What happens when Eufy camera can no longer be recharged?

Just wanted to find out what is going to happen to the camera when it can no longer be recharged? Is there a way to replace the battery or will the camera have to be thrown away? Thanks

If it does not have a compartment to replace the battery, I guess it will go as many devices nowadays: either contacting support replacing the battery with a fee involved, or buying a new one.

If out of warranty and there is no more support from EUFY.
Open it and do some tinkering!

I don’t remember correctly but this battery is good for so many 100’s of cycles. And each cycle will last you about an year as per the normal usage conditions.
So, it will last you at least 100 years (under normal usage conditions)
Or, at least 10 years if used 10 times more than normal usage conditions. By then everything will change anyway.

The below information is copied from eufy’s FAQ page on Kickstarter.

Can I replace the battery? How can it be repaired?
_No. The battery is built into the camera, allowing for larger capacity and better weather resistance. _
We will support one year of warranty on your cameras (including the battery). We will also support battery repair/replacement which will be at a reasonable price, if the camera is out of the warranty period.

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As warranty time can’t be over (how as the cam exsists only for a couple of months?!) write an email to support@eufylife.com and you will get a replacement cam.

Serious: With about a dozen of eufycams and with my most hardcore-used (200+ 1min videos per day) and 24/7 solar charged eufycam (always 81-100% battery status) i am also worried and curious when the battery will start failing. :scream: Thanks to the battery god … i had cracked lenses, failing sensors, but no failing battery or non-chargable battery till yet.

Let’s call it "yamyam’s eufycam battery stress test till it :dizzy_face: "
But i am very curious how long this stressed battery will hold, with permanent usage and frequent solar-recharging. But as it is anker quality the battery should stand this and hold some time, if not: WARRANTY!

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If out of warranty, and you feel confident to do so maybe it’s worth a look, to see if possible to replace.

Not sure, if it’ll be easy, as have never.had one, but I doubt it’ll be as difficult as a mobile phone (which due to space, and strength, lots is glued inside, and glued shit).

Today’s society, just toss aside if not.working instead of fixing. That’s an issue too from the manufacturers, who make things to fail quickly so you’ll buy newer model.

A torx set is cheap enough, so is a set of security bits (hex shaped to go inside screwdriver for bits).

Maybe for a small fee (in comparison to a new nebula) they may replace.

I know some lenses the replacement bulbs are as dear as the unit new… Printer are like this.too.

@AnkerTechnical is the nebula ok to fix alone at home and.fit new batteries?

True! So much true!
Planned obsolescence from the manufacturers is one of the biggest sin of the technology sector and should be all revealed and brutally punished by law and the society by proscribing those companies!

Genau!
I never throw things away before I havent tried to take a look inside.
Even if there is no possibility to repair, you learn.

Like Leonardo did ( 2. May : TODAY : Memorial Day) when dissecting bodies! :smile:

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Sadly my battery in one of the cameras lasted for 2 recharge cycles, and the second of those was less than 50%, so after about 16 months the camera is useless. I’m looking at trying it apart to see if I can find some other batteries to fix it. No success so far. Has anybody else encountered an issue and had any success it swapping the batteries?

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Sorry I was never “invited” to get my hands on those cameras.
Hope there will be others who can help you.

Were you successful in opening that broken camera?
If so show a photo of the batteries which need to be swapped.
Those must be some standard, I am sure.

@Mark181 which camera do you have tha y had this issue? And have you tried using a different cable and wall plug to try and charge the camera to see if maybe the fault was with the charg I no equipment? Regardless what it is, letting us know what model you have we can better offer advice on how to change the battery

Batteries die for many reasons.

Recharge cycles is usually not the issue as it’s of the order of 300-500 cycles and a battery lasting a year will get 1 or 2 cycles.

More common next is it was allowed to get too cold or too hot. For an outdoors camera I’d expect this to be the dominant factor deciding death age of cells, and so the more violent the weather (below freezing or hot weather) the battery will age fastest.

Don’t know what camera you got but for example this model

I’m seeing 4 18650 cells so with a soldering iron you can replace them.

I’ve tried lots of different cables and wall plugs, sadly all the same. It shouldn’t have got too hot or cold, the weather here is not that extreme. But maybe it is that.

