

Personally, I would rather the problem be fixed.

How hard is that?

---

@pc2k17 wrote:

There are a dozen threads in this forum on this issue, one with 800+ posts. It's not the batteries, it's the firmware. After the last few firmware updates, some people reported abnormal batteries drainage while others have no issue at all. Arlo is aware and is working on the issue. For those affected, hopefully a new firmware will come soon and resolve the issue.

And to answer the OP's question....... you cannot go back to old firmware. Firmware is pushed by Arlo only.

---

[spewak]

Exactly, I just added a fourth camera with it's own base station not more that 10 feet away and all of a sudden the battery drained to 13% from 85% in two days.

[Elkman]

I had the same issue for the past two months. Tried every possible advice found here in the forum (reset cameras, re-pair them, etc.). Batteries last exactly one week after a full re-charge. Have re-charged them 5 or 6 times in the past 2 months. Cameras are 1.3 years old, batteries were lasting 4-6 months between re-charges before. I am thinking to get them replaced under warranty, but from what I read that won't solve the issue. This is really unacceptable fur such an expensive product. If new firmware is the issue (and it seems they are not able to find a solution), can't they roll back to the old version which was working just fine ???

Cameras FW version: 1.092.0.16_21159

[kellykay_10]

We are having the same problem. Cameras were holding a charge for months, but since our vacation in June/July we started getting. low battery warnings and they went dead while on vacation. That's when we need them the most. When we got home we charged them again and only stayed charged 3 weeks. Customer service is a waste of time. If they don't get this fixed very soon we will be done with Netgear for good

[grr792]

Also seeing the same problem: battery life suddenly shortened radically in late July.

[ADS10]

Having same rapid battery drain in 1 of 3 cameras.  Have to charge every 2weeks. Hope they get the firmware issue figured out soon.  No excuse for not getting updates pushed out and resolving this.

[lufcsak]

Just started having the same issue. 3 cameras working perfectly since March then at the start of September my first camera in my list drops from around 50% charge to 3% then dies. Original Panasonic non rechargeable batteries replaced with Duracell, now working fine at 98% A couple of days later second camera in my list drops from 46% charge to 3% charge then dies. Awaiting replacement batteries and got in touch with Arlo online chat, apologetic and tell me to download a wifi analyser to check my wifi but I don't understand or have the time to work out what I'm supposed to do with it. Meanwhile yesterday the third camera in my list now drops from 46% charge to 3%, my cameras even lose their charge in system order! I've spent £26 on new batteries & have had enough. Why can't Arlo just be honest and say they know there is a problem with the firmware and tell us what they are doing about it? Just waiting for camera 1 to lose it's charge again as that's the only one working at the moment. Just to add nothing has changed in the usage of the cameras and using the same router from day one.

[Arlolosh]

Update to 9/5/2018 post - Since posting my comments I contacted Netgear and the Tech Rep had me place all four cameras within a few feet of the base unit then unplugged the base unit for at least three minutes.  After that time I replugged the base unit and the system rebooted.  The cameras were then place in their respective places and since then they have maintained the power and have not drained quickly.  I will post an update after a month of so with my results.

When asked, the Tech Rep indicated that the June update may not have functioned properly when updating my base unit and the reboot was a fresh start.  Only time will tell...  I still think there is a firmware problem since so many of us started to have a problem after the June update.