+++ YAMYAM's detailed eufy cam SOLAR PANEL TEST & REVIEW +++

yamyam · July 20, 2019, 8:10pm

ATTENTION - SOLAR PANEL TEST UPDATE NEWS!

For all who are interested in my solar panel test(s) and/or solar panel powered eufy cams and/or still waiting like me for eufy releasing finally their own and perfectly tuned eufy cam solar panel, this update/addition for your information:

After i have bought the above shown and tested
noname 5V 3,5W micro-usb wall mounted solar panel for 26,99€
to power my most heavy in use eufy cam (200-300 videos daily, each 1 minute) i have bought a
WASSERSTEIN 5V 2W micro-usb wall mounted solar panel for 19,99€
for my second most in-use eufy cam, with about 100-200 videos daily, each 1 minute).

In comparison to my first solar panel, it is even cheaper, a little bit smaller in dimension, but only got 2W instead of 3,5W power:

I hope 2W will be enough to power my 2nd heavy-in-use eufy cam.
I will install it tomorrow and then will see and may report what happens

By the way … hey @AnkerOfficial, @AnkerSupport, @AnkerTechnical, @ndalby, @TechnicallyWell … after you have added a not deactivatable watermark which is so much important, more than anything else and wasting (apart from reputation) important pixels and a clear view on the action of a security cam footage … and earned a well deserved shitstorm for it, you probably and finally will have time to develop and sell an own eufy cam solar panel and/or eufy cam solar skin case?! … Just thinking …

q8reda · July 20, 2019, 10:21pm

Does this mean you can charge the camera while it is running normally? Eg records and can see the live view while it is charging? So can I plug it in a wall plug and leave it plugged in so I never have to charge it?

P.s I am asking about eufy cam E
Thanks for any help!

rgillbilly · July 20, 2019, 10:33pm

Very nice review!!

yamyam · July 20, 2019, 11:47pm

When it comes to 5V solar panels with about 2-5 W i can confirm this as i am doing this since several months! You can do everything with the cam as usual while it is charged by a solar panel, yes.

When it comes to a pluged in cam (wired-powered) you may read this answer from me some minutes ago: Can the eufycam have a constant power supply

No matter if original eufy cam or eufy cam E, both technical the same regarding the battery and its charging.

Thanks @rgillbilly

yamyam · July 21, 2019, 7:11pm

Little Update and Note:

The second solar panel (shown above) is installed now and working for the last 8 hours.

The cam this solar panel is powering was just fully charged. This may be the reason why the battery icon in the app is not “animated” and therefore showing that the cam is charged currently. I guess the battery is over a certain limit to show charging icon?!

But i noticed that right after re-mounting the cam and installation of the solar panel, i got several push notifications, telling me this cam is now full charged. So the charging seems to work, even if the animated charging icon not yet appeared in the app.

I will check next days, when the battery drained some juice, if the animated icon will appear.

This “The cam xyz is now fully charged” notification seem to be new and added in one of the previous updates. Nice and helpful info notification @AnkerOfficial

But please write down even those little things in the update changelog of the app (and don’t sum it up like “fixed some things” or “made some improvements”), even if it uses spaces! It’s worth knowing about it and not just find it out by coincidence like now.

yamyam · July 22, 2019, 2:57pm

@kumar.sachin

As you are well known as “Doctor Battery” in this community, i would like to ask you some question regarding this solar panel test and review above (you may fly over the review/test before answering):

As i charge my “most-in-use” eufy cams in meanwhile by solar panels, do you think permanent “mini-charging” will harm the battery or battery lifetime?! The first solar panel charges the eufy cam battery with 5V (or 6V, whatever print on the package is true) at max. 3,5 W. The second one charges the battery with 5V at max 2W. So this is the reason why i call it “mini-charging” as the battery would and could handle up to 18W i guess (9V at 2A).

Also: As i understood until yet, the cam or battery got a overcharge protection, right?
But with so small charging (2 - 3,5W at max and 100% sun) the cam never will charge to full, or very rarely. But isn’t this permanent and daily unloading (by recording) and mini-recharging (by solar panel) bad for the battery or its lifetime?

Thanks for help and answering, i guess others would be also interested in the answer, who power their eufy cams with 3rd party solar panels. (as there is no original euf cam solar panel yet on the market)

kumar.sachin · July 22, 2019, 4:25pm

@yamyam I typically see what the charger is capable to provide in terms of power.
Now you have 2 separate solar chargers (one with 3.5 watt output and other with 2 watt output).
Also looking at the EufyCam itself, in your stress test, the worst it did was 10 days before fully discharging.
It has 48 Watthour total power and its discharging in 10 days (give or take) so the batteries are discharging about 4-5 Watthour per day.
If the sun shines for 4-6 hours everyday the solar chargers can prevent the battery from discharging (if you begin with a fully charged EufyCam.
In my opinion you can do a permanent wiring for the solar chargers and it will keep your batteries in mostly charged state (with occasional drops in state of charge during night time or days without sun). That is good for the battery.
There is no concern for the overcharge (most modern devices have a protection against it).
3.5W @6V is a very low rate charging (about 580 mA total) and cannot damage the batteries.

yamyam · July 22, 2019, 4:42pm

Yes, this fits my experiences in the past months with the 3,5 W solar panel (the first one). It powers my most in use cam with 200-300 videos daily and the battery is pretty stable between 3 to 4 out of 5 bars.
Sure, its summer currently and sun is shining a lot in the past weeks. I will see what happens in winter, when sun is not shining that much and snow may hide the panel too.

