Ring Stick Up Cam Battery & Solar Panel

So I swapped out one of the solar panels on Saturday 9/19 at 10AM and at the time my battery showed 88%. I stopped recordings and monitoring at that time and as of 9/20 8:30PM still at 88%. I know it is a trickle charge, but sure would think even something as bad as these solar panels are it would charge a couple percent.
Update.
Now on 9/22 it is down to 87% with no recordings or motion.

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Strangely, “88%” seems to be a magic number. On Friday (9/25), back when my Stick Up cam showed a stabilized battery charge of 87%, I replaced my original standard solar panel with a new Super Solar Panel. Today, after three full days of direct sunlight, the battery charge only went up to 88%. I’m curious to see where it ends up a week from now, but at least the battery level is not ratcheting down as it did earlier.

Coincidentally, a friend texted me that he was having the same issue with both of his Stick Up Solar cams; it also started occuring sumultaneously at about the same time as mine. His battery levels also slowly ratcheted down to around 87-88%. He has me convinced that the issue is software-related.

I updated my WiFi on 09/25/20. I went through the process of reconnecting the doorbell to the network as well as my 2 stick up cams out back. They are attached to solar panels. I have never had them ever read anything less than 100% since I have had them (several months). While updating the WiFi and reconnecting the cameras, it forced them to update. Since the stick up cams updated, the batteries are completely dead in 36 hours with all alerts turned off. I am located in South Florida so sun is clearly not an issue. I loved the stick up cams with the solar panels so much, I purchased 3 more for my front yard which I haven’t set up yet. Wish I could return them at this point.

What is the fix for this as I am ready to get rid of all my ring stuff. It is clearly a known issue and ring doesn’t seem to be doing ANYTHING about it.

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This did not work for me. I went through all the steps and it still says solar is only established. It used to work just fine until I removed the solar panel to try on another camera. Now it doesn’t recognize it at all.

A little update.

In a previous post I had mentioned replacing one with a new solar panel, didn’t change charging levels. I left recording and monitoring off for days and never did see an increase in charge levels when brought back online.

I recently spent sometime with Ring tech support and now we are going to replace one of my 3 cams to see if it will make a difference. I will however keep the same battery that is in current cam and swap it into new cam. The support person doesn’t believe it is any issue with batteries. I’m a bit dismayed that no mention of maybe a firmware issue. I also told them it would be nice if one support person would handle it from craddle to grave on a continuous ticket. I have spoken to at least 5 different support people and one supervisor. Nothing worse then tell the same issue over and over and wasting the 1st 10 minutes of a call.

I too am starting to lean towards firmware over hardware. Why would all 3 of my cams all show the same tendencies at the same time. It also appears a whole lot of others have the same or very similar issues.

Will add after getting new cam installed.

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Appreciate your updates, Fensktd.

My update: After replacing one of my two Standard Solar Panels with my new Super Solar Panel Friday morning (“stabilized” battery charge was at 86-87%), and after 5+ solid days of direct Hawaiian summer sun, app for this cam shows 86% battery charge this (Wednesday) afternoon. I have “Motion” turned off during the day. My other Stick Up Cam Solar, that I set up shortly after, continues to have a stabilized battery charge of 87-88% with its original Standard Solar Panel. There hasn’t been appreciable daily motion event changes since both cams consistently operated at/near 100% battery capacity; when I noticed app showing batteries for both cams slowly declining in capacity, I actually reduced the video recording times for both cams from 30 to 20 seconds. My Super Solar Panel change-out didn’t make any difference.

Glad I found this thread. I installed my stick up cam and solar panel back in June, for 1 month my battery was 100% with the English weather. Sometime in July my battery charge started to go down and when it reached 90% I called Ring who sent me a new Camera because they said they could see a fault. New camera installed with 100% Battery, 1 week in, the battery starts to go down 1-2% per day before holding steady at 86-88%, which it has been at for 2 weeks now. 86% last night at 18:00 and after a day of rainy English weather, 87% now displayed. After calling Ring again, they said they can see nothing wrong and they sent me a new spare battery for my troubles.

After finding this thread, I am now convinced it is software releated which Ring customer services do not seem to have any idea about.

Just purchased the solar for my stick up cam due to having to charge the battery too much. Now having the same issues…battery level was 50% yesterday when I first hooked the panel up to my camera. Now, battery level is saying 0% and power source says “power outlet.” But only when the sun is out. At night, the power source goes back to battery and my camera does not work because the battery level is 0%.

