My stick up cam battery is fully draining when connected to a solar panel. I thought the solar panel was supposed to keep the battery topped up. Has anyone else had this problem or can give me an idea to fix it please. TIA
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Hi @Juicy! The most important and common factor in a Solar Panel’s ability to charge is direct sunlight. Please ensure the panel is receiving several hours of direct sunlight for an optimal charge. There are also variables that might drain your battery quicker than the Solar Panel can charge, such as too much motion, poor wifi signal strength, or cold temperature. Check out our Community post about battery drain for tips on optimizing charge. Checking on these factors will ensure your battery is optimized and a Solar Charge will be noticeable. I hope this helps! 
i have the same problem ever since I installed the solar panel. Im going to return it. I had no problem with the stick up cam before adding the panel. I was hoping i wouldn’t have to worry about recharging every month. Full sunlight and a fully charged battery before connecting it. Im very disappointed
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Hi @tsg75. I’d recommend contacting our support team directly so they can look into this with you further. You can give our support team a call at one of the numbers available here. They can take a look at your account and devices and offer more advanced troubleshooting support in order to get everything working properly. We’re taking additional steps to protect our team and help reduce the spread of COVID-19, so this has resulted in longer than normal wait times. If you are outside of the US, please read our response to COVID-19 here to see how to contact support. 
Yup, mine doing the exact same thing. Really angry. Like you said, the solar panel is supposed to help, not render the camera useless. Mine is going back.
@Juicy wrote:
My stick up cam battery is fully draining when connected to a solar panel. I thought the solar panel was supposed to keep the battery topped up. Has anyone else had this problem or can give me an idea to fix it please. TIA
@Marley_Ring wrote:
Hi @Juicy! The most important and common factor in a Solar Panel’s ability to charge is direct sunlight. Please ensure the panel is receiving several hours of direct sunlight for an optimal charge. There are also variables that might drain your battery quicker than the Solar Panel can charge, such as too much motion, poor wifi signal strength, or cold temperature. Check out our Community post about battery drain for tips on optimizing charge. Checking on these factors will ensure your battery is optimized and a Solar Charge will be noticeable. I hope this helps!
Marley, not buying this explanation. Even if there is no sunlight the panel shouldn’t drain the battery. My settings are the same as they were before I attached the panel and the battery lasted about a month. With the panel attached a fully charged battery is at 0% charge after just one day. I think Ring needs to go back to the drawing board and develop a panel that is nuetral when it is not charging instead of acting as some sort of extreme power hog. That’s how I was expecting it to work. I’m very disappointed. I live in Southern California, and if the panel doesn’t work here there isn’t much hope for most other parts of the country.
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Thanks for this. I’ve been having same problem with both of mine. Taken solar panel off now so a complete waste of money.
I am having the same issue and am super dissapointed. The solar panel gets plenty of sun and instead of charging the battery, it drains it completely in just one night. I have tried this two days in a row now with the same results. Without the solar panel, I had the stick up cam up for nearly 40 days without the need to recharge. The bummer is that I purchased the solar panel over a month ago and just got around to installing it and am now passed the return window. Therefore, I am stcuk with a useless piece of junk.
I am having the same issue ive had my spotlight cam for nearly 2 years with the solar panel only in the last couple of months my battery was lasting barely a week to the point where I thought the battery was knackered so I bought another battery and the same thing the battery was barely lasting a week, i haven’t changed any settings in 2 years and never had to charge the battery until the last 2 months, I’m currently charging both batteries and have disconnected the solar panel so will let you know the outcome
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@Dclarke wrote:
I am having the same issue ive had my spotlight cam for nearly 2 years with the solar panel only in the last couple of months my battery was lasting barely a week to the point where I thought the battery was knackered so I bought another battery and the same thing the battery was barely lasting a week, i haven’t changed any settings in 2 years and never had to charge the battery until the last 2 months, I’m currently charging both batteries and have disconnected the solar panel so will let you know the outcome
I called Ring, told them the story and they agreed to have me return it. But I’m still experimenting. I charged the battery to full, put it back in and rebooted the camera (pressed the tan button on the bottom and went through the whole initial setup again making sure to have it set on Battery as the power source). I let it sit inide for a day, the battery still read 100% so I put it back outside yesterday. It is still reading 100% and seems to be restored to the previous operation before trying the solar panel. I will let it go another day to make sure the battery holds its charge and then just plug in the solar panel without making any other adjustments to see what happens. Somewhere else on the web I saw someone write that if you change it on “powered” mode it thinks it’s connected to a 120V AC source and that’s the problem. We’ll see.
