Arlo Pro - Solar Panel Issues

[frothingham]

I had three Arlo Pro cameras and purchased 3 solar panels.  The cameras all charged fine before.  The panels worked but drove me crazy with errors.  I had to reseat cables.  After a few days I couldn't get 2 to work at all.  Arlo support replace the batteries for me.  That worked temporarily.  I had spradic incidents and fooled with connections to resolve.  Last month one went out completely again.  After troubleshooting with Arlo support the sent me a cable except it took a month because it was out of stock.  The cable didn't help.  The next support person insisted on sending me batteries again.  The battery did not help.  I had purchased 2 more cameras (used) and I tried one of them with the new battery and got the panel to work.  During this time I pulled a working camera to try on the suspect panel and now it doesn't work.  So the one I had initial trouble with (this time) is back running with a different camera.  The one I moved temperarily does not work at all and now my thrird panels has come up with an error that says it's not compatible with my device.

My Solar Panel warranty expires in a couple of months.  I am afraid I will never get these running with any reliability.  All 5 of my cameras charge fine when plugged into the wall charger.  Support really tried to help but remind me often that my cameras are out of warranty.  It makes me think they will abandon me as soon as my panels are out of warranty.  The ad never mentioned the panels won't work if your cameras are over 1 year old.

Has anyone else experienced these issues or I'm simply doing something wrong.  Today, again, I will spend my Saturday day off fooling around trying to make something new work.  Please help!

[jguerdat]

The usual issue is moisture in one or both of the connectors. You should pull the cable out of both ends and let the connectors on the panel and camera thoroughly dry out (bring them indoors if necessary). Once dry, reattach the cable very carefully and fully so that the seals are fully in place. This can be very difficult but is necessary to prevent the errors.

Of course, it's also possible that there's a hardware problem and you may need to slog through the troubleshooting to figure out what's bad.

[JerryR]

I have one solar panel connected to Arlo Pro. When I first set it up I started getting a charging fault error every 2 or 3 days. I tried reseating the cables, swapping batteries and was ready to swap cameras in that location when I realized that the battery was charging every sunny day, whether or not it was showing a charging fault error. Now I just ignore the errors.