Arlo Pro Outdoor POE adapter

[JohnM-CO]

I have solar trickle chargers on two of my Arlo Pro  cameras outdoors for over a year now and they have worked flawlessly. I have two other locations with old POE cameras that I would like to upgrade and intergrate into my Arlo system. Arlo did it for their interior camera, why is there nothing for POE outdoors. The existing residential and business market has been using POE for decades, seems like the upgrade market would be a major focus. No one is going to convert when they have to run around with a ladder every two weeks to charge batteries.How about  making Arlo a serious business security system - a POE adapter for the Pro and Pro 2 would be an excellent start!!! (and solve my problem).

[steve_t]

This is a good idea. You should post it in the Ideas Exchange section if it isn't already there. Upvote it if it is already there. In the meantime I guess you'll have to consider a POE-USB adapter though I can't guarantee that it'll work without issues

[pc2k17]

No POE because this is a cloud based battery system. That's Arlo's focus now. Wire free. I doubt POE is even on their radar. As great as POE is, like you said it's been around for decades, the furture is wire free (for just about everything eventually, even electricity)

Usually any one with an existing POE system is probably going to just keep the system in place and upgrade the cameras to something like Axis cameras. (which is exactly what a friend of mine did, even though he liked my arlo system, since POE was in place he just got new, better cameras.)

With normal usage the batteries should last 2-6 months (not weeks). My busiest camera records 20-30 minutes a day and I get about 60 days, my least used camera lasts 120 days. I charge my outside cameras in place using a battery backup that supports QC3.0.

With all that said, a POE adapter is a great idea, I just wouldn't hold my breath.

[JerryR]

Well, your battery life is way better than mine. I have four cameras that, over the last 2 months, loose between 2% and 5% per day. For the 4 months before that it was between 1% and 1.5%. The 7 months before that it was less than 1% per day. With that kind of battery life POE is looking pretty good.

[pc2k17]

With normal use 2-5% a day is much more than the average. It also depends on how much your recording and live viewing. The spec is 5 minutes a day of recording and live viewing for battery life of 4-6 months. Use it more than that and battery life is less. I get 2-4 months. If your losing 2-5% per day then you either are recording and live viewing a lot, or you got a bad firmware update, or you have some interference that is causing the cameras to disconnect/reconnect constantly which in turn drains the battery.

Recently we have discovered that anything from LED bulbs to garage door openers to TV's, to 2.4ghz devices can cause interference. Could even be a neighbor added something new causing the interference. How you determine what is causing the problem is the tricky part.

For POE, the "E" part will never work with arlo since it's a could based system and the cameras have to connect to the base wirelessly in order to record (local USB or cloud). Connecting an ethernet cable directly to the camera does no good because it needs the base and arlo is never going to give that up. So unless they redesign the whole system and the base, allowing for cameras to be wired into the base or remove the base entirely, you'd only be using the power part. I'd think most people would just wire an electrical outlet and plug the camera in. (or go solar)

[steve_t]

Has it also been very cold there in the last few months? Battery life is drastically shortened when it's cold

[JerryR]

One of those cameras tyipcally records 2 or 3 videos a week. The others typically range from 2 or 3 per day to, maybe, 10 per day. I very rarely live view. All of this appears to be well within your spec.

As I mentioned, there are 3 distinct groups of battery life. Initially (ignoring several cases of initial bad placements and/or settings) I was getting 100 to almost 200 days. Starting in May, battery life dropped to between 60 and 80 days. Starting in October it dropped again to between 20 to 40 days.

Except for a few Wemo devices, I have not changed or added anything in my house that uses 2.4 GHz. While this could be a problem source, I'm fairly certain that the changes in Arlo battery life do not coincide with any new or changed Wemo devices.

I have an extra battery that I charge in the Arlo charger. When a battery needs changing I swap in the charged spare. This way, no one battery is permanently tied a specific camera.

I understand that POE won't work with the current hardware. I was thinking more generally. 

[pc2k17]

Your usage seems normal.

There was a firmware issue causing battery drain earlier this year that took months to fix, started in May I believe, but has since been fixed. I was in the beta program that tested that fix. I am very confident that any battery drain issues happening now are not firmware realted. (and I am not one to defend Arlo, if they mess up I will speak up)

Interference can come from any device that emits any kind of frequency, doesn't have to be 2.4ghz. Example: I read an article the other day about a guy who had an indoor garden. He was using a cheap chinese made Digtal Ballast with an HPS light. That cheap ballast was emitting some type of freqency that was interfering with the cable TV in his neighborhood. The guy had no idea what was going on until the cable company knocked on his door and said they tracked a signal to his house that was interfering with cable tv in the neighborhood. He turned the light off and cable tv was back to normal. Probably an extreme case, but shows how anything can cause interference and it could be your neighbors.

