Clicking sound, low battery life; Wire-free, indoor/outdoor camera FW 1.2.49.41, hardware H7

[dblawren]

I have five cameras.  The latest camera I added is inside my garage, no motion detection enabled.  This specific camera goes through batteries in about 1-2 days.  I have changed out the batteries twice.  I noticed a quiet "clicking" noise like the camera was turning on/off.  It was fully synched with the base station.  I could access video.  There were no multiple pictures being taken and archived, my thought was that the camera was taking multiple pictures. 

I have this camera configured like my other four cameras and its in a low traffic area.  Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot or do I have a defective camera?  I have not had any similar issues with my four other cameras over the past year.  I bought the 5th camera late last year.

Thanks.

[jguerdat]

Make sure the WiFi connection to the base is not marginal. Also, swap cameras temporarily to see if the problem stays with the camera.

[Schorschi]

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dblawren wrote:

I have five cameras.  The latest camera I added is inside my garage, no motion detection enabled.  This specific camera goes through batteries in about 1-2 days.  I have changed out the batteries twice.  I noticed a quiet "clicking" noise like the camera was turning on/off.  It was fully synched with the base station.  I could access video.  There were no multiple pictures being taken and archived, my thought was that the camera was taking multiple pictures. 

I have this camera configured like my other four cameras and its in a low traffic area.  Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot or do I have a defective camera?  I have not had any similar issues with my four other cameras over the past year.  I bought the 5th camera late last year.

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Ha, that's funny. I just returned a camera this week that was exhibiting exactly the same behavior. My replacement camera will be coming in the mail tomorrow.

I have diagnosed this problem (myself) to be the IR-filter that's constantly being moved back and forth in front of the camera lens, causing the batteries to be run down within a day or two. If you look closely at the camera lens while you hear the clicking noise and you have a light source behind you that gets reflected in the lens, you will notice the light reflection in the lens flip-flop between red and not red in synchrony with the clicking. Of course, I could be wrong with my theory, but everything hints at the IR-filter being moved constantly.

For me the camera only exhibited this behavior if I turned on Night Vision (in the settings) and it was triggered to record in lighting conditions that would cause it to switch to Night Vision mode (or if I was starting a Live View or taking a screen shot in the Pan & Zoom section in Settings in low-light conditions).

Turning off Night Vision will cause the clicking to go away, but, of course, that limits the camera's functionality.

So, I'm pretty sure your camera has the same problem and you need to submit a support ticket to have the camera exchanged. It might help to refer to my case number 26729765.

At first support sent a set of fresh batteries to me to test the camera more, but the next day after my initial phone call, I sent them two video clips of the clicking noise and told them I didn't quite understand why they'd send me batteries, because I tested it again (with a set of my rechargables) and the batteries drained within a day. That's when they initiated the return process for the defective camera.