How to keep camera batteries from draining when base station goes offline

[Djwinst]

Yesterday I was away from home and when I opened my Arlo app I saw that my base station was offline. I tried resetting it from my app but it just kept spinning. By the time we got home and manually reset the base station, none of the cameras would come online. I changed the batteries in one and it now works. Based on reading other posts I’m assume the camera’s batteries drained trying to search for the base station. I have to purchase more batteries today since I wasn’t prepared to change 5 cameras at one time. My question: Is there a way to prevent this (the batteries draining) using the app if the base station goes offline again, but no one is home to do anything?

[TomMac]

The easiest way is to use a UPS on the base/router... if the base is powered but not connected to the internet the batteries will not drain as base itself can "talk" to the cameras.

OR

Use a WEMO type outlet on the base ( a wifi ac adapter that allows you to toggle off/on )... if you have internet then powering down and up the base usu puts it back online. ( the issue usu happens when there is some form of power outage and the base comes back online before the router... it won't connect then and stays offline )

If you become aware you can toggle the power remotely.

[Djwinst]

Please forgive my ignorance, but what is a UPS?

[Djwinst]

Never mind. I googled it.

[Djwinst]

Can you explain further how the UPS prevents the battery drain on the cameras? It sounds like it’s just a backup battery in case of power outage. In my case there was no power outage. I have no idea why the base was offline. But it still had power.

[jguerdat]

There may have been a brief power outage which caused your network to reboot. If the base tries to connect before the router is ready, it may not connect. The UPS prevents this from ever being an issue (within reason).