Spotlight Cams batteries drain with solar panels

Question

2 Ring Spotlight Battery Cam PLUS! Both brand new. Purchased new off brand solar panels off Amazon. it appeared at that time, they did not work.  Did a lot of trouble shooting with no answers. Resetting, removing device, removing re inserting battery. Many hours on the phone with Ring.   Thinking it was the panels i purchased two new RING solar panels. it apparently wasnt that panels  Sometimes the battery life will drop drastically and continue to drop. The past couple of days the charge on one battery in each of the cameras were the same. No rise or drop in battery life! They both have plenty of sun throughout the day to charge! This is what was happening with the unbranded solar panels. Its not a phone or PC problem for they both have the same status of the battery life.  Unfortunately with all the time consuming trouble shooting all the equipment. I cannot return the new cameras or any of the 4 solar panels to Amazon!

Justin_Ring · Answer

Hi @KBrnner I have moved your comment from the post you originally commented on because it was not related to the topic. The thread you commented on was for Spotlight Cams that were not detecting being hardwired with a plug-in adapter.  Connecting a Solar Panel to a Spotlight Cam does not make it a hardwired or wired device. It is still considered a battery-operated Camera except the Solar Panel trickle charges the battery. The troubleshooting steps you have taken were excellent ones to try when a Camera is not taking a trickle charge from the Solar Panel. I also recommend making sure you have both Cameras Power Mode set to Battery and not Wired. This setting can be found in your Cameras General Settings. Setting it to Wired while it has a Solar Panel attached to it will cause the battery to drain rapidly. Setting it to Battery will let the Solar Panel trickle charge the batteries. If this does not help, the next best step is to continue working with our [support team](https://support.ring.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036196372) to further investigate this concern with you.

system · Answer

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