Spotlight Cam Battery not charging with solar panel

Yes, depressingly, this is the same scenario for me, after having invested some $1,200 in various Ring devices, which, up until a mysterious event oddly timed with a firmware update last year, had operated flawlessly with respect to keeping the battery charged.

Bring on the class action!

– An understandably surly customer

I bought a solar panel for my spotlight cam. Installed on 2-11-20. First day I got 10% additional charge. Yesterday and today full sun and the battery has dropped 10%. What is going on?

I contacted Ring re my first generation stick up cam not charging via the solar panel and the fact this charging option has now disappeared from the App. They were very helpful and I have received a free replacement latest generation cam. I’ve still had to order a new solar panel as my old panel won’t connect to the latest cam but I can’t complain the cam has been replaced free of charge. Was hoping to install it today but Storm Dennis had other ideas here in the UK.

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So on top of all the other crap with the solar panel, my Spotlight cam took a giant dump on 1/30. Worked like normal running off of two batteries (gave up on the stupid solar panel for now), but it last checked health at noon-ish that day and I noticed that night that the light was flashing white and blue non-stop. Did that for 3 days straight until we took it down and took out the batteries. We tried reset, reboot into setup, but nothing works. It just keeps flashing that stupid light.
Been playing email tag with Customer Service (12 days running, now). The jerk keeps saying he’s sent me authentication support codes, but I’m not getting anything. Even checked my spam every single time. Husband is calling them today. He’s had it.

Semi-good news - I’m on iOS 5.22.4 and I see an actual firmware number on my stickup cams! I don’t seem to have the solar charging problem for my cams which are on “cam-1.4.15200”.

At least with firmware numbers being displayed again we might be able to narrow down the problem.

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iOS 5??? Current iOS is 13.3.1.

Can you explain further? Your screenshot just looks like a line of text.

That’s the app version. The firmware line on the device health used to just say “up to date” but now it has an actual firmware version, as demonstrated by the screenshot.

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@tim137 Firmware line for all my devices still say “Up to date” (see attached photo) and as you can see one battery already ran down again so hubby will have to go up as usual to change it…and this is one of 3 devices that also has Solar Panels attached…I just wish we can get some type of resolve

@tim137, thank you. Yes mine has been on that app version for a couple of weeks. Still no charging, still have the “firmware up to date” message.

Wonder why yours is giving an actual firmware number, maybe your FW is out of date.

Hi,

I didn’t feel like going through the 35 pages of posts, but I’m getting the same thing everyone is describing. I emailed customer service, this is their response:

Thank you for responding to my email.

Can you please try to do the following:

  1. Reset the device by holding down the setup button for 20 seconds.
  2. After the reset completes, the device will need to be set up again.
  3. Then trigger or perform a motion.

Please do update me after this for me to check further here, I will be looking forward to your response.

Please do not hesitate on reaching us back once you still have future concerns. We will be happy to assist you 24.7

Is it safe to say people already tried this and still doesn’t solve the problem?

Thanks in advance!

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I had this issue a year ago. I have 2 spotlight cams with solar panels. One of them I have never had an issue. The other one we started with replacing the solar panel, that did not fix it. I ended up with tier 2 support who can see more info, and it turned out to be the camera. They sent me a new camera and it worked. A year later the camera is doing the same thing, I haven’t done the reset or chenged batteries like the forum suggensts, I’m assuming it’s another bad camera. If you can get to tier 2 support they can tell you if it’s the camera or not.

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I also am having the same issue.

Can you tell us what the solar panel voltage output should be. Mine measures 5.28V DC. I have two batteries there were fully charged. Now one is 0% and the other is three. All the usual rubbish excuses, cleaned panel, reconnected…bla bla bla. There is an issue here!

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That’s the correct voltage. The panels are 5 volts. Read this thread and you will quickly come to the conclusion it’s not due to bad solar cells.

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Hi Jennifer,

I am new here, but have read thru the forum. I am a RING customer of two years. I live in Maine. I currently have seven RING Spotlight cams. Four of them are battery cams, all with two batteries each and solar chargers and other three cameras are plug in. Until the end of 2019 I have never had a problem with the battery cams, except for fogging, which is a separate issue! All of a sudden my battery cams stopped charging. Three started working again on their own, but one of my cameras is still not charging. The solar panel for this camera is actually mounted beside another solar panel for a different camera. One works the other doesn’t. The one camera that is not charging was purchased in June of 2019 to beef up my security. It had been charging fine for months until Nov/Dec 2019 time frame. I have cleaned the solar panel, checked adjustment, charged the batteries, unplugged and replugged the solar charger, and have done a reset on the camera to force a new software update on it. That was a week ago and that cameras batteries are steadily dropping. It has been full sun for several days, and today in the 40’s with full sun and it dropped again. Again, the unit right beside this one which is almost two years old is working. I understand this camera may have gone bad, but but it is strange that this happened at the same time as everyone else here started seeing problems. Something changed on RINGs end, it would be nice to have it figured out.

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I dont understand why this isn’t an option.

after using for 2 months - my solar has also stopped charging.

I thought it has a virus… Spoke to Ring tech support in Egypt - very helpful custmer service but been asked to send back my old solar panel to be exchanged.

I charged both battery to 100% and reset camera and setup again - no luck!!

Let see if a new panel would help??

I personally think that the battery is not compatible with the solar charger - the battery takes 10hours to charge on the mains!! how could a small solar panel charge the battery??

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Ring and their weather theory so misguided. Last week I tried an experiement, I installed a different brand camera pro 2 and solar panel next to one of my Ring Solar panels. The A**o solar panel I mounted under an eave so it is only recieveing reflected sunlight. Battery was at 50%. The A**o cam charged to 100% while the Ring while in direct sunlight has lost 19% in that same time span.

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Jennifer,

Where do we stand with this situation? Is this issue being worked on? This whole thing is hard to believe. My cams worked all last winter and this winter they can barely keep up with what the dashboard consumes updating. My four cams are not even being activated by motion.

How can you just ignore everyone? Your cold temps theory is shot to hell when you consider all of the people who have written in that live in warm areas.

We deserve some answers as to where you are in resolving this issue.

clint

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I’m having the same issue, I bought the spotlight camera in may 2019 with a solar panel, it was working perfect, until about mid February, it stopped charging, Ring first replaced my camera, still not charging, not replaced my solar panel, still not charging, i have not move the solar panel were is always been, don’t know what else to do now.

can anyone help? I don’t want to be getting on a latter every 4 days to change the battery.

thank you