Arlo Pro Camera w/ Solar Charger problem where battery connector, battery, or solar panel fails

[BobRB]

I have five Arlo Pro Wire-Free camera's I purchased in late 2017.  Later, in the spring of 2018 I purchased five solar panel kits. They have worked flawlessly up until a few weeks ago.  One by one (actually 3 out of 5) either the camera, the camera battery charge connector, the camera battery, or the solar panels are failing.  On three of the camera's I've been getting battery charging failures.  Telling me to unplug the charging source, then plug it back in and try to see if this fixes the problem.  Well it doesn't.  In a couple of cases where it shows the failed camera's are not being charged, I took the cameras down, brought them inside and charged them with the individual wall chargers. They did seem to charge okay. But, in a couple of cases when I took them back outside and plugged them back in their respective solar panels, the same error occured in a short time.

So, does anyone have any ideas?  I don't have a pigtail, or know where to get one, so I can't connect my digital volt/ammeter into the solar panels to check to see if indeed the solar panels are faulty or not.

The first year I had these things in service I was impressed with their capability, including what seemed like good longevity, especially being outdoors in the Florida weather.  Now, I'm not so sure. I think they should last more then a couple years before they start to fail.

In any case, help me to determine I didn't make a bad investment.

Bob Bowers

[jguerdat]

While there have been bad cables and panels causing this, the unplugging of the cable remains the primary solution. However, it's not just reseating of the connectors that is needed - you also have to dry out all 4 connectors, on the cable, panel and camera. The usual issue is that moisture has gotten in. If you don't dry all connections thoroughly before reseating you'll likely end up where you started. In addition, the issue around the need to reseat is that the connections can be a real PITA to get fully seated so they're also fully sealed.

If you've gone through all of that and still have issues, you can only solve a hardware issue by opening a case with support:

https://www.arlo.com/en-us/support/contact.aspx

[JerryR]

I have one Arlo Pro camera with a solar panel. It randomly gives a charging fault error, only during the summer it seems. After swapping cameras and before exchanging the panel, I realized that it was keeping the camera fully charged even though an error was shown. Since then I've just ignored the error. Of course, being in Phoenix pretty much eliminates moisture as a possible problem.