What drains the battery?

[HMishkoff]

I'm new to this, and I'm trying to figure out what activities put the most strain on the batteries. Questions:

* When the camera's just sitting there and no motion is detected, I assume that it's using very little battery power, right?

* If you monitor the camera live, does that use up more juice even if you're not recording? In that situation, does the battery drain faster if you hit the record button?

* Does it use up more power trying to detect motion if you have the sensitivity set higher?

* I gather that recording drains the battery the fastest, right? So if you have the recording time set longer (say, the full two minutes), you'll drain the better even faster?

Are there any statistics for what would have to happen to get 4-6 month battery life? Like the batteries should be able to record 100 30-second events, something like that?

[TomMac]

* When the camera's just sitting there and no motion is detected, I assume that it's using very little battery power, right?

Almost Nill in "sleep" mode or Disarmed

* If you monitor the camera live, does that use up more juice even if you're not recording? In that situation, does the battery drain faster if you hit the record button?

To my knowledge live view or record uses the same, the data flow from cam to base reguardless.

* Does it use up more power trying to detect motion if you have the sensitivity set higher?

Don't think so

* So if you have the recording time set longer (say, the full two minutes), you'll drain the better even faster?

Yes... longer times means more battery usage

Are there any statistics for what would have to happen to get 4-6 month battery life? Like the batteries should be able to record 100 30-second events, something like that?

Netgear specs usage at Optimized Video and 4 mins a day to last 4-6 months. Will say many get about 4 months and I've had 2 cams with very low usage go 7 months. You usu get less when new do to  playing, testing, setup ,etc

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