My Rechargable Battery Experience w/Arlo

[Target_Acquired]

Search is terrible on this forum.  Results are unclear, have a cluttery appearance, and take too much time for the reader to ascertain what's what, so I gave up and decided to just start a new thread to share my experience with several CR123 battery brands. 

In my language below, a "set' is defined as 4 batteries of the same brand (that arrived in the same shipment), which I put into a camera, not necessarily 4 batteries that came together in one blister pack (none of these did).  Once I've mated the batteries together, I will keep them together in their little Borg "of 4" sets, unless something happens down the road.

These are all lithium batteries, so I'm a little bit surprised that they can seemingly self-discharge 10-15% within 2-3 weeks of sitting on a shelf.  But that might actually be normal and typical for lithium batteries, I don't know.

In no particular order:

NiteCore 650 mAh - Amazon 2 sets

Eastshine 700 mAh - Amazon 2 sets

Klarus 700 mAh - Battery Junction 2 or 3 sets

EagleTac 750 mAh (says "EagTac" on the battery label) - Amazon 3 sets

Each of these sets seems to be holding up well. When a couple of sets get below 35% (as reported through the Arlo app), then I'll make a day of it and wll pull any set that show a SOC of under 50%, only because I'd rather change and charge batteries once every few weeks   I can do the charging, rotating, and camera testing activities in between other house stuff that way and not make batteries my newest hobby. 

Capacity as rated on each battery brand appears to be reasonably accurate.  My initial concern was that buying batteries online would get me a drawer full of batteries rated much higher than they actually are in practice, but this has not been an issue.  It is true that with each brand, some seem a little over, some seem a little  under.  I see it via my charger's reporting of the mAh used to charge each battery, and I think this is probably typical of batteries because they are, after all, chemically-based devices, and therefore not precise beyond a few decimal point places.

Only a full discharge-then-recharge test will reveal the truth, but it would be unfair to test any battery before it has had a chance to "settle in" with a few charge cycles, so in a few more weeks I'll test their true capacity with my Xtar charger (has a feature to measure input/output capacity in MaH of any battery).

So far, I'm not dissatisfied with any of the brands listed above.  Assuming that the bright flashes problem (in another thread) can be fixed, I'll continue my battery study and will share my observations with you.

[TomMac]

Sounds like a good thread... and yes, it can be hard to find things at times.

You can actually find threads almost the same , but it is better to have more 'testers' in the mix

I assume your talking 3.7v li-ion rechargables in you testings tho I didn't see it mentioned.

You will find that on quality cells that the +/- 50mahr  diifference do not make much difference in the real world... there are to many variables like time usage and IR illumination being on.

Most in the past come in a 40-60 days ( and you prob know you CAN'T physically fit more chems in that size package for over avout 750 mahr )

good luck

[manfredz]

Looking forward to your results

Wondering why you didn't also use the 3.7V Tenergys, since thats the ones that Netgear recommends.

[Target_Acquired]

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TomMac wrote:

Sounds like a good thread... and yes, it can be hard to find things at times.

You can actually find threads almost the same , but it is better to have more 'testers' in the mix

I assume your talking 3.7v li-ion rechargables in you testings tho I didn't see it mentioned.

You will find that on quality cells that the +/- 50mahr  diifference do not make much difference in the real world... there are to many variables like time usage and IR illumination being on.

Most in the past come in a 40-60 days ( and you prob know you CAN'T physically fit more chems in that size package for over avout 750 mahr )

good luck

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Yes, 3.7 V Li-Ion rechargables.

Well, some of the ones I did an initial "test" cycle on took +/- 100 mAh.  While that could be a variance of 14-18%, I did not notice any misbehaviors in the initial usage cycles.  And I didn't record any of those results, because again, the batteries need a fair chance to settle in.

The bright-flashes problem is causing my system to take many videos in a single day.  But if the most-used cameras only result in a 3+week life for the batteries, I'm okay with that.  It's the constant hassle of getting texted by all these false alarms at work, etc.

