Arlo battery meter not accurate

[daleong]

Hi, I just bought an Arlo system and with fresh batteries, one camera is reporting battery level as 38%. This can't be right.. is there a fix or a way to reset the meter?

Thanks.

[jguerdat]

You can try to reset the counter by opening and closing the battery door and maybe power cycle the base station.  

Could be dud batteries or excessive recording/live viewing, etc. on that camera.  How many total minutes of active recording/viewing has that camera received?  4-5 minutes max per day is the spec for best battery life.

[daleong · Accepted solution]

Thanks, I opened the battery door and silly me, I had one of the batteries reversed! Fixed it and the battery meter is reporting almost full now.

FYI I guess for all, you won't get an error if a battery is not oriented correctly.

Thanks!

[jguerdat]

That's likely because the batteries are apparently two set of 2 batteries, wired in parallel.  TomMac has said early cameras (beta units?) only used two batteries.  So, it would seem that you were running off one set of batteries, as if you had never installed the other.

[TomMac]

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jguerdat wrote:

That's likely because the batteries are apparently two set of 2 batteries, wired in parallel.  TomMac has said early cameras (beta units?) only used two batteries.  So, it would seem that you were running off one set of batteries, as if you had never installed the other.

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Yes... there was an un-released DAY Arlo camera ( no IR lights )... that cam runs on 2 cells and actually works quite well with a 40w light in my 2 car garage ( since light is always on, this cam suits it perfectly ).  The extra pair of cells were added for the current drain of the IR illuminators.

I would just watch those those cells for a shorter life span being that one set MAY have been short circuited  for a short time ( not sure if they have any reverse polarity protection in the cam )