Infrared light comes on when camera is off causing rapid battery drain

[Shammy]

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

[langrock]

This is the 1st gen Arlo, not the Pro, but is having the exact same issues as described in this discussion.

[NetBox]

1st gen Arlo certainly shouldn't be doing that and the IR should only come in when its dark AND the camera is recording or being live streamed.

[langrock]

I have 5 Arlo (HD) cameras. All of them are therefore only able to operate on batteries. 

Thanks

[langrock]

Couldn't agree more and that was also their behavior until recently. It's especially noticeable in the evenings when you can see the IR LEDs come on despite the camera not being armed. The clicking sound is also disconcerting. Anybody know what mechanism inside the camera does that? Is there a shutter of sorts? LEDs don't make noise, neither does the CCD sensor ...

[Wklovelace3]

Its called an infra red cut filter. Its a mechanical part and it moves

[lusmile]

I started to see battery drain issue again after 7/17 base station upgrade. 5% every day with no recording.

The same issue was observed after 5/14 upgrade. And it's fixed with 6/21 upgrade.

Looks like with 7/17 upgrade something is again broken. 

Did the upgrade get tested before pushing to our base station?

Can we have an option to roll back to previous base station version?

[langrock]

Thanks for the explanation. That makes sense.

[langrock]

Looking at my battery logs, I can confirm that a change sometime in May caused batteries to drain faster. I am not monitoring the firmware version or updates of the base station, so cannot comment on when there was an actual software update. Thanks for providing these dates.

[EdRand]

Hi James
The whole issue of battery drain started in May and is still the same. My batteries used to last around 75 to 80 days.. at the moment the max I get is 30 days.

However the issue seems to be related to Arlo Pro and older models. I bought a new Arlo Pro 2 a couple of days ago and the after 2 days, battery has only lost 1%. I placed the camera in the same position of an older camera.

Cheers
Ed

[NetBox]

If I was being cynical I would say that's because Netgear put bugs in the firmware for older products so they don't work well anymore so every one upgrades to the shiny new latest perfect working version (aka Arlo Pro 2) so they can make more money (just like how Apple slow down their old phones and make them buggy so everyone upgraded to the latest version). But Netgear wouldn't stoop to such a tactic now would they 😉

(That is just a joke of course admins but with the obvious lack of a fix its starting to make everyone wonder if the developers seriously just don't have any clue as to what they are doing)

[Wklovelace3]

I did the trial firmware back in may when this whole thing started. They then put it out in production . mine has been fine since may but its weird that only some cameras are affected. Obviously something is wrong because theyve put 2 more updates and camera software updates as well since the first one came out. Ive had my system for almost 2 years and honestly its always something. They even erased my paid subscription one time and claimed to know nothing about it even though i had a receipt. Support is the worst on planet earth . useless calling them. I cant remember going more than 2 or 3 months without some glitch or issue happening. Hopefully the new ceo is better than the last and they take better care of there customers because they sure arent doing that now.

[Skridsko]

I experience the same problem after the all the other bugs in spring/summer. I have two base stations with 5 cams:

One PRO camera is ok after a base station restart...the other PROs are still draining quickly.

Base A (1.10.0.8_22190):

- 1 x PRO 2 (1.125.11.0_21156) - battery works ok

- 3 x PRO (1.092.0.16_21159) - drains quickly

Base B (1.10.0.8_22190):

- 1 x PRO (1.092.0.16_21159) - battery works ok

[Wklovelace3]

Both of my cameras have started draining fast again after being fine for months. Both lost 10% overnight while on and disarmed. No videos no live views. Just drains overnight..

[secaz]

Whelp - I spoke too soon, after most recent firmware update, my batteries are again tanking quickly.  Put fresh batteries in 4 of them the other day, have had only a handful of 10 second, optomized res videos each and the batteries are again quickly draining...

[Wklovelace3]

Secaz- here we go again. Round 2. Mine lost 10% overnight while disarmed and heres the weird part. I had them on all day while away and 5% came back with about 25 videos. Now my guess is ill wake up and they will really drop overnight. Its like its not in real time

[Greg0101]

Guys 

I've been placing my updates with this firmware fiasco on another message.  Once again it happened in late June whereby batteries drained in less than week.  Since then I have battled with cameras being offline some times recording batteries running flat more than I care to mention.

i have 5 arlo pro cameras to 1 base station and have tried all the tricks of remove batteries, rest can, reset etc etc.  still no joy and as I'm writing right now 5 fully charged cameras all offline.

Latest set of updates has not resolved this issue.  

