Battery drains fast due to position of base station and mesh satellites

[dhueyajd]

Greetings, folks. I have a rapid-drain battery problem for three of my four Ultra cameras, and I'm pretty sure the reason for it is that there are Orbi mesh WiFi satellites between those cameras on the Arlo base station. I've seen this come up in other discussions, but I have not seen any solution for the problem. I need those Orbi satellites where they are in order to provide WiFi in my house. Is there anything that can be done?

Thanks for any ideas.

[StephenB]

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@dhueyajd wrote:

I have a rapid-drain battery problem for three of my four Ultra cameras, and I'm pretty sure the reason for it is that there are Orbi mesh WiFi satellites between those cameras on the Arlo base station. I've seen this come up in other discussions, but I have not seen any solution for the problem.

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I don't believe the mesh satellites are the cause (as I also use Orbi and do not have this issue with my own Ultras).

Are you seeing issues when livestreaming or garbled recordings?  Both would be expected if the mesh is interfering with the connection to the base.

Are you using activity zones?  They can mask the amount of camera activity (concealing the cause of the drain).

You could try connecting the base to one of the extenders, and see if the symptoms change.

[dhueyajd]

Thanks for your thoughts, StephenB. Yes, I am using activity zones. It didn't occur to me that this might be the problem. I thought activity zones would actually reduce battery usage, with the camera ignoring activity outside the zones.

[StephenB]

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@dhueyajd wrote:

 I thought activity zones would actually reduce battery usage, with the camera ignoring activity outside the zones.

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The camera still sends all motion video to the cloud, which then discards recordings that are outside the zones.  So the camera isn't ignoring the activity (and battery life isn't improved).

So it'd be good to disable the zones for a little while, and get some estimate of the minutes of recording per day.   Then you'll be able to tell if the drain is due to the recording load or not.