Arlo Ultra 2 battery will not charge

[gpascazio]

Have an Ultra 2 Outdoor camera with a solar panel that is not charging.

Here is what I have done up to now:

purchased a new battery

cleaned all the connections

Added electric grease to all connections

I am getting 7.8 V from the solar panels

camera battery is at 4.5 V

When I install a charged battery to the camera it will read 100%.  The battery icon shows it is charging (lighting bolt thru battery).  LED icon is green with it showing that the LED is on.

Battery is not charging since % goes down every day no matter how much sun is out until it is dead and then goes off-line.  Fresh battery lasts about 4 or 5 days.

Camera has been in service since July of 2022.

Camera worked fine for about a year started having problems since about October of 2023.

I have reset the camera to factory settings by holding down the sync button for 20sec.

Am I going to have to buy a new camera?

[StephenB]

Does the camera charge the battery when a normal USB charger is used?

[gpascazio]

No,  even though the lightning bolt in the battery is displayed the battery keeps discharging.

I connected the camera with the arlo brick and and arlo magnetic cord.  In addition, I checked the voltage coming from the charger and it is reading about 5 V.

battery was at 69% when I connected it went down to 68% after about .5 to 1 hr of charging

[StephenB]

Did you try disarming the camera during charging?  

[gpascazio]

I don't understand what you mean by disarming?

I have all cameras disarmed during the day.  They are only armed at night.  Is there something else I need to do?

[StephenB]

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@gpascazio wrote:

I don't understand what you mean by disarming?

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https://kb.arlo.com/000062450/How-do-I-arm-or-disarm-all-my-Arlo-devices

[gpascazio]

Disarmed and re-armed.  Still not charging

[StephenB]

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@gpascazio wrote:

Disarmed and re-armed.  Still not charging

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To clarify my suggestion - when the camera is armed, it will use more power.  So all things being equal, it should charge faster when disarmed.

So I wasn't recommending that you disarm and rearm.  I was meaning to suggest that you disarm the camera for several hours, and see if that results in it charging up.

[gpascazio]

OK.  The camera is disarmed during the day but it is still not charging.  I also tried again to reset to factory settings, it is still not charging.  I am hoping I don't have to replace the camera.  The one thing I have not mentioned is that I found some moisture in the camera shell.  Could this have ruined the camera?

[StephenB]

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@gpascazio wrote:

The one thing I have not mentioned is that I found some moisture in the camera shell.  Could this have ruined the camera?

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FWIW, I opened one of my own Ultras to replace the battery yesterday, and also found some moisture inside the shell. Applying some silicone grease around the O-Ring might help with that - I haven't gotten some yet though.

It hasn't affected my camera operation, though I use an external charger and don't charge the batteries in the camera.

But of course moisture could have done some damage if it got into the electronics section of the camera.

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@gpascazio wrote:

OK.  The camera is disarmed during the day but it is still not charging.  I also tried again to reset to factory settings, it is still not charging.  I am hoping I don't have to replace the camera.  

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Is this the only camera you have? 

Also, is it the only battery?

[gpascazio]

I have two batteries.  To of the normal size and two of the XL size.  Both the original batteries would not charge from the Arlo brick.  So I purchased an extra battery and the desktop charger.  Batteries definitely charge better with the desktop charger than the brick.

I did put silicone grease on the "o" ring however, the weather has not been bad enough to test out if it solved the problem. 

I am at the end of my rope with this system.  Very very disappointed in the long term performance of these cameras.  I thought that purchasing a system that Netgear was involved with would ensure that I purchased a quality system.  In addition I have a Netgear Gateway and modem so I thought they would play well together.  It looks like I was very wrong.  Starting to look for an alternate system.  Tech support is non existant and the tech support I did receive it seems that they do not know how their own system works.