Decreased Range

[jack612]

I have an Arlo Pro setup with 3 wireless cameras and one Q that I've been using without any significant issue for a little over 2 years now.

A couple of months ago, I opened the app and saw that all three of the wireless cameras were offline, despite having plenty of battery life. 

I reset the hub and repaired everything succesfully, but when I put the cameras back up they went offline right away again. I gave up for the moment and forgot about it for a few days and the next time I checked, everything was back online again.

Since then, they wil go offline for days at a time and then come back seemingly at random. Nothing has changed with my setup but the drop in range has made the whole thing basically worthless.  What could be causing this? 

[jguerdat]

I get that occasionally but usually waiting for 30-60 seconds will reconnect the view. They're not actually offline - the app/web just displays that for some reason. If I'm in a hurry, I force close the app or log out and then reopen/log in.

[jack612]

I tried that today and the view never reconnected.

Also, I've noticed that when the cameras finally do reconnect to the base station after a few days, the batteries are always completely dead even if they started as full. I'm guessing they're draining themselves trying to reconnect over and over again? When everything is working they last for months.

Super disappointed in the whole setup. I paid way too much for this stuff to have it inexplicably stop working after a couple of years. 

[jguerdat]

This sounds like there's an issue with signal strength and/or quality. Bring a camera close to the base and see if it still happens. How far are the cameras from the base? What is the construction of any walls/ceilings between them? Stucco has an issue due to the wire mesh used to support it. Other blockages can occur from ductwork, mirrors, or other metallic objects in the path. And then there's 2.4GHz interference from other wireless devices, not just WiFi. You can try moving the base away from the router to see if that helps.

[Sargeant]

@jack612  did you ever resolve this.  I'm having connection issues all of a sudden after a couple of years of use.  Have to bring the camera to the same room as the base station for it to connect reliably.

[jack612]

@Sargeant not really. It spontaneously started working again, then the issue came back for a few days and then went away again. It's been working normally for a couple of months now.

I was kind of interested in the video doorbell but I don't think I want to add anything else if there's a chance that's its just going to randomly stop working some times.