The only thing I can think of (other than a firmware issue as I’ve found might be the case after reading all of this) is that I set it up wrong. Once I plugged in the solar panel, it had me set it up as a wired power source and I went through the whole set up mode thing in the app again. It also asked me if I wanted to turn on the better motion detection since I had a wired connection now, so I set that up to try it out (think that is what is draining the battery so quickly). Disappointed its not working right though, was really looking forward to not having to charge the battery as my cam gets a lot of direct sunlight throughout the day.

brettfoot0112

…you should change it back to “Battery” mode. “Wired” mode will indeed drain your battery quicker…solar panel or no solar panel.

You can go into the Device Settings/General Settings and then tap on Power Mode. It will probabably indicate that the camera is in Wired mode. Tap “Switch to Battery Mode” at the bottom. (You may or may not have to unplug your solar panel before you change back)

Fwiw, I sent my solar panel back for a refund. It just wasn’t effectively keeping my battery charged.

Quick Update: From my battery being at 86-88% for the last few weeks, my battery is now displaying 90% after the 4 days of continuous torrential rain in the South of the UK. This makes no sense to me at all but at least the charge does not seem to drop below 86%.

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A short update.
I received new ring camera and will swap out today. I did notice this morning that my one camera facing east still showed on battery at 7:25 AM and my other two, one facing south and the one facing west show lightning bolt and connected to power. None of the 3 are in direct sunlight as a small hill blocks that, but a bright cloudless day.

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Okay, got new camera installed with battery from old camera, will see now. I am going to shut off motion and recordings today and see if it charges above the 86, 87%. A cloudless sunny day and would expect it should show 90% towards end of day.
Big thanks to all who have added comments. I find it somewhat strange that all parts of the world we all have a very similar issue. They start out at 100% and eventually drain down to 86 to 87% and stay within that range. I understand they are a trickle charge, but with one or two events a day, if that why they don’t recover 3 to 4% a day. Mine started out working well and about the time the 30 day refund ran out they went to crap.

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Quick Update: Attached snapshot shows battery levels for both of my stick up cams over the past few days. I’m not sure what to make of the numbers – will continue to monitor. Friend who also experienced identical issues with both of his stick up cams, at the same time as both of mine, informed me that both of his batteries recovered to 100% and 99% last night. He has an iPhone; I have an Android – not sure if this matters, though.

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Possibly last update.

A quick summary what has been done.

Resset cams and recharged batteries.

Removed cams and recharged batteries and added back new cam.

Replaced solar panels

Replaced cam and used battery from cam I replaced. Was told not a battery issue.

In last two days have had only 3 events and all were live views. I had disabled recordings and monitoring during the days to allow charging.

So with the new camera, new solar panel and only 3 events in two days and 8 to 9 hours of direct sunlight the charging doesn’t get above 86 to 87% charge. I usually show 10 to 12 hours of direct, indirct charging.

So if Ring still believes this is hardware, it is junk.

I wish I had found this message board before buying, wouldn’t have bought. With only a 30 day refund is a tipoff they don’t have much confidence in their product.

I would recommend not buying. **If you have purchased and is within their weak 30 day refund , get a refund. **

Will now call their support and give them my findings.

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@Fensktd Thanks for your perseverance and info on this topic. I agree. I sent my solar panel back and got a refund. I’m going to go ahead and keep the stickup cam and do the musical battery swap-out thing despite the inconvenience. But next camera purchase will be a different vendors unless Ring gets their issues resolved.

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Attached is a snapshot of my battery charge levels as of this dawn – my issue persists. As mentioned in my 10/8/20 post, same issue with both of my friend’s cams gradually resolved without User intervention. Wondering whether others have experienced the same.

For the Ring Community Moderators: Is it a safe assumption that the Ring tech folks are actively troubleshooting this apparent software glitch? Could it be that a firmware patch is slowly rolling out and just hasn’t reached my devices yet? Please don’t leave me/others hanging.

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After my last test with them, just about new everything I called and reported my findings. It took some time and convincing but did talk to a 2nd or 3rd tier support, and word is this issue has now been escalated to their software development team.
As with most support issues the squeaky wheel gets oiled first. My best advice is to call support and further raise the red flag. If you are within the 30 day return time might think about returning for a refund.
Thanks for the posts and responses back.

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Update: My Cam#1 appears to have gotten an OTA firmware patch yesterday afternoon (charge log attached). As app started to show steady battery gain from 87% to 100% through the afternoon, the “lightning bolt” disappeared from the green battery icon; and Power Source changed from “Outlet” to “Battery”. I’ll continue monitoring to see whether the “lightning bolt” returns and Power Source status changes once the battery charge starts declining from 100%. However, app still shows my Cam#2 battery at 86-87%.

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What’s today’s update? I have the same issue with my stick up cam (3rd gen).

Attached is my charge log at 10/19/20 dusk. Future updates will be posted only if there are significant trend changes.