Battery life is drastically lower

[djnzloop]

Battery life on H11 & H7 on  VMB3010r2 is now severely reduced since this firmware update. They used to last 6 months, now down to 3 weeks on a fresh set.

[MikeBravo]

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@djnzloop wrote:

Battery life on H11 & H7 on  VMB3010r2 is now severely reduced since this firmware update. They used to last 6 months, now down to 3 weeks on a fresh set.

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We just started experiencing the reduced battery life although virtually since we got the cameras we've suffered with misleading battery life.

Add to that the upgrades have virtually eliminated motion detection and our investment (about $1200.00 though it could have cost $1600.00 owing to getting everything at Costco on closeout) has become a complete loss.

[ShayneS]

Hi @djnzloop

Which firmware update are you referencing?

[djnzloop]

1.3.319

when it auto updated to this version, my 4 cameras went from 50%ish to dead in less than a week. I've installed fresh batteries into one camera which started to delplete alarmingly (down 10% in one day) - however since flipping the `power management` to `best battery life`  the charge loss has markedly slowed.  

[ShayneS]

@djnzloop

  What troubleshooting steps have you tried so far? I do not want to suggest anything you may have previously performed.

[djnzloop]

i replaced the batteries with a fresh set, rebooted the hub & re-paired the devices. on seeing the rapid depletion of the fresh set, i switched the mode to `best battery life` which has slowed the battery depletion. it was previously on `optimized`. I have also switched from the legacy app to the newly hosted service, but that was all after the rapid drain to zero from 50%

[ShayneS]

@djnzloop

  Have you tried contacting customer support regarding this issue? I have attached the link here for you - Arlo Tech Support

[djnzloop]

i have contacted them before in 2016 when i had similar drain issues. they advised that i should send them the device. i sent them device, but it turned out that they no longer operated from the address advertised. Hence the device was lost. 

I dont really care enough to subject myself to an unhelpful & time consuming support process again. i think the key issue is that Arlo has device firmware/hub firmwares issues which sometimes result in poor performance. it is perhaps an issue that can never be adequately resolved. The customer focus is that batteries are expensive & it quickly becomes uneconomical to jump through the support hoops.

[djnzloop]

actually @ShayneS ive changed my mind. i will follow through the support process - even though every time i have recently tried it, it times out. i dont think it is acceptable that developers can break devices & push users down support where they get nothing. This is `over the wall` mentality where the devs simply have no stake in ensuring that a product works. i am now left with a near worthless product (4 cameras, 2 base stations). 

[ShayneS]

@djnzloop

Keep me informed with your case and I will be here to assist you.

[JohnKMoynihan]

I have recently been experiencing the same type of issue.  I had 2 cameras go dead in the past week.  One was still online and work, the other 2 were dead.  I replaced the batteries in camera 2 last night, camera 1 had 88% battery life.  This morning when I work up for work, camera 1 was now dead and camera 2 has 99% battery.  I am still trying to figure out why the terrible battery drain.  I normally get 4-5 months on a set of batteries and am now getting days!

I sure would like to get this figured out.  It seems like each time I change the batteries in one of the cameras, the other working camera goes dead.  I have had this discussion with my sister-in-law yesterday, as she is experiencing severe battery drain as well (just a recent issue as well).  I am on the same firmware references for both the base staion and the cameras (each camera).

[MikeBravo]

Good luck----but I don't think you have a prayer of getting any real help.

I see that Arlo just announced a new Arlo Pro 3 which places us basic Arlo and Arlo Pro that much further away from their priority, but what was more interesting was to find out that they have launched a new AI service that's supposed to be able to pick out people and such, I guess, much better than the built in motion detection.

I suppose that means we can kiss goodbye any hopes that they'll ever restore the motion detection that we used to have before the May update.

[dennisyt]

I am having the same problems described here. I have a few additional observations. The camera would work fine for days and all of a sudden it seems to lose communication with base and go to a fast battery draining state. My positioning should be ideal with 20 ft line-of-sight to base. If I open the app at this point, it would say 'camera appears offline'. I discovered that rebooting the base (even from app) recovers the camera connection. However, if you are not aware of this bad state, camera never recovers by itself. You leave it in this state for a day or so and the battery is totally drained. What is strange is I have two cameras and this happens to only one of them every several days.