@simj89 wrote:
I am having the same issue and am super dissapointed. The solar panel gets plenty of sun and instead of charging the battery, it drains it completely in just one night. I have tried this two days in a row now with the same results. Without the solar panel, I had the stick up cam up for nearly 40 days without the need to recharge. The bummer is that I purchased the solar panel over a month ago and just got around to installing it and am now passed the return window. Therefore, I am stcuk with a useless piece of junk.
Can’t recall whether I was before or after 40 days, but I called Ring - persisted until I got a live person - and she agreed that I could return it. I think they know this is a pretty common problem so I would give it a try.
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I have the same issue.
Purchased on Prime Sale, so did it without research, impulse buy!
I spent 10 hours charging the battery before playing with it.
Once charged it inserted the battery and started the wizard and added to the Ring App.
all look fine but i did notice the battery going down but didn’t know much about it so didnt take notice. but buy the time i measured and stuck it up it was low and i didn’t notice.
In the morning it was dead as a dodo.
so i had to charge the battery again for another 10 hours. i plugged it in and the app told me to switch to wired mode. so i thought it was on the wrong mode. and again over night it was dead again. i tried again on battery mode. again over night it was dead.
now i tried it without the solar panel and the camera stayed up all night and with loads to spare.
I’m now jumping threw the hoops with Ring Support. And they said they reset it and to plug in the solar panel and it will work fine with it now. I’m not holding my beath.
So… Ring, is there a solution to this problem? Or is it recommended to send the Solar panel back? To note, it seems everyone on here is having a similar problem. I will say that my battery went from 100 percent to zero on day one. I had an extra battery fully charged, and I put it in the stickup cam in the evening; once it went completely dark outside, the power source changed from wired to battery. It lasted all night with no problems; Battery read 98percent in the morning. Once the sun came up, it went back to the power source being wired. Once one motion happened to let my dogs out, the battery dropped from 98 percent to 40 percent in a matter of 4 hours. It is currently 6 pm, and my battery is at zero percent. With the solar panel still installed. Although the camera is powered up still, I am sure it will shut off when it’s dark out. I hope you find a solution or send me a box so I can return the item. Thank you.
Hey this happened to me too and tech support was less than worthless. They actually told me to return my camera. Anyway, when you plug in the solar panel it asks you to change the settings to “wired.” Decline that option if you can and if that isn’t allowed reset the camera and make sure it is set to battery powered. Since I changed the settings to battery powered, with the solar panel plugged in, the camera has worked fine and the solar panel has slowly chugged the power level up about 10% a day.
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Why all of a sudden is it taking more than 10 hours to charge the battery
My spotlight camera plus is doing the same thing but on wired mode/type i have 2 batteries in there and plugged into outlet. the camera is in battery mode and snapshot off, it shows charging batteries but they batteries last just a few days and the camera turns off even when it is plugged into the outlet. the batteries die even quicker in wired mode.
Hi @user51134. If you have tried the steps mentioned in this thread and are still having the same concern, reach out to our support team for further assistance.
i have the same exact issue. its very bad product. the spotlight cam is excellent. the whole point of getting the solar to top up the charge. it does nothing. very poor product from ring. will not recommend to purchase the solar panel at all. we also has solar at the roof. which produce 45-50kw everyday. so cant say we don’t get enough sun. the ring solar panel is literary next to it.
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