Why is this product such high maintenance.

[Raymac1969]

Batteries that last 3 months, constant re-syncing of the cameras. Wish I'd never bought the system.

[JessicaP]

Hey Raymac1969,

The batteries in your Arlo Wire-Free camera should last for about four to six months with normal usage, which is about five minutes of recordings a day. You can read here to learn how to extend the battery life on your Arlo camera: How can I extend my Arlo camera's battery life?

[Raymac1969]

Not even close to that. I buy quality batteries and they last on about 8 weeks.

[Raymac1969]

Not even close. 8 to 12 weeks battery life with quality batteries. I have replaced them a few times now and they have never lasted more than 12 weeks.

[StephenB]

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@Raymac1969 wrote:
Not even close. 8 to 12 weeks battery life with quality batteries. I have replaced them a few times now and they have never lasted more than 12 weeks.

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• About how many minutes of video do you record or live streams for the cameras per day? 
• Do you use cloud activity zones?
• Any signs of poor connection quality (low signal strength or corrupted recordings)?

[Raymac1969]

Fairly standard I would say. My wife and I both work and we have 2 kids. Certainly nothing extreme. I don't know what cloud activity zones are. No corrupted recordings one of my 4 cameras has low signal strength. I also have to re-sync quite often. Far too unreliable and high maintenance. I went on holiday and whilst I wss away I checked and 2 of the cameras were not operational.

[StephenB]

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@Raymac1969 wrote:
. I don't know what cloud activity zones are. 

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It's a subscription feature - https://kb.arlo.com/000056589/How-do-I-set-up-the-Arlo-Smart-cloud-activity-zones

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@Raymac1969 wrote:
Fairly standard I would say. My wife and I both work and we have 2 kids. Certainly nothing extreme.

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Not that helpful. The amount of recording depends a lot on the general activity and camera positioning. 

Battery life certainly can vary - the main things that use a lot of power are video streaming (recording or live view) and recovering from dropped connections. 

[Raymac1969]

Not that helpful either, the suggestion to the high maintenance and short battery life is to add a subscription service, which actually USED TO BE FREE and doesn't really help that much.

[StephenB]

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@Raymac1969 wrote:

Not that helpful either, the suggestion to the high maintenance and short battery life is to add a subscription service, 

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Who suggested that?  Certainly I didn't.

The question I asked about cloud activity zones wasn't a suggestion to use them.  Cloud Activity Zones can mask the amount of video streaming, since the cloud will drop recordings when the motion is outside of the zone.  That makes it hard to tell how much activity is really going on.  If you had been using that feature, I would have suggested that you disable it as a test, so you could find out how much streaming was actually happening.

FWIW, cloud activity zones can't improve battery life (and the other features of a paid subscription won't do that either).

The net here is that short battery life can be either

1. a result of poor connections (due to the camera repeatedly rediscovering the base)
2. a result of a higher than usual rate of video streaming/recording
3. a result of operation at very low temperatures
4. a result of the quality of the batteries being purchased
5. an issue with the camera itself

The first two possibilities are the most common, so it is good to rule them out first.

BTW, if you've gone with rechargable batteries, then the battery life will be shorter - but your costs will be less.