[Lukas]

Add me to the list - all my Arlo's and Arlo Pro's drain in days after recent updates. 

My system is basically a brick now as I can't keep up with 10+ cameras need to be recharged every week. Very fustrated. 

[MikeBravo]

Yet again, one of our basic Arlo's goes from 80% battery life to 22% battery life overnight. 

Once again, I take the camera down, check the batteries, find that they still have a substantial charge, put them back in, and the battery life is still 71%.

Bit by bit, the failures are adding up especially after the fateful May update. 

Seeing that lately the number of posts (at least that I am hearing about) about this has faded into apparent acceptance that there is no hope, we began to realize just how many problems there really are.

Erratic battery life reporting and sudden issues of battery draining prematurely, motion detection nearly useless now, still having issues even with the new Android app in connecting and staying connected even when right nearby the location of the base station, new PC Windows  web portal an abomination when it used to work at least adequately, and problems where sometimes the camera records, both basic Arlo and Arlo pro, and sometimes it just ignores activity it used to alwasy record, and now lately I find that all of our orgiinal screw mounts are rusting away.

Oh, by the way, just try cleaning the magnetic mounting cup on the back of the camera. Its impossible.

If they think that be continuing to introduce newer and newer super-duper cameras that we'll abandon our investments (which I suspect is just what they are doing as I suppose they have finally deciding that they can't fix what they broke) they are saddly mistaken.

[Jech19]

They have also replaced every camera and base station and I'm still having issue with battery life. 

[ShayneS]

Hi @Jech19

Which cameras are you experiencing this battery drain issue with?

What Device/Phone/Model/OS are you using & which version of the Arlo app?

[JohnKMoynihan]

So I have updated my mobile app with the latest version, rebooted my hub and replaced all of my batteries in each camera and everything seems to be working like it used to.  I don't know if the legacy app had anything to do with it (it shouldn't have affected the cameras), but all my cameras are working just fine now and the battery drain has been eliminated.  I sure would like to know what Arlo changed that affected the camera batteries, but at least my issue has been resolved!

Hopefully those of you still experiencing issues can find a resolution.

[djnzloop]

so battery life is again acceptable. rebooting hubs, re-pairing, swapping out batteries & moving to new app resolved it. it's almost like arlo put something in the mix to drain all the batteries to force users to reboot/swap stuff out to make sure we all migrated over to the new infra.  

[MM42]

Also having issues with battery drain in Arlo Pro 2.  One camera drains completely and goes offline within a day and another drains completely within a couple of weeks.  This, combined with the useless audio doorbell which has not worked properly since they brought out the new app for iOS makes the whole system a complete waste of money.  Arlo support don't seem interested in addressing any of the issues, so I'm now looking at returning all my Arlo junk to the retailer for a refund.

[ShayneS]

Hi @MM42

  What troubleshooting steps have you tried so far? I do not want to suggest anything you may have previously performed.

[SusanCD]

We have a 5 camera system at our Deli. I am beginning to realize that Arlo was a bad choice for a business. Our batteries last less than two days on a charge. If I had read that they were meant to be used 5 minutes a day I wouldn't have bought Arlo.
We have them on at our cash register, on our wine aisle, in our office, etc. I have motion detected turned on and speaker off. I have power management on.
But having to get out a ladder and climb up to change batteries every 2 days in the high locations is a real pain.
Expensive investment, but not sure we can face up to changing batteries so often.

[MikeBravo]

Clearly, your application requires a fully AC powered camera system.

AC powered systems also offer the advantage of no lag on motion detection.

[SusanCD]

Sad now
We're on tight budget and I just bought 2 new cameras to bring us up to 5 and they're pretty useless for us.
We know we have theft and wanted to monitor.
Assume a wired system has to have wires connecting all cameras.
Discouraged.

[MikeBravo]

Not necessarily.

The weakness in our Arlos is that in order to conserve batteries, they sleep until needed which is why the motion detection can never be 100%. 

In your case, you can get cameras that run on AC power and therefore can record\capture motion continuously yet communicate through WiFi.

There are too many choices to list here.