The camera is the EufyCAM, from the Kick-starter campaign, so I guess it is 4 18650’s which is good news as I can easily source those. I just need to get into the thing without doing any damage. I removed the four rear screws but that got me no further forward.

Thanks everybody.

Depending how long you can withstand the camera being out of action, it’s not clear to me how they wired the cells, if it’s series then 1 bad cell is all it takes, you can remove the cells and put through a decent charger (like XTAR, etc) and find the dud one. Anker in general preferred Panasonic 18650, they then got to like LG 21700. If it’s a Lipoly then that’s more custom. I don’t know which but if they used 18650 in the newer 2 model it’s probably also in the earlier.

Just take it slowly with a decent tray underneath to catch the surprising things which fall out and take photos along the way. Hopefully there are no tiny springs inside to spend all night with a flashlight on the floor looking for…

Thanks for the pointers, I have managed to get into the camera without doing too much damage, hopefully only cosmetic. Having extracted the battery it is a bit different to the one in the video. In particular the connection method is different. I suspect it was bought it as a unit.

There is a label that describes it says

Rechargeable Lithium ion battery.
2ICR19/66-2 18650 2S2P.
Model: PA12A22
Rating: 7.2V 6700mAh 48.24Wh
Hu Nan Giantsun Power Electronics Co., Ltd.
CAUTION
Do not disassemble or modify
Do not dispose in fire
Made in China 2018/10/26

I suspect that means that internally it is 4 18650’s wired as 2 serial/2 parallel. I’m not sure how possible it is to get this apart, the easy option is to find a complete replacement pack, which is my first port of call. If that fails I will try to disassemble it and see if I can replace the individual 18650’s.

Thanks for your help.

A final update for this evening. I managed to get the end of the battery package and am now convinced it is 4 18650’s inside, however I’m not sure I could get the individual cells out to replace them.

(I can tell you know this, but as this is an open forum I have to assume someone will come see this later who is not you so apologies if verbose)

So from the photo I’m seeing the right two in parallel connected to the left two in parallel, the left and right are in series. That means it just needs either two from the left or two from the right to be a dud to break the entire battery chain.

It is important you remember the orientation of the batteries, the electronics are expecting a 7.2V from series of two parallel. If you rewire it back wrong, like you make 4 in series you’d risk blowing the electronics.

7.2V arises from two 3.6V in series, that series made up of two 3350mah 18650 in parallel

(parallel you add mAh, serial you add Voltages).

It is unlikely all 4 need replacing. Try taking 1 out,the ones further away from the camera look easier. Put them in a 18650 charger and find the dud. 25% chance you find it from say that back right, 50% chance if you then tried the back left, 75% chance the front right, 100% right by time you tried them all.

The only big error you can make is when you get 4 good cells (replacing whichever is dud) you rewire them in parallel (too little voltage, does no harm but camera not working) or all in series (too much voltage and you probably permanently broke it).

I’m seeing spot solders you’ll have to reproduce them in reassembly.

If you don’t want to replace the cells in this pack then you buy 4 18650 cells, and connect two parallel pairs in series. Each 18650 is 3.6v 3350mAh, connect 2 in parallel to make 3.6V 6700mAh and then connect those parralel pairs in series to make 7.2V 6700mah.

Good luck.

Aside:

  • If Anker had designed this to plug in with 3.6V 14400mah comprising 4 cells in parallel
  • not 7.2V of 7200mah
  • then if one cell failed, it would still work, 25% battery loss
  • two cells failed, still work, 50% battery loss.
  • etc.
  • so it would still work with just 1 of the cells working, albeit battery dies quickly.

But as wired it can fail if 2 cells die.

My camera battery has failed just after 12 months too with Eufy support only willing to offer 20% discount on a new camera. This is really poor service as the claims of 100’s of cycles are obviously not true, I only cycled once! Did you get any response on this regarding anyone who’s managed to get into the camera and replace? I don’t want to buy another cam as my confidence on this product is very low

My Eufy CAM E failed. Battery partially charges and then quickly discharges. Only one recharge cycle as this was the second one. Of course it is a month and 1/2 past warranty. Tech support says sorry.
Emailed support again and they offered a 20% rebate if I ordered from them on Amazon. So I guess O am going to replace this camera with someone’s else’s. My faith in Anker/eufy has dwindled to 0.

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Too bad they couldn’t help you