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?

[Wklovelace3]

Ill believe it when i see it. Ive also heard theyve been hacked and dont have the resources to fix it. So who knows.

[Wklovelace3]

Until netgear/ arlo puts out a statement or update we know nothing. Its all just specualtion and hearsay. The bug has not been swatted for me. Im losing 10% per day. My cameras are being charged weekly. Unfortunately we are left in the dark to wonder what hapoened and if there is even a fix. Why so long to fix if its just a bug. Its been a month now. And how to we explain settings being changed and moved on there own

[TomMac]

Bug was fixed, awaiting a fw update release...soon

[harley239]

2 out of 4 batteries are draining faster for me too. 

[Nancy_L]

Interesting:    https://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/netgear-plans-ipo-for-fast-growing-arlo-security-cam...

[harley239]

It sure seems like hackers, my sound came on a camera as if it was in live mode for no reason. How does that happen?

[Wklovelace3]

Not surprising given the lack of customer support and service

[Wklovelace3]

I dont know. Since netgear provides no communication or updates we have no idea what has happened or what will hapoen

[Wklovelace3]

Anybody else try to click on ask a question on this page. It does not work. Notice when you click on support that it just brings you to a FAQ page and from there you go nowhere? The online chat never connects either

[secaz]

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@paddos wrote:
Seeing same IR drain even when disarmed not just off. All my cams in lite areas so have turned off ir and battery drain is back to normal. Not an acceptable fix but does isolate the cause.

Seen other bugs in lastest release as well:

1. Live streaming is timing out 10 to 20 % attempts
2. Have had the audio stick on live feed and does not turn off. Have to exit app to turn off audio
3. Arlo Q's when set to take a snapshot will push notifications even with box unchecked..
4. Motion sensitivity has been degraded
5. Video resolution setting being reset without user change

Since Arlo is not provided status of issues may be good for us to at least have a complete inventory of "bugs" to help bring attention. Any other observations beyond the ir and the 5 listed with 2.5.4?

@JamesC. @DawnM

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paddos - your list is a good idea... not that Netgear will read it or pass it on, naturally.  I have had two cams change res, and the Android app is a joke, it takes forever for videos to load, and at times, yes - they get stuck, I have to close the app and reopen, sometimes even going as far as to TURN OFF wifi and then TURN wifi back on.  Its a truly horrible experience.  WEb experience is a *bit* better but videos still choke loading - only upside is they eventually load.  With Android app they don't.  And I do not have a slow connection, either... so can't blame that.   Problems with motion sesning, too, nowhere near as good as it used to be.  Also IR lights still coming on, evern when cam status is OFF.

Now I have cams where the AUDIO settings have changed - I always have microphone on, but speaker off... now have some cams where the speaker has been TURNED ON.  Nice going, Netgear - I am sick of having to check all my settings multiple times a day because they keep changing on their own...!!!

You know, settings changing all by their lonesome smacks of HACKING.

[secaz]

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@Nancy_L wrote:

Interesting:    https://www.investors.com/news/technology/click/netgear-plans-ipo-for-fast-growing-arlo-security-cam...

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In short, Netgear doesn't give a crap about a handful of whiny users becasue Arlo is bringing in so much business they can afford to blow of customers who complain...

It's a real shame, it's really nice hardware but with CRAP firmware, what good is it?

[harley239]

Common trick so they have an excuse not to answer any questions. Not coincidental for sure.

[pc2k17]

Netgear and Arlo aren't "splitting"...... Arlo is being spun off as it's own company called Arlo Technologies. Netgear will still be the parent company and is retaining 80% of the Arlo stock, while the other 20% will be in an IPO. One of the reasons this was done was to isolate Arlo from losses Netgear sustained last year due to changes in the corporate tax laws. Netgear isn't leaving Arlo to die, just offering 20% of the company to public investors.

The "hack" has nothing to do with battery draining. The "hack" was an brute force password generator attempt. What a "hacker" does in this case is use a program that randomly generates passwords. They used this to try and log into user accounts from the Arlo webpage. It appears they managed to figure out some passwords from people who had weak passwords on their accounts. The Arlo servers wern't hacked, just some user account passwords were figured out. This is no different than what happens on social media accounts everyday. The battery drain is due to a bug in the firmware. A fix is in field testing now.

I hope this fix works though so I can go back to turning my cameras off.

