battery powered devices: how long do they work?

[martin3000]

I have here a normal USB powered indoor camera which draws 200mA. With a powerbank of 20Ah, it runs around 4 days.
If I read about battery powered devices, they claim to have a life time of 1 year. So with a 20Ah battery, This means that they draw only 2mA which I cannot believe. This will not work with IR light in the night, and even without IR light, the camera must be on to detect motion. How can this be with 2mA?

 

[TonyR]

How can this be with 2mA?

Reliably and adequately, it can't.

To achieve decent battery life, the cams offer no pre-trigger buffer (to see what occurred a few seconds before a motion trigger), no 24/7 recording, poor motion detection, weak and undependable wireless operation and low IR output at night.

Take one of the most successful wire-free camera brands out there that's been around a while, Blink, and read the reviews. Now I don't put a lot of faith in reviews but most of the good reviews are from people that haven't had the product in place for more than a month or two! How can anyone accurately rate the performance and value of a product in such a short time span.....they cannot, it's that simple.

The poorer reviews are either from people that have owned the product for quite a while before they reviewed it or people that decided to come back and update their initial glowing review when reality set in a few months later.

If one can live with the expected shortcomings of a wire-free camera and have no expectations that come anywhere close to that of a name brand POE camera with optimum configuration for its use and environment, with a great sensor-to-megapixel ratio, and very good performance at night even with object motion....then it has a place. Otherwise it's a complete waste of time and money, IMO.