Either you have batteries that are near end of life, or you have a bad firmware update, or there is interference. I'm an engineer myself (computer science) and my first guess is still interference from somewhere. The hard part is figuring where it's coming from. If you haven't tried yet, some things to try.... move cameras and base around to completely different locations (yes a PITA), or remove all devices and base from account and reset base to factory and start over, or get some EFI, RFI, Wifi, interfernce detectors and see if you can find any interference, or go back to POE. Only reason I didn't go POE is the cost, $1200 just to wire the house plus cost of cameras. My buddy spent $1000 on wire and $1600 on four cameras. To much for me for something I don't use for security (I have a real monitored security system).

Hopefully you get straightened out because the system is nice when it works right.

[JerryR]

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate the thought and effort you put into it. Here's my thoughts and, please, don't take them as a slight:

I'm cycling 5 batteries through 4 cameras. Each has been installed 5 or 6 times. I would hope that they're not all failing already.

I've verified that my base station and all cameras are on the latest firmware. The May firmware update timeframe corresponds well with the first drop in battery life that I experienced. The fix to that was released in late September with a followup (having to do with doorbell/chime support) in mid October. Unfortunately, these two updates also correspond with the second drop in life I experienced. As a retired engineer that has spent quite of bit of time testing hardware and software, I find this quite suspicious. The first thing I would do is move a couple of my cameras back to the pre-drain firmware and see if battery life rises. While I don't doubt that your cameras are working fine now, my experience shows that what fixes one or some doesn't necesssarily fix all. There could well be something unique in my setup such that the fix fails. 

As I said, I can't think of anything I've done that would explain an increase in interference in the last year+ that I've had the system. I especially can't think of anything over the last couple of months when the battery life really tanked. Somebody else in the neighborhood is always a possibility. Unfortunately, I'd be totally on my own in trying to prove that. 

As I have the system right now, one camera is literally less than 10 feet away from the base with only the outside wall in between. Two of the cameras show full (three bars) signal and the other two show 2 bars. I have no other place to move the base station to. Moving cameras, other than as a test, makes little sense as their current locations provide the best coverage.

Like you, I chose Arlo specifically because it was inexpensive compared to having a wired system installed. Overall I'm happy with it except, now, for the battery life.

[AncientGeek]

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@pc2k17 wrote:

With normal use 2-5% a day is much more than the average. It also depends on how much your recording and live viewing. The spec is 5 minutes a day of recording and live viewing for battery life of 4-6 months. Use it more than that and battery life is less. I get 2-4 months. If your losing 2-5% per day then you either are recording and live viewing a lot, or you got a bad firmware update, or you have some interference that is causing the cameras to disconnect/reconnect constantly which in turn drains the battery.

Recently we have discovered that anything from LED bulbs to garage door openers to TV's, to 2.4ghz devices can cause interference. Could even be a neighbor added something new causing the interference. How you determine what is causing the problem is the tricky part.

For POE, the "E" part will never work with arlo since it's a could based system and the cameras have to connect to the base wirelessly in order to record (local USB or cloud). Connecting an ethernet cable directly to the camera does no good because it needs the base and arlo is never going to give that up. So unless they redesign the whole system and the base, allowing for cameras to be wired into the base or remove the base entirely, you'd only be using the power part. I'd think most people would just wire an electrical outlet and plug the camera in. (or go solar)

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Of course,  the"Cloud" aspect of the Arlo system has absolutley no bearing on POE.  Arlo Q-Plus is a Cloud based recording device and allows a choice of wireless or wired networking as well as POE or via a direct power adapter.  Also, though it seems unusual, there is no reason POE has to provide both power and netorking to a camrea.  It is straightforward to split those out.  I have not tried it, but I see no reason why I couldn't install an Ethernet cable from Point A to Point B, use a Power Injector at Point A to put power on the cable and use a power splitter on the other end to pull power off the cable...all while ignoring the data carrying capability of the cable.  Both of these devices are availble off the shelf (Amazon and elsewhere), though I have not seen a power splitter that is appropriate for outdoor use nor one that is approved by Arlo specifically for use on their system.  Presumably any quality power splitter that conforms to POE and USB specifications should work.  Weather protection would be the sticky issue to solve.

