Batteries Draining Arlo Camera

[Shammy]

Why does my camera night infrared come on when I have the camera set to off?

[Wklovelace3]

Another thing you can do is disarm your cameras and leave them on. When off the batteries drain worse because the ir lights in camera stay on. Disarming turns off motion detection. They still drain but not as bad as when turned off

[Shazi]

Excellent idea!  I will private message regarding the trial.

[paddos]

@Wklovelace3

I thought I read your post indicating the field trial was not working? Had ur battery readings stuck at 100% and u were taking everything down?

Things working now on field trial? Just confused ....

[Wklovelace3]

Once i rebooted base everything is ok now

[Wklovelace3]

Hopefully wont have to reboot with every battery charge. But today its ok. It is slowly dropping like normal

[paddos]

Good to know there is still hope. 3% per day is about a one month for batteries. Is your daily video greater than the advertised 5min/day for 3 to 6 months?

[Wklovelace3]

Oh yeah. I get 70+ videos a day. Im near a bus stop for school kids and i get alot of cars. At 55% motion it misses some cars but if i turn it any lower it wont catch people walking up my driveway.

[secaz]

Has anyone had the *field trial* brick any of their hardware?

Just recently started having more issues with motion sensing... have tried using activity zone, zooming, and nothing seems to help - rebooted all base stations, too... thing is, I always adjust cams after taking them down and putting back up so that they cover the same exact area they always do... usually dead on the money.  Don't understand why things they always failthfully picked up now they completely miss... and its during times of day where it picks lizards and birds, how can it miss vehicles?

[Wklovelace3]

I have it set to until motion stops. My total record time yesterday was 24 minutes so 3% not bad at all. My other cam has 5 minutes of videos and hasnt moved so i think its back to normal

[Wklovelace3]

Before this big mess mine were touchy. 1/8 of an inch off and it wouldn't pick up people on sidewalk. So I quit moving them. I just plug into the back to charge. I have noticed at certain times of the day the sun seems to pick up more cars but miss more people. But at 100% it gets eveything. 55% is good for my driveway but at 5 pm when sun is directly in cameras view it wont pick up person walking up driveway. Soon as sun goes down a bit it picks right up. In the morning same thing its good all morning but when sun is directly overhead it can be hit or miss. Almost like the sun drowns out ir

[Fy27]

My cameras were draining super fast since the May 16 update.  After speaking with tech support for an hour and recharching all the batteries and reinstalled, it seems to be working ok for 2 weeks.  Today, 2 of the cameras went from 100% to 95% overnight, with 0 recordings.  

@JamesC  I don't know what this field trial is or what it will fix, but if this issue is not resolve soon, the next time I climb up the ladder will be to rip the whole system off.  Luckily, I bought it from Costco, so I can return this crap within a year with no questions asked.  

[secaz]

Wklovelace3 - did you have to resync cams after the field trial firmware was isntalled?  I have 10 cams needless to say that's a big project to take all of them down, resync and then remount... not to mention when you resync, you have to reconfigure ALL your cam settings and modes... serious task and a half...

[secaz]

Fy27 - smart, you bought from Costco.  I bought from Amazon and Newegg, even got a some parts of the system from Wal-Mart... whoever had the lowest price/availabliy at the time.

In all honesty, I CAN live with the battery drain, semi-retired so have time to devote to it, but its really more than I want, frequently getting up on a ladder.  However, its all the OTHER abberations which have cropped up since the May update... and actually, a couple which go back to the update in late Feb/early March somewhere around there.

What blows my mind is this system used to JUST WORK, and worked REALLY WELL and battery life was not perfect, but was very good, and in a hot Arizona summer, it was nice to not have to worry about batteries, because day or night in the Summer in AZ, you don't want to be outside and up on a ladder futzing with cameras every week... unless a monsoon storm makes a mess of the lenses... then have to go up on ladder like as not...

[Wklovelace3]

Secaz- no i did not have to re synch. I did have to reboot because the 100% freeze i thought was happening all over again but since then all appears normal. Gradual drop in batteries. Motion seems better.

[secaz]

BTW - has anyone else wondered why Netgear doesn't have an online bug reporting system for Arlo? 

I think Netgear would get a lot more useful information about what ISN'T working if they did - I know those of us in the tech industry probably refuse to contact Arlo support - it is a complete waste of time, and one hell of an aggravating experience.

If there was an online bug reporting system for Arlo, I would have been more than happy to articulate in detail issues I've expreience with my system, and steps to reproduce the undesirable behavior... although honeslty, some of the bugs I can't reproduce, its been such an inconsistent experience from one day to the next with Arlo these days...

[secaz]

Wklovelace3 - motion sensing can be tricky at the wrong times of day... but mine started getting ugly at times of day when there is no reason for it...

Been fighting with one garage cam yesterday and today, just stopped picking up vehicles altogether, even at 100% - finally a little while ago I just took it down and replaced with another cam... and the replacement cam I made sure to pop out the battery, wait 30 seconds, then put in a fresh battery... you know, vudoo rituals that probably never help but you hope they will anyway, lol...

Replacement cam is picking up vehicles... so I'm going to mark the other cam that was there so when it evertually gets cycled back to that same spot, I'll know and can see if that cam gets cranky again about picking up large things.  If not, then it was something else...

[Wklovelace3]

Mine seem better with the trial. Sooner or later the trial will become production firmware so i figured what do i have to lose. Its gonna be pushed on us either way. Got home early today battery at 95. Thats more like it for two days. It only used 2% today had about 40 videos 15 seconds each or less.. So far so good. Hopefully the new firmware will solve your cranky camera situation. Honestly i did notice better motion detection with the trial firmware. Signal strength is still iffy though. Sometimes i only get one bar. It bothers me a little but no issues with camera even at one bar

[secaz]

Wklovelace3 - glad the trial firmware has helped you!  Normally I love helping to debug stuff, but not sure I have it in me to fight with the system should the trial firmware bork everything... it would be just my luck... and its summer here in AZ and HOT... not inclined to have to reset all my basestations and resync all my cams... not unless I want to die of heatstroke, lol...

Does anyone know how long before the trial firmware goes production?

[harley239]

You can include me in a trial. Batteries draining super fast on 4 cameras but not at the same rate. Went from 5-6 months to 1-2 months. I wonder if the batteries are defective also. Who knows. 

[Wklovelace3]

Theres no timeframe i asked the same on a private message. The answer is whenever q&a approves it

[secaz]

Wklovelace3 - thanks for the info.

Where was QA, I wonder, when the firmware that borked everything was being evaluated?  It's almost as if they didn't bother to test it at... all... period... which is unconscionable... and if they DID test it?  Well - they need to fire those who did the testing.  Seriously.

I honestly cannot imagine how this many bugs got by QA...

[DocCJC]

Good to hear the trial firmware seems to have resolved the battery draining issues. Looking forward to the production release. 

[Wklovelace3]

So far so good. Its dropping gradually like it should and did before this whole mess started. Lost 5% in last two days. Thats good for me as i got 70+ videos yesterday and about 40 today. I live on busy street and get lots of cars. Before the trial i was losing 10% per day and 2 or 3% on top of that overnight. Was having to charge every week.

[joedex5715]

That’s what has happened to my cameras. I have 8 of them at two different houses. They used to last 6 months and now they are depleted in about two months with the same minimal activity!

[Victorknguyen24]

Could I please get added to this test firmware too? I have one camera that is draining fast and all of them turn on the infrared lights when they’re turned off