Base Station (1.10.0.8_22190):
- 5 x PRO (1.092.0.16_21159) - all offline and intermittently record

Would be nice to get some logging out of the base station which we can view to at least get handle on what's going on.  Surely this could help the developers you would think???

[megatec45]

I recharged all 4 of my cameras less than 2 weeks ago. 2 of them were disabled because I was going to move them to a new location. One of the 2 had a completely discharged battery, and I noticed that the night vision was coming on even though the camera was disabled! The other is at 30% and they were never active. The 2 that are in use, one is at 60%, the other is at 35% with battery settings set for best battery life. All I can say is WTF NETGEAR!!!

[paddos]

@JamesC. @DawnM

I know this has been discussed but time to seriously consider pushing pre May firmware for your Pro customers. Battery drain is now 2.5 months without resolution. Would be the right thing to do until your Engrs figure out how to resolve.

[secaz]

---

@Wklovelace3 wrote:
Secaz- here we go again. Round 2. Mine lost 10% overnight while disarmed and heres the weird part. I had them on all day while away and 5% came back with about 25 videos. Now my guess is ill wake up and they will really drop overnight. Its like its not in real time

---

Yupper - my batteries are dropping like rocks again with scant number of short videos, and also am getting triggers without videos, motion sensing is back to being awful again too, and also had one of my 3 base stations decide it didn't feel like being connected anymore... so, you're right, here we go again...

[secaz]

---

@Greg0101 wrote:

Guys 

I've been placing my updates with this firmware fiasco on another message.  Once again it happened in late June whereby batteries drained in less than week.  Since then I have battled with cameras being offline some times recording batteries running flat more than I care to mention.

i have 5 arlo pro cameras to 1 base station and have tried all the tricks of remove batteries, rest can, reset etc etc.  still no joy and as I'm writing right now 5 fully charged cameras all offline.

Latest set of updates has not resolved this issue.  

Base Station (1.10.0.8_22190):
- 5 x PRO (1.092.0.16_21159) - all offline and intermittently record

Would be nice to get some logging out of the base station which we can view to at least get handle on what's going on.  Surely this could help the developers you would think???

---

That's the firmware for my basestation and cams, too - so are both different now from the firmware versions which wereput in production when Netgear fixed the fateful May update.  Netgear recently updated again and the problems are all back.  I haven't taken cams down this week yet, but I wonder if the IR lights come on again, too , when cam status is OFF.  Having all kinds of issues once again... thoughtI was beyond having to chase cams around all the time, but guess not...

[JamesC]

The engineering team is continuing to investigate reports from users on increased battery drain. With each recently released firmware update we've seen feedback from many users that these firmware updates have been improving the issue for some. While I understand others continue to experience battery issues, I want to ensure you the engineering team is putting forth their best effort to identify and resolve any issues that may still remain. As I find out more information on this ongoing investigation, I will post an update.

[joedex5715]

Please do!

[langrock]

James,

Please make sure that the engineers understand that this isn't a problem with the Arlo Pro version of the camera only. It also affects the HD model as I described earlier. Maybe even more importantly, please tell the QA team -- there's a QA team at Netgear testing this kind of stuff, right? -- to check the new firmware on all models, not just the P.ro 2

Thanks

[Greg0101]

James & Engineers

Can you also implore you engineers to provide ability to see logging details, which we as users can at least see to at least attempt the make sense of what is going.  The base station is like any other router, except its closed.

It might not solve the issues we are dealing with, but god it would make life easier for your support people, becuase as you can imagine most people having problems with the cameras are at work - with cameras armed.

Like I found, its bit hard to descirbe the problem with cameras being off line to support, they log in to your base station and everything is ok.  Bit hard when you are at work and the support desk asks you to bring cameras close to base station.

The closed loop design is event driven, so make the event available - and then if its security concern whatevr, then shut the functionality off when things have been resolved.  As you can imagine right now this product sucks.

So please be a  little proactive with you customer base - which right now "Would NOT be recommending" this product to their friends!!

[secaz]

Arlo Pro has been a hot mess for a long time now - I stopped recommending system after the first bout of issues last summer... the issues are as numerous as they are diverse, and are ongoing... and when things seem to be getting better, Netgear goes and breaks more functionality with Arlo Pro... my cams pickup all kinds of little critters but manage to miss big things, like panel trucks and street sweepers, and no, I don't use the Arlo Smart feature.  I have gotten to know the lizard who lives under the boulder next to my driveway pretty well... Arlo always manages to catch him scurrying across my (short) driveway, but totally misses something like the big UPS truck...