Is your Arlo camera battery life reducing too quickly? Do you put off getting the ladder out to fit Arlo camera battery replacements because your cameras are located in awkward locations and as a result experience days of not being able to record videos until you insert new batteries? Are you fed up having to spend £15/$20 monthly to keep stocked up on replacement CR123A batteries?
Well, I feel your pain. Don’t get me wrong, I think Arlo’s VMC3030 cameras are great and at the time of their release in 2014, they were the world’s first wireless battery powered HD security camera. However, the VMC3030 camera battery usage has always bugged me.
Look familiar?
In this guide, I will provide the best hacks for handling the power management of your Arlo cameras. I also aim to answer the most common Arlo camera battery related questions.
How long does an Arlo camera battery last?
According to Arlo’s datasheet, expected battery life is 4 to 6 months with recommended settings and typical usage.
I have been using Arlo cameras for 6 years and in my experience, CR123A batteries used in Arlo’s VMC3030 camera last no more than 2-3 weeks based on best video in-app settings and recording a daily average of 25 minutes worth of video.
I suspect my (best) settings plus the amount of daily (50x 30 seconds) recordings are above Arlo’s typical usage calculations and therefore your battery life is likely to vary as well.
Why do my Arlo camera batteries die so fast?
Arlo rapid battery drain is normally caused by:
Motion detection events and recording time
You should start by checking your library in the Arlo app to see if the amount of camera video recordings has increased. It could be that an insect has decided to make your Arlo camera their home, triggering the motion sensor, resulting in lots of back to back video recordings. I have experienced spiders wrapping their webs around my Arlo cameras causing the motion sensor to activate and continuously record videos leading to battery drain.
Camera or base station position
Next up, check if after replacing the batteries, you placed the camera exactly where it was before you encountered battery life issues. Additionally, is the camera position relative to the base station and your Wi-Fi router the same? If your router is between your Arlo base station and the camera, this can cause accelerated battery drain. Arlo recommends for your camera to be at least 10 ft (3 m) away from your Wi-Fi router and at least 6.5 ft (2 m) away from other Arlo devices.
Poor camera signal quality
Head over to the Arlo app home screen and check to see how many bars of Wi-Fi signal is displayed for your camera? If the signal is low, the camera will use more battery juice to send video recordings to Arlo’s cloud.
Base station offline
Lastly, check if your Arlo base station offline? If it is or your camera cannot connect to your base station, your camera will constantly re-attempt to find and connect to the base station, wasting battery life in the process.
How do you make Arlo batteries last longer?
There are several different ways to make Arlo batteries last longer:
Top Hack #1: Use rechargeable batteries
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, one of my biggest gripes with Arlo’s VMC3030 camera is spending £15/$20 monthly on replacement CR123A batteries. From reading Arlo’s documentation, my understanding was only non-rechargeable batteries are supported.
From researching & testing rechargeable CR123A batteries, I was delighted to discover that they do indeed work with my Arlo cameras. I must also add since switching I have not noticed any impact on camera performance.
Best Arlo Camera Battery Charger
I evaluated a couple of different Arlo camera battery charger + rechargeable CR123A batteries combos available from Amazon. I recommend the Keenstone offering which includes; either 8x or 12x CR123A rechargeable batteries, circular battery charger, power lead & adapter and 2x bonus Arlo “Skins” which both protect & disguise your cameras.
The Keenstone battery charger has built-in protection to prevent batteries from over-voltage, over-current and overheating whilst charging. I like the fact you can purchase additional rechargeable CR123A batteries to ensure you always have a fully charged set for whenever your fitted batteries need replacing.
Keenstone state each of their rechargeable batteries can be recharged for up to 500 cycles which provides considerable annual cost savings compared to purchasing non-rechargeable batteries.