Arlo Camera Issues....Battery Life & Nightvision Recording...

[Azam6380]

Hi Guys,

I have recently been experiencing some very irritating problems with 2 of my 3 Arlo cameras.

My front door camera has the most ridiculous battery life. It literally lasts about a week with a fresh set of batteries and this whilst recording about 2 mins of video a day. It isn’t particularly far from the base station (about 20 feet) so this is really quite annoying. I literally put some new batteries in it 15 mins ago and the minute I checked the battery status on my phone it has dropped to 96% (after 20 seconds!) and 15 mins later, it has now dropped to 82%. Utterly ridiculous for something that isn’t cheap!

Additionally, my 2nd camera, in the garden refuses to record in night vision. At night, I can see the red ring light up but then when I watch the video there is nothing but a black screen/image. I have a third camera in the garden, which overlaps the defective camera and I can see that when the defective camera turns on, it emits an IR “light”. Just doesn’t seem to record anything other than nothing!

If anyone has any ideas or solutions, that would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[steve_t]

For your camera that doesn't seem to record at night. If you walk up to it and put your face right in front of the camera, does the IR illuminate your face adequately? If the camera is looking into a wide open space and there's nothing for the IR to reflect off, you'll find it very dark. 
If you predominantly want recording in darkness, consider an Arlo Pro add on camera. The Arlo Pro is signficantly better in the dark and also has better motion detection as well as leg lag between motion and recording. The rechargeable battery in it is also a larger capacity so lasts longer and obviously is rechargeable

[Azam6380]

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steve_t wrote:

For your camera that doesn't seem to record at night. If you walk up to it and put your face right in front of the camera, does the IR illuminate your face adequately? If the camera is looking into a wide open space and there's nothing for the IR to reflect off, you'll find it very dark. 
If you predominantly want recording in darkness, consider an Arlo Pro add on camera. The Arlo Pro is signficantly better in the dark and also has better motion detection as well as leg lag between motion and recording. The rechargeable battery in it is also a larger capacity so lasts longer and obviously is rechargeable

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Hi Steve,

Thanks for your reply. What I forgot to write was that it has been working absolutely fine (the camera with the night vision issue) and then suddenly just stopped working a while ago. It then worked fine again for a couple of days for no apparent reason and then stopped working again. It is placed ontop of my front door which directly faces the outside patio door so there is lots of "white" framework for it to paint and see. 

Essentially, it was fine and now isnt, which is strange. 

[steve_t]

Does the one with the night vision problem function perfectly well during the day?

If you go into the live view mode, does adjusting the brightness of the image help out at all?

[Azam6380]

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steve_t wrote:

Does the one with the night vision problem function perfectly well during the day?

If you go into the live view mode, does adjusting the brightness of the image help out at all?

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Yes, it works perfectly during the day. Just goes blind at night.....I tried re-syncing it to the base station and that doesnt seem to have worked either.

I tried adjusting the brightness in live view at night, no difference to the image. 

[Azam6380]

This is my firmware version, not sure if that makes a difference.

Firmware1.8.8.0_11528

[jguerdat]

It may well make a difference.  The current version is 1.2.11810 for the cameras and 1.8.9.0_12185 for the base (you seem to have posted the base version).

[steve_t]

Are these FW versions for everyone? Or just field testers?

[jguerdat]

Was that to me? AFAIK, it's the latest production version.

[steve_t]

Yup. I'll ask the boss 😉

[CanonCity1]

All of sudden I am horrible problems with battery drain.  I have my two cameras for 2 years and they would run on a set of batteries for months.  Now, all of sudden in the last 3 months a set will not even last 30 days.  What happened Netgear?!

[jguerdat]

Is your firmware up to date compared to what's posted in the Release Notes section here? How many total minutes per day of recording and live view are happening? Has a wireless device that uses 2.4GHz (not just WiFi) been moved or introduced, likely somewhere near the base? What have you tried to correct this?