[pc2k17]

The Q doesn't use a base. The "cloud" does have bearing on the Pro, Pro2, Ultra because of the base, the base connects to the "cloud". In order for POE to work with anything but the Q the entire system would have to be redesigned. They'd have to allow you to connect ethernet to the base, which Arlo is never going to do since this a battery, wifi, cloud system. They will never allow you to control the devices locally (mode/rules are cloud based, not local) or record locally like on a POE system (except for the usb backup). Can you use a POE system with cloud services, sure, that's not what I was saying, so in that regard, yes cloud doesn't matter, but my point was about this system, which POE will never work with, it's not designed that way.

As I mentioned, the "P" part could work but whats the point, just wire an outlet and plug it in or go solar. While I hear what you guys are saying, POE for this system would be cool, it's just not realistic. I'd rather arlo focus on the current multiple issues it has with it's app and overall system performance.

[AncientGeek]

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@pc2k17 wrote:

The Q doesn't use a base. The "cloud" does have bearing on the Pro, Pro2, Ultra because of the base, the base connects to the "cloud". In order for POE to work with anything but the Q the entire system would have to be redesigned. They'd have to allow you to connect ethernet to the base, which Arlo is never going to do since this a battery, wifi, cloud system. They will never allow you to control the devices locally (mode/rules are cloud based, not local) or record locally like on a POE system (except for the usb backup). Can you use a POE system with cloud services, sure, that's not what I was saying, so in that regard, yes cloud doesn't matter, but my point was about this system, which POE will never work with, it's not designed that way.

As I mentioned, the "P" part could work but whats the point, just wire an outlet and plug it in or go solar. While I hear what you guys are saying, POE for this system would be cool, it's just not realistic. I'd rather arlo focus on the current multiple issues it has with it's app and overall system performance.

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It could be that we define “cloud” differently.  I don’t include my local Wi-Fi in that definition.  When I think of a cloud architecture, I primarily think of cloud storage, processing and whatever, but not how the device connects locally to the network.  So, for me wether a camera connects locally via wired Ethernet or Wi-Fi, doesn’t matter.  What matters is where all those other things take place.  There is no architectural reason why a POE camera would need to use local recording versus cloud recording and the Q Plus is an example of that.  It is more common for POE cameras to record locally, but it isn’t an architectural requirement.

Also, I was in no way suggesting that Arlo should spend any time on this.  I was offering a possible alternative for “powering” an Arlo wireless camera (or any camera that uses a USB power adapter) over CAT-5e or CAT-6, etc. cable.  I love my Arlo solar panels, but they are not useful in shaded areas.  I find Cat-X cable easier to run than standard 120V power wire, so my whole point was to suggest that the “P” could be separated from the “E”, if someone wanted to purely “power” an Arlo wireless cameras over a POE cable.  The E would be useless as you said and was not part of my point.

[JerryR]

While Arlo solar panels can be a solution to battery life problems, a lot of people have problems with them, too. And they're not cheap (well maybe compared to a wired system they are 😉 ). The one panel I have frequently gives a charging error even though it does, in fact, continue to charge that camera. I've learned to ignore that error.

An option to run low voltage rather than 120 VAC to each camera (aka "POE", low voltage wire of some type (thermostat, doorbell, low voltage landscape lighting, etc) would certainly be an attractive option. That installation cost would have to be lower than running multiple 120 VAC, outdoor outlets and boxes, Arlo exterior cables (if/when available), etc.

[JohnM-CO]

This thread is finally starting to focus on my reason for opening it. I should have been a little more specific. I'm not looking to do anything more than power a standard arlo pro at two remote and hard to access locations that already have old POE cameras that I want to replace. I want to keep the wireless function of the Arlo camera with my base station but also keep it charged. I would like to plug my exisisting RJ45 plug into an adapter that would power the camera. I don't know if there would be voltage/amperage issues since Arlo has not set up their cameras for this type of charging. I don't know if the jack on the camera is proprietary or if there is a simple third party adapter/splitter that could feed power to the camera. Any input to get me hooked up would be helpful or why it can't be done. Thanks!

[AncientGeek]

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@JohnM-CO wrote:

This thread is finally starting to focus on my reason for opening it. I should have been a little more specific. I'm not looking to do anything more than power a standard arlo pro at two remote and hard to access locations that already have old POE cameras that I want to replace. I want to keep the wireless function of the Arlo camera with my base station but also keep it charged. I would like to plug my exisisting RJ45 plug into an adapter that would power the camera. I don't know if there would be voltage/amperage issues since Arlo has not set up their cameras for this type of charging. I don't know if the jack on the camera is proprietary or if there is a simple third party adapter/splitter that could feed power to the camera. Any input to get me hooked up would be helpful or why it can't be done. Thanks!

