All 3 cameras went offline at the same time, came on with batteries dead

[mlanz]

Last night (8/24) the Arlo cameras stopped after about 9pm PST. I'm not sure exactly when the cameras went offline, but when I checked at approximately midnight, all three cameras were offline. There was no issue with the base station. I wasn't about to go outside in the middle of the night to check them, so instead I decided to wait until the next afternoon when I had time.

Approximately 16-19 hours hours after the issue started, at 3pm today, all 3 cameras came back online. Only problem is, they all had completely drained their batteries. I know the exact minute they came back online, because I got all three "Your Arlo Batteries Are Tired" emails right in a row at 3:01pm.

Usually it takes them a few months to go through the batteries, and I know they were no where near low last night. Something must have happened to completely drain their batteries overnight.

I don't have any videos to show for it either. Not a single video was recorded between 8:16pm last night at 3:01pm today.

1. Why were all 3 cameras offline?

2. Why did they drain their batteries?

3. How can I prevent this issue from happening again?

[Auburn2016]

All 3 cameras just went offline 2 hours ago for no reason. No power surges or thunder storms. Have rebooted many times with no effect.

[Auburn2016]

I unplugged the base unit last night and rebooted it this morning. It's working again. No issues with batteries since I unplugged base.

[TomMac]

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mlanz wrote:

Last night (8/24) the Arlo cameras stopped after about 9pm PST.    snipped

I don't have any videos to show for it either. Not a single video was recorded between 8:16pm last night at 3:01pm today.

1. Why were all 3 cameras offline?

2. Why did they drain their batteries?

3. How can I prevent this issue from happening again?

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If the cameras or base is off line, there will not be any videos recorded.... just as if the cable internet service goes down.

The only Arlo camera that supports recording offline is the Q Plus which once setup has a mem card to record to if wifi goes out.

1) Most likely cause would be the base going offline for some reason and when it rebooted it somehow lost the cameras that were sync'ed ( power or internet)( many that use Arlos in remote areas put a ups on the base to prevent power loss )

2) The camera sends a ping to the base on a reg basis.... when the base goes out or sync is lost, the cameras try to connect more often, this attemping to find the base results in the fast battery drain ( just like a cell phone when there are no signals )

3) As mentioned, a number of users ( myself included ) run a UPS on the base ( also wifi router ). If the outside power goes out , the UPS kick in and the base and router are just as happy ( and unless there is a cable break, everything still works ).  If the base has power , even with no internet, the cameras still see it and run as normal without excessive battery usage.

[mlanz]

1. The power did not go out at any time. Even when the power does go off (which it didn't), we have a back-up so neither the Arlo base station, nor the wi-fi would have gone offline.  I know for sure the power was not off, as I was working on my computer, at home, with the wifi on, the entire time. Additionally, the error message was the cameras were offline, not the base station. The base station was never offline.

2. Arlo claims that with normal use, recording approximately 5 minutes per day, the batteries should last 4-6 months. This should equal 10-15 hours of video. If what you're saying is correct, the cameras use approximately the same amount of battery when they're offline as they do when they're recording video nonstop. That's a huge design flaw that needs to be addressed and fixed by Arlo.

3. I already have a back-up for my base station and wifi, and as I stated in my initial post, the base station was never offline. This doesn't solve my issue.

[cher45]

I just had a similiar experience but with only one camera. The least used camera had about 85% battery last week. This evening I went into the area where camera is and noticed a clicking sound and the blue light flashing periodically like it was trying to sync. When I checked the cameras on the Arlo app I saw the battery at 12%. It had recorded me but for a brief 1-2 seconds-maybe due to low battery.The other camera has 75% battery and it has several normal 10 sec videos. The last full video on the low battery camera was at 1:30pm but that doesn't tell much because it is in a low traffic area and that would be normal. What happened between 1:30 and when I was in that area at 11:30 is unexplained-as is the huge battery drop. The base station could not have been offline at any time since the other camera recorded numerous videos as usual and the battery at 75%.

[TomMac]

"This doesn't solve my issue."

Sorry I was unable to help...I gave the most common causes that go with your discription of problems...

I would recommend you contact Netgear support for maybe a better answer

[jguerdat]

1) Sleep mode (camera not armed or not recording) uses almost no battery since such a camera will have its batteries last going onto a year.  No design flaw.

2) The fact that the blue light was flashing along with the clicking sounds more like the camera is struggling to maintain connection to the base.  That will cause battery life to suffer greatly.  It could also mean bad hardware.  Swap cameras around and see if the symptom follows the camera or the position.

[cher45]

@jguerdat

I moved the low battery camera so it has a more direct line of detection to base-even though it has worked in original position for about 3 months.Will see how that goes. Also opened & closed battery door as suggested somewhere on here with no results as far as battery %. Guess I will pick up some batteries and hope this doesn't become routine.

Thanks for the reply.