[Wklovelace3]

Meanwhile........ Back at the ranch..... Cameras still draining like a stuck pig

[paddos]

Thanks for article reference Nancy. During an IPO and setting up independent staff from Netgear should be a good thing. I would bet between the growth shown and dressing up the numbers for to drive share price it is all about driving too line numbers ... installed base like us is secondary priority right now. Needs to change at some point are they will destroy the Arlo brand. Not likely to see changes until after share purchase/distribution.

[secaz]

Customers are supposed to come FIRST, not LAST... and I don't care if an IPO is pendibng or no, that's NO excuse to screw up Arlo firmware and leave cusomers hanging in the wind.  And all the promises of a "better situation" after they break away? Never seen anything like that every happen - 99% things just get worse, but one can only hope.  don't hold your breath, though.

In the meantine, who cares about lack orf customer service and foobarred firmware?  Arlo is going IPO - that's MORE important, of course!

[Wklovelace3]

I dont care what there name is or what there doing. I do care that i paid for a product that is not working as advertised. 3-6 months for battery life. More like 3-6 days. They wait 3 weeks to deploy some experimental firmware. What about the people that were able to subscribe to arlo smart in another country but the service is not available. How does that work. If its not available then they should not have been able to click on subscribe.

[JPC]

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@secaz wrote:

Now I have cams where the AUDIO settings have changed - I always have microphone on, but speaker off... now have some cams where the speaker has been TURNED ON.  Nice going, Netgear - I am sick of having to check all my settings multiple times a day because they keep changing on their own...!!!

You know, settings changing all by their lonesome smacks of HACKING.

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I know this will be a PIA but if I were you, I would dump this account and create a new one with a different strong password. But make sure you remove all cams from Base first and then Base last then delete the App completely and make sure no cache left on your device.. If you're doing it on Web, make sure you clean up your computer's cache first.. Start new basically.. All your previous clips will be on the previous account and can still be accessible if you need to pull out some but don't let it sit there for long though or it will be deleted for good with Arlo's rolling plans.. Do this on computer Web NOT on App if you need to go back to your previous account to get/download some clips just to make sure it will not interfere with caching issue on devices such as your Phone.. Goodluck.. This might even help clean up some glitches you're having... Just a thought coz' it worked for me.. 

[secaz]

And now I had Arlo reformat the USB drive in one of my base stations - all by itself... its just up and decided it was no longer properly formated.  Funny, its been doing fine for month and month and months... and I use the overwrite feature...

In the Arlo devices screen, showed blinking  USB icon on the cams synced to that base station...

[Wklovelace3]

Well its almost Friday . time to get the ladder out for my weekly battery charge. Thats all im getting. 100 on Sunday. In the 50's now. 4 days and half the battery is gone. And so is any hope this will ever get fixed.

[Wklovelace3]

Im only 400 bucks in. Time to start looking at other systems

[Chase84]

So I am waiting on hold with support. No one has responded to my case in two weeks now and I am legit about to loose it. I am canceling my subscription for one. Only needed it for one more camera anyway. Seeming I am not getting support, not getting answers, and have a garabge system from them that isn't being fixed, this is it. 

[MP19151]

This has been happening for over a month and I've drained $30 worth of batteries as my indoor units are the older models, no Pro like my outside.  Will Arlo be giving us a credit since it was a glich they introduced that made them drain, I only have my indoor camers on when we are on vacation, so they have been off for a while, yet due to this bug, I went 97% to 0% in about 2 weeks, put in a new set and turned motion down to 1% and it still drained 40% of my next set. 

[Wklovelace3]

Its ridiculous. In the long term its affecting the life of the rechargeable batteries as well. You only get around 300 charge cycles before the battery starts to lose capacity. At the rate were going will be there in no time. Im having to charge mine weekly now. Used to be 2 months. There silence speaks volumes of what kind of company this is. Its sad that theres not even one netgear employee that cares even a little bit to let us know whats going on. Im not sure how they stay in business.

[MDZCondo]

I have 4 Arlo Pro cameras.  They have been working great but lately one of them cant hold a charge for very long.  I've started tracking this problem camera and over the course of 48 hours the battery has dropped 10%.  The total recorded times in that period was 2 minutes and 20 seconds.  Average temperture was 75-80F, its the closest camera to my base (good signal).

None of my other camera's have the battery dropping that fast, even the ones that record for far longer times. 

Can anyone offer ideas or suggestions on what to do for this 1 faulty battery/camera?