Yes, thought so. But with your knowledge about the eufy cam and its battery now, what would you say should be the paramaters of a solar panels at maximum?! (if looking for a new one or if the first one will fail too much in winter and i want to improve it)

5V at 2A would be 10W so i guess a 10W solar panel would be still ok or even more?

Thanks!

kumar.sachin · July 22, 2019, 5:21pm

If I’m getting it correct the batteries inside EufyCam are possibly Panasonic NCR18650B (rated either 3350mAh or 3400mAh).
These can easily be charged with 0.5C or lower current (meaning about 1.5 Amp charging current).
Now there are 2 in parallel so this current will get split so you can use double the value (3A)
Solar chargers have variable output (that’s why there is a Vmp and Voc ratings) Vmp is max power and Voc is open circuit voltage (no load condition).
If you hook up a 5V 2A output solar panel it will be great. It can be upped till 3A (15 watt charger) comfortably. I wouldn’t recommend going over that.

yamyam · July 22, 2019, 5:44pm

Ecellent, thanks for the detailed answer!

Last question:
I know that most, or even all solar panels, have variable output. Is that bad or disadvantageously for the battery or cam electronic? I have read also on some panel reviews that they have maesured some panels and can confirm a stable 5V output. So guess its a matter of quality and price of the panels.

Until yet, my first solar panel powered eufy cam still works and lives, even on heavy use and permanent recharging. As the eufy cam only exists since a couple of months, i am curious when the first customer will report the first total failure of an eufy cam

kumar.sachin · July 22, 2019, 5:53pm

Variable output is not a problem per se
Its just an inherent nature of solar panels. If the voltage drops too low then it may stop recharging but the voltage will not go high enough to damage anything since it has shutoff voltage limits.

I’m very skeptical of any claims where a solar panel is held responsible for a eufy cam failure

another remark about high wattage charging - Li-ions like to get discharge/recharge to retain their capacity so it is best to not use high power charger since it will not let the battery get discharged enough.

yamyam · July 22, 2019, 6:27pm

OK, there will be anyway days or events or circumstance which will drain the battery in some week or day more or less or even to empty. But with 2W and 3,5W recharging i doubt my cams will get 100% full again ever … even with 6-8 h of direct sun on some days or even a whole week.

The only case is, right after i manuall charged the cams and then plug in the solar panel, the app bombs and spams me with messages that the cam is now fully charged! Dozens of notifications in just minutes. Just happened today:

@AnkerOfficial, @AnkerSupport, @AnkerTechnical, @ndalby, @TechnicallyWell
This is really really annoying! I know this notification has just been added in one of the latest updates and in general its good! I like it … you do not need to check the cam if the charging LED turned off, the app notifys you. Great! … BUT: In case someone is chargung by solar panels, like me, he will get massively spamed by notifications right after a fully charged cam is solar pluged. Sure:

100% manually charged
99,9% (because of couple of records in short time)
solar panel recharges to 100% - notification is sent that cam is fully loaded
100% again
99,9% (because of some records or a short live streaming)
BAM … solar panel recharging again, 100% - notifcation is sent again.
… and so on and so on … in just some minutes!

You should update this “feature” so only ONE “fully charged” notifcation per cam is sent and then “blocked” or restrained for a certain time, like 1 day for example, to prevent notification spam.

@kumar.sachin
May i ask if you know any serious micro-usb multimeter or tool which i could use to check the output of my solar panels?

Just for example:

It should do correct measurements as i know that a lot of those mini tools and multimeter are crap and showing wrong data. Do you know any by personal experience which is good and affordable? I rather buy one you can recommend that buying any random one where i do not know if its worth buying and using it and if the measurement is correct.

Thanks!

kumar.sachin · July 22, 2019, 6:51pm

This will be fine for your application

I personally use this and its super accurate

yamyam · December 1, 2019, 5:51am

By the way … 1 year … ONE YEAR after anker released the eufy cam, there is still now own solar panel!
But tons of several new cams with irritating naming and features … wow!

Shame on you @AnkerOfficial , shame on you!

ndalby · December 1, 2019, 3:22pm

@yamyam While we get you’re upset and disappointed with many aspects of the EufyCam product line & timeline…posts like these are not gonna improve the situation…

yamyam · December 1, 2019, 7:06pm

Who knows … maybe at least SOMEONE at eufy/anker does HAVE a certain?!
So hope dies last and maybe someone will, even after one year, listen to the community and customer wishes and starts fixing the issues and features and demands. You never know. Xmas is coming!

ndalby · December 19, 2019, 9:57am

A post was merged into an existing topic: Spam Links 18th Dec

littlecube141 · January 30, 2020, 2:05am

Hey yamyam, I plan to do something similar to your setup. But wanted to see if this solar panel from Reolink would work with the Eufy 2c?

REOLINK Solar Panel Power Supply Designed for Reolink Home Security Outdoor Rechargeable Battery Powered IP Camera Argus 2/Argus Eco/Go/Argus PT, Waterproof, Reliable and Long-Stop Charging https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WL7FZR4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_sNJmEbVGRGDCM

Thank you

yamyam · January 30, 2020, 9:10pm

Hi @littlecube141

As it got a micro-usb plug, it will work, yes, as long as the ouput is quite stable at 5V!
Couldn’t find any infos about the voltage output. You may ask there and wait for an answer.
3,5-5W at 5V would be quite ok and you will not run out of battery power (at least in summer time and with lot of sunny days, in winter you may need to manuall charge from time to time)

littlecube141 · January 31, 2020, 3:43am

Thanks man. I was looking into the solar panels that they make for the blink xt2. Which come with a battery within the panel. Not sure how that would work. But curious if the battery would also charge the internal battery of the eufy camera. I might test it in the near future.