Arlo Wireless Camera VMS3330W-100NAS Battery Life Extremely Poor

[dwl3d]

New System setup on Dec 6. The first camera installed has recorded around 2 dozen 10 sec. clips over 4 days and the battery is already down to down to 22%! At this rate I'll be climbing ladders and changing batteries at least once a week!

[dwl3d]

Is this normal for these cameras?

[jguerdat]

No. Spec life is for <5 minutes per day of recording and live viewing. If that's not the problem, connection to the base can be the issue - the WiFi being blocked or interfered with. Swapping cameras around may provide a clue as can the WiFi signal strength shown in the app and by checking for other 2.4GHz devices nearby.

[dwl3d]

The camera is 200 feet from the base (second floor near window). The only signal strengh indicator I'm aware of is the three bars/dots on each camera. Is there a signal strength meter somewhere in the app?

[jguerdat]

3 bars and a dot is a recording/armed indicator. WiFi is the typical expanding curved bars from 1 small bar to a 3rd large one. It's seen on both the Devices tab as well as in the settings for each camera at the top.

200 feet away may be a typo (20 feet?). if turly 200 feet, I'd expect your signal to be nearly non-existant in all but perfect conditions.

[dwl3d]

I only see a dot and TWO bars on either location. Where are you looking? Not a very accurate indication of signal strength when trying to optimize a system. 200 feet is not a typo. A system rated at an optimal range of 300 feet should be more than capable at only 66% of max rating.

How far should the base be from the wireless Hub it's plugged into? I've not found any recommended distance or precautions.

Does the camera use excessive power when setting up zones? It appears to use a static image during setup.

[jguerdat]

For the WiFi indicator, the bottom "dot" is the lowest strength and the two curved bars above are liely >50% and >75%. You mentioned a dot and 3 bars.

Any WiFi device is rated for 300 feet but tht's in perfect, labrotory-type use with no blockage or intereference of any sort. Real life may be <30 feet or up to 100 feet or so. If you get longer distances, good for you but good luck.

I have a base inches away from a high-powered router but others have had to move their bases away from the router - YMMV.

I don't think that setting zones uses much if any power but don't know for sure.

[dwl3d]

You misunderstood me and I misunderstood your reply, I referred to "three bars/dots" because I wasn't sure if you would call them bars or dots.

In my years of experience in industrial electronics, when you market a product, if it can't operate reliably at 66% of it's rating, you're soon out of business.

I receive the 10 sec. full HD vids at 200 feet through a wall with aluminum siding. I may try moving the base farther from the Hub over to a window, but first, I have to make a longer Cat5 cable.

The problem that started all of my concern is the mounting point is 50 feet from the road and large slow moving trucks triggered the camera. I tilted the camera down so the road  is at the top edge of the screen. This helped but did not completely solve the problem. Then I tried setting up activity zones. During this 4-5 hour process the battery suddenly dropped from 80% to 22%. I've been trying to figure out what caused that to happen. I don't want to have to change batteries every week!

Creating activity zones did absolutely nothing to help the original problem. I set the sensitivity down to 70% and have only had two trucks trigger the camera. Now the problem is I can walk past the camera and it only records my shadow as I close the gate. 

This, in addition to a couple of other startup problems (BIOS update shutting down Base among them) is very concerning.

[jguerdat]

The use of zones when on battery power means you're using Smart zones. That means the camera has to record and upload the video for server post-prcessing. As such, the battery is going to be used, maybe more than you expect since you may be seeing the results of that processing - recordings that were "zoned out" so you don't see them. I believe there's a warning message someplace when you enable Smart and/or create zones that battery usage may increase (I've seen it but don't recall when/where). Eliminating the false triggers in the first place would be more effective - reposition the camera to totally remove the street as well as turn the sensitivity back up. The camera may need to be put in a different place to do this.

I think you're the first I've heard of that has had successful usage at that distance - lucky you!  If you're going to try moving the base, it may be easier to use a WiFi or powerline extender rather than a long EThernet cable.