Battery life issue

[Greta1975]

I purchased my Arlo in Sept. 2018 and up until June 2019 I had 50-60% battery life in all 3 cameras. Suddenly they went from 50-60% down to 10-20% within an hour. I replaced the batteries in 2 cameras in late June and with little to no use the battery dropped to 60-70%. Today I installed new batteries in the 3rd camera. After updating firmware, battery percentage dropped to 40% in that camera. What causes this and is it fixable? At this rate I will have to replace batteries every week to 10 days. No way I can afford that. That will be around $100 a month for batteries.

[jguerdat]

A common issue of low battery percentage after changing batteries is that one battery isn't making contact with the battery door. Simply place the batteries into their slots but don't push them down. Let the door do the pushing. This is due to there are two sets of two batteries, front and rear, that operate the camera. Each set can run it by itself and the camera will switch between them to maximize life. You can actually use the camera with 2 batteries installed instead of 4.

You may want to consider the Arlo-approved Tenergy rechargeable batteries to minimize overall battery costs. They're expensive to buy but then there's no ongoing replacement cost as with the non-rechargeable batteries.

[Greta1975]

I didn't push them down. I let the door do the pushing.  I don't understand how after 8 or 9 months the battery life was great then went from 50-60% down to 10-20 in no time. That was on the fresh set of batteries that came with my system ( Panasonic Industrial ). That's what I replaced them with. 

[Greta1975]

Today when I changed the batteries in the cam, after firmware installed battery went to 40% in minutes.

[jguerdat]

WHat happens if you reboot the base and reinsert the batteries?

[Greta1975]

Resetting the system seems to have resolved the issue.