Spotlight Cam Battery not charging with solar panel

My spotlight cam has also started charging again with the solar panel even on a cloudy day like today. The battery level was at 50% and now it’s up to 71%. I’m also on the latest Ring app update of 5.22.2 so I don’t know if that has anything to do with it since we haven’t heard anything about a specific fix from Ring.

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to all that are having problems with the solar panel charging issue go to the app store and download the new update i think it has the fix for this issue lot of folks are posting that their panels have started charging

lam2988

New Neighbor

‎01-23-2020 01:05 PM

Re: Spotlight Cam Battery not charging with solar panel

“to all that are having problems with the solar panel charging issue go to the app store and download the new update i think it has the fix for this issue lot of folks are posting that their panels have started charging”

Thank you for the suggestion. I do have the most recent update. Hoping to see what may happen tomorrow with some sun as battery did not drop today (cloudy) after normal use…thanks! Crossing fingers.

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I am heartened to hear of so many people reporting charging activity and hope it pans out for me as well soon.

Please ask the developers to include information on the current device firmware instead of just “Up to Date” and if the Ring CS folks can tell that the panels are charging it sure would be ice for the apps to display the information already being sent to the mothership. Not including that critical information to the end user is, well, absolutely stupid.

my camera was dying at 7% and went to 15% in a few hours after manually updating the app in ios. What makes me believe it was just about a false battery reading in the app and not a physical hardware or firmware problem. Meaning the battery was always charging but the app did not know. it is still unacceptable to have the misleading message about solar panel, not knowing if solar pannel is connected or not and not knowing the firmware release version. not to mention the issues with bitrate and quality drops in the image even with the best wifi and connection.

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River2018, no, my camera has gone stone cold dead since this debacle started. It goes beyond a misreported number in the app.

I dont think it had anything to do with the ios app. Mine started charging yesterday but ipad updated a few days before that. Also I mainly use my galaxy s10+ which is the android app. Both apps showed the same percentage and still do. Android app had not been updated since mid dec.

hi have you gone to the app store and downloaded the ring app again they just put out a new ver and it is helping many folks that are having this problem hope it helps you as well

hi try this go to the app store and download the ring app again they put a new update that is helping a lot of the folks having this problem hope it helps you

Just to update the good folks on this thread.

This is day two with the Ring solar panel working as it use to.

Once again this morning my test Stickup Cam was at 96%, four hours later, it had charged to 100% and holding.

I just put freshly charged batteries into my other three solar powered Stickup cams. Will update everyone on Monday how they are holding/charging.

For those of you that are still having charging issues. Make sure to charge your batteries to 100% and then install back into your cams. It is much harder to charge these types of batteries from 10% to 15% than it is to charge from 90% to 100%.

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good for you unfortunately i have not had your luck yesterday my camera look like it was charging even when it was cloudy but today i had good sun light and it when from 68 to 69 % which is not charging the only good news is that it did go down so i am hopeful it will work i will give it until monday if not i will get my money back

Iam2928, try charging your battery to 100% then put it on the solar panel. Ring never claimed that the panels will charge a low battery to 100%. They always said it will maintain the battery or at the very least cut down on how often you have to manually charge the battery.

Honestly if not too invested with time and energy. I would return your equipment and either look at other brands or wait to repurchase once these issues are solved.

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UPDATE: So, I removed the camera (device) from and then reconnected it…that did the trick. I had the battery at 50% and then I just checked the app and it’s now at 100%. There is still the message displaying “Add a Ring solar panel…” under Solar Panel Status on the app but it’s definitely charging now. My advice is to try that…hopefully it works for you, too.

gallant_king: did you remove the camera physically from the solar panel and re-attach, or did you remove the device from the APP on your phone and “re-install a new device”? thanks!

I have 3 devices that uses Solar Power to charge the batteries and they worked fine up up until during fall. I spoke to Ring Customer Service and they told me that when the temp drops the solar panel doesn’t charge the battery…Now my hubby is pretty much forced to change batteries every week if not twice weekly…is anyone else experiencing this

Thanks for pointing this out. This is key. I noticed that one battery would eventually climb from like 10% to 30% during the day. I charged up both batteries and now they are staying in the green.

It does appear that Ring has addressed the issue. But what poor communication about the whole thing. I was thinking of converting my legacy home security system over to Ring, but not after this incident. The chance that one errant software update could disable my whole security system is just not worth it.

they could have told folks this before we got this type of system .

I totally agree. Being that I live in an area where 6-7 months and even more the temp can be low it would’ve been great to know that this is expected. They did say that when it dips below 36% is when the issue with the solar panel not charging happens however we have had lots of 40+ degree days and it doesn’t help that’s why we had to get 2 batteries for each of the spotlight cams and still we have to change the batteries…for me I say the solar panel only works during warm weather 65+ degrees…sorry but I’m putting it out there…I have 3 spotlight cams and 3 solar panels and 2 ring doorbells and in a way I regret my decision to go with them.

Update: with the latest iOS update this week, my Spotlight Cam DOES seem to be charging from the panel. Both batteries have been topping up to 100% each day. It still reports incorrect “solar panel status” messages for my different devices, but the ones on the panel do seem to be charging now.

And BTW the temp has been in the 40’s.