Spotlight Cam Solar Panel Stopped Working

I’ve had a spotlight battery cam with an off brand solar panel attached to it for some months now. Just recently my camera stopped recognizing the solar panel. I’ve been all over this board following all of the tips and tricks but nothing has worked thus far. The LED light in the battery compartment is solid red even at full charge. Not sure if that has anything to do with it or not. Just wondering if a software update has programmed the camera not to recognize solar panels that are not Ring branded or if there is another problem I should be looking into.

Hi @Its-Just-Al. Although off-brand solar chargers may work for sometime, the Spotlight cam is only designed to work with official Ring Accessories. I would suggest performing a reset on your Spotlight and then reconnecting it to your wifi. This will ensure that your Spotlight Cam is running on the latest firmware version. I hope this information helps!

I’ve done that several times. The solar panel was working well before and is giving good readings. My question was: has Ring blocked other brand solar panels from working with their products?

Hi @Its-Just-Al. With Ring products, we can only recommend the official Ring Solar Panel. Other 3rd party Solar Panels have not been tested with our equipment and their performance cannot be guaranteed. You can find the Ring Solar Panel that is known to work with our devices here. :slightly_smiling_face:

Just so you know, that “answer” is not helpful in the least. Why would I buy another of your products when the ones I do have aren’t working as they should?

I feel as though I’ve asked a very simple and direct question but it appears as though Ring is unwilling to answer it. Excellent customer service.

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I installed a factory ring solar panel and after a few weeks my camera quit!
Yeah I tried multiple batteries and 20 second resets and still nothing. I called the support and they tried to give me a % off buying more stuff! I will not spend another cent on these items. They lost a customer over a $99 camera. I see others have experienced the same issue after installing the ring solar panel. They must have learned this trick from Apple.