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That was how I read the original post and how I’ve been trying to respond.  There are adapters for pulling power off a POE cable and terminating that in a USB micro connector.  I “believe” this is supposed to be a standard connector with a specified power rating.  If Arlo and whomever makes the POE splitter both intrepret the standard the same way and execute the standard faithfully, it should be interchangeable.  However, I’m sure there are manufacturers of these low end components who take plenty of shortcuts with electronics and specs.  So buyer beware.

[AncientGeek]

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@JohnM-CO wrote:

This thread is finally starting to focus on my reason for opening it. I should have been a little more specific. I'm not looking to do anything more than power a standard arlo pro at two remote and hard to access locations that already have old POE cameras that I want to replace. I want to keep the wireless function of the Arlo camera with my base station but also keep it charged. I would like to plug my exisisting RJ45 plug into an adapter that would power the camera. I don't know if there would be voltage/amperage issues since Arlo has not set up their cameras for this type of charging. I don't know if the jack on the camera is proprietary or if there is a simple third party adapter/splitter that could feed power to the camera. Any input to get me hooked up would be helpful or why it can't be done. Thanks!

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Here is an example of a device to which I am referring.  This is just an example and I am in no way recommending (or not) this specific device.  I’m just showing your what one looks like.

https://www.amazon.com/UCTRONICS-802-3af-Splitter-Ethernet-Raspberry/dp/B01MDLUSE7?SubscriptionId=AK...

[JohnM-CO]

Thanks for your reply AG - looks like we are both asking the same questions. It would be nice if someone in Arlo tech could provide the answers (after the obligatory disclaimer regarding introducing third party hardware of course:).

[AncientGeek]

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@JohnM-CO wrote:

Thanks for your reply AG - looks like we are both asking the same questions. It would be nice if someone in Arlo tech could provide the answers (after the obligatory disclaimer regarding introducing third party hardware of course:).

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I just did a little research and discovered why this is so tricky.  Here is the USB spec for power.  614

pages...Yikes.

https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/USB%20Power%20Delivery%2020181203.zip

The bottom line is that it provides a flexible power source with rigorous communications and negotiation rules for regulating that power.  So any company saying they comply with the USB power spec. is only telling a small part of what we need to know.  The POE end also needs to conform to 802.3af spec. to match our most likely power injectors on the other end.

I have two different models of Arlo power adapters for Pro series cameras and both say they provide 

5V at 1.8 amp or 9V at 1.1 amp.  So any 3rd party POE splitter would need to match that as well as being both USB PD and 802.3af compliant...and they’d need to have an operating temperature range that matches our needs...and we’d need to install them in a weather tight case and weather-proof the connection to the camera. 

Other than that...no sweat!

[AncientGeek]

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@JohnM-CO wrote:

Thanks for your reply AG - looks like we are both asking the same questions. It would be nice if someone in Arlo tech could provide the answers (after the obligatory disclaimer regarding introducing third party hardware of course:).

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Just FYI, I recently learned the 9V power mode is for charging and the camera will run on 5V.  I have ordered a POE splitter and a weatherproof box.  I’m going to make a power port plug out of silicone and see if I can get a Pro 2 to work reliably on POE outdoors.  I’ll let you know if it works.  

[JohnM-CO]

Guess it will take a few weeks of monitoring to know for sure. how it works. I'm looking forward  to that post.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

[AncientGeek]

Thanks.  I’ll let you know.

Happy New Year!

[AncientGeek]

Second posting attempt.  Is it just me or do others find this community web app to be significantly lacking in many ways.  Perhaps it is just due to my using Safari on a Mac.  Usually I remember to copy all of my text BEFORE I attempt to post anything with an attachment because sometimes, it blows the web page away...I forgot this time.    

Anyway...take two...

I have results quicker than expected because the POE adapter did not work with my Pro 2 camera.

I tried it with a 15 watt power injector and a short Ethernet cable.  I have a fresh Arlo Pro 2, right out of the box that I sync'd normally while powered in the battery and updated the firmware.  After the dust settled, I tried plugging in the POE adapter.  The Pro 2 power/battery icon cycled back and forth between battery and powered, repeatedly.  It would not settle down.

I then tried the same test with the batter removed, assuming that perhaps with the battery installed, the camera may have been trying to see if it needed 9V to charge the battery before settling down to 5V to run the camera.  With the battery removed, the Device Status showed I needed to perform a firmware upgrade on my base station and then said the camera was offline.   

So I'd say at least with this particular POE adapter, it is not going to work.  The camera works fine on battery and with a normal Arlo power adapter.  I considered trying this with a 30W power injector, but I don't think the gross power input in the problem.  Even so, I might try it sometime just to be sure.  However, it could be that the camera actually needs both voltages to run even though it reportedly only uses 9V for charging and can operate on 5V.