[Target_Acquired]

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manfredz wrote:

Looking forward to your results

Wondering why you didn't also use the 3.7V Tenergys, since thats the ones that Netgear recommends.

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Hello:

I just haven't gotten around to buying Tenergys yet.  I didn't know about the Netgear recommendation.

[manfredz]

Here's my experience over the past 6 weeks. My recordings are all 120 sec long, and several times during the day I manually check a cam briefly without recording:

Using Tenergy 3.7V rechargeable

Cam 2: average of 19 recordings per day averaging 3.5% battery drop per day

Cam 3: average of 17 recordings per day averaging 5.2% battery drop per day.

Using a generic 3.7V rechargeable

Cam 4: average  of 26 recordings per day averaging 5.0 battery drop per day

So for my relatively heavy use rechargeables last 20 to 30 days between charges.  After charging level quickly drops to 80-90% and then levels off. Plan on recharging when level hits 20%.  Charging a set of 4 takes 2-3 hours using the Tenergy charger that I ordered with one set.

Most users should get longer periods without charging because most won't be having this heavy a record number per day, I believe.

[Target_Acquired]

Thanks for your input.  Do you know the mAh rating for your Tenergy batteries?

[manfredz]

The Tenergys are 650Mah

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B01MRKGS4K/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[manfredz]

Now that its getting warmer there is more motion being recorded so thought I'd give an update.

This is more of interest to those towards the high end of recoding incidents.  I use 120sec recording lemgth and check live view for a few sec every hour or two.

Cam 2 averages 40 recordings/day and drains the Tenergy rechargeables 7%/day

Cam 3 averages 25 recordings/day and drains the Tenergy rechargeables 4.6%/day

Cam 4 averages 27 recordings/day and drains generic rechargeables 5.7%/day

Notice when I put 100% charged batteries (as shown in Arlo cam battery guage), during first day level drops to mid 80s% during first day before settling down. This is included in the above figures.

So for the heavy use I record at, the rechargeable batteries last about 3 weeks. Netgear is notm isleading when they say up to 6 months because they count on a much lower use and 20 sec recordings, which is what many users will experience.

[Target_Acquired]

Update:

Most of my rechargables were down to 50-70% and it has been about 6 weeks, so I went through the lot and charged them all, swapping them from camera to camera as I did so.  The battery life was roughly comparable between all of the battery models/manufacturers mentioned in my first post, so I continue to be pleased with these batteries.

I also continue to be displeased with the flashing light activation of my cameras, and so I still feel that I can't really recommend this system for any outdoor use in daytime (but that's where mine all are, until I can afford to have a wired system installed).  I have discovered that these light-flashing occurrences (for the front of the house) happen most often when a car drives past the house, even when the car is not in sight of the camera.  These "false hits" also show up only in the video and not a live view with my eyes from the window when the text messages start hitting my smartphone.  So it must be the equivalent of an "infrared EMP strike" that continually sets off these cameras, making them way too fussy for outdoor use during the daytime.

The rechargeables seem to hold up pretty well against the huge number of false-recordings I get.  It's a shame, but now that I have rechargeables, it is already costing me less money for batteries.

I've also had one camera go bad since my last post, so savings negated...  That camera worked okay until I changed batteries.  Now it only gives a steady blue light, but won't communicate with the base station, and won't sync as a new device either.  Trying different batteries didn't help, I think this one's a dead $150 paperweight right about now.

Anyway, so far so good.  With the batteries, that is.

[manfredz]

isn't your dead cam under warranty (1 year)?

I find mine almost perfect for outdoor use both day and night use.  Not perfect but best of several i've used over the years for my use.

[Target_Acquired]

Hello!

Oh no, my cameras are well beyond the warranties.  All were bought a couple days before I created this account.

EDIT;  In addition to them being more than 2 years old, they did not experience the flashing light issue from the beginning.  I believe that started with a firmware update sometime in late 2015 or early 2016.