Hardwired Video Doorbell Dies in 2 Days

[Parpar]

Hey everyone.

not sure if I am the only one that is having this particular issue. I have a Doorbell 2nd Gen wired installed to my existing chime and what is happening is that the doorbell keeps dying in two days. From what I have read online that should not happen since the doorbell should trickle charge and in theory should never drain the battery. 

First I thought it could be a fault in wiring and the doorbell wasn’t getting enough voltage. Upon checking the voltage I read 18.3 V AC which is within the range of what the doorbell should receive. Regardless I confirmed the wiring and recharged the doorbell. After two days I got the same problem. I have replaced the doorbell and still I am facing the same issue. It would be great if anyone has had the same issue and if you were able to fix it. Thanks.

[jguerdat]

While it simply could be a faulty doorbell, it may also be due to excessive recording/live viewing (a total of <5 minutes per day is the usual spec for battery life) and/or the connection to your router being weak and/or having interference. If you're using activity zones, you may need to delete them so you get a true sense of how much recordings is going on since the servers will decide what in/out of zone and discard recordings accordingly.

A test I would do would be to bring the doorbell indoors temporarily and monitor battery life. That would help with deciding if it's somehow a transformer issue or WiFi quality/strength.

[StephenB]

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@jguerdat wrote:

While it simply could be a faulty doorbell, it may also be due to excessive recording/live viewing (a total of <5 minutes per day is the usual spec for battery life) and/or the connection to your router being weak and/or having interference.

Not likely here, since this doorbell is wired.  The battery should be charging.

But there have been a couple of other reports of Gen 2 doorbells not charging properly. 

@Parpar: Have you tried support?  Use the support center in the app, don't google for a phone number.

[jguerdat]

The wired connection only trickle charges so any of the above issues can cause the battery depletion. I agree it shouldn't but without testing there's no way to tell.

[StephenB]

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@jguerdat wrote:

The wired connection only trickle charges so any of the above issues can cause the battery depletion. I agree it shouldn't but without testing there's no way to tell.

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I guess you could disarm the doorbell so it isn't triggering on motion, and then see if it charges back up.

[Parpar]

Hey,

thanks for the feedback. As for the doorbell has been set to default settings and I have tried with and without activity zones. Also to make sure that there is no WiFi connection issue, I have a mesh system and I have bounded the doorbell to the closest router. Another thing I will try today as well is using the Arlo base station to completely rule out the WiFi connection issue as well.

As for the rest of brining the doorbell in for a day and letting it sit with motions turned off, I have tired that as well. I did see a 3-4% battery drain. However, I  have already tired to replace the transformer so I can’t image that the transformer went bad. 

Also here is the transformer I replaced my old transformer with:  https://www.homedepot.com/p/Defiant-Wired-16VAC-30VA-Doorbell-Transformer-Compatible-with-all-Video-...

[Parpar]

I have tired support and they haven’t been able to figure it out as well. 

[jguerdat]

Another test would be to simply disconnect the wiring from the doorbell while still mounted outdoors to see what happens. At this point I'd be suspecting a faulty doorbell so use Settings, Support to select the doorbell. Scroll down to Contacts to talk to official support for a possible RMA.

[Parpar]

I don’t think it’s a fault doorbell since I already replaced it once. Also when talking to support two days ago they mentioned that other customers are having the same issue and the engineering team is working on it. 

Meanwhile I have looked at other video doorbell manufacturers and the only difference between my doorbell I and other doorbells (namely google nest wired and ring video wired) come with some sort of power kit. This said kit does come with the Arlo first generation doorbell so I will try to install that and see if this fixes my issue.

[BrookeN]

Are you still seeing this same behavior?

[Parpar]

Hey there, 

Sorry for the long delay. I am not sure what happened since the doorbell is working fine now. The doorbell charged to 100% and was staying like that untill today when the battrey is 73% and recharging. The only thing I did was to paritally charge the battery to about 30% (using a wall charger) and then put it back in the wall plate and the doorbell charged itself back up to 100%.