Need Help Connecting Lorex Bullet Cameras (E841CA ) to Reolink NVR (RLN36)

[ksp]

The RLN36 came in yesterday and my first order of business was to replace the current Lorex NVR with the Reolink NVR and add the switch in between. The switch is POE+ with 30 watts per port. So to start I took a few of the current Lorex cameras ethernet wires out of the Lorex NVR and plugged them into the ports in the PoE switch and took another ethernet wire and plugged one end into the uplink port on the switch and plugged the other end into 1 out of the 4 ethernet ports on the RLN36. I took one cable from my router and plugged that into the LAN port on the NVR.

Started up the NVR, set it up and we were on a roll. It showed up on my routers client list, had an IP and everything looked good.

Unfortunately, no matter what, the cameras will not show up to be added to the NVR. How can I get these cameras to work? Am I missing a step? What am I doing wrong? I've been up all night trying to figure this out but can't. I'd eventually like to replace all 16 cameras with Reolink ones but for now it is far too much money to do that so I really need these to work D:

As always, I appreciate everyone taking the time out and offering help. Thank you!

 

[Flintstone61]

Reolink wants you in the " Reoverse" they want thier customers to " have to " buy their cameras to work in thier NVR's......There are other companies that do the same thing.....Like back in the day , my NightOWl dvr only options was their 5mp camera...At least that so it seeemed. I managed to get an Amcrest 4MP to show up on it....

my guess is that If the Reolink NVR has any kind of ONVIF settings to enable,,,,that might get you going....

 

[Flintstone61]

The username password of the Lorex NVR is also the User/pass for the any cams that were added to the system " out of the box" new.
You might try a factory reset on one of the Lorex cams and then try to see if the Reolink can see it....

 

[TonyR]

Welcome to IPCT, new member!

That being said, if you had joined much earlier and done your due diligence, you would have discovered MANY negatives regarding Reolink. First, from the FAQ's located here, we read:

Q: Can I connect the NVR to the third-party cameras?
A: It's not suggested to do so. Compatibility issues can occur with third-party cameras. Please contact our support team if you have any concerns about protocols.

Their disclaimer in big red letters found here:



Second, Reolink is notorious for decent daytime images but poor low-light/night time images. This is due mainly to the slow shutter speed to allow more light in to compensate for the undersized sensor for the provided pixels, resulting in blur if there's any motion. What value is a camera that cannot accurately show movement at night?

If you can, return the Reolink and don't buy any more Reolink equipment...except their great doorbell!

 

[Starglow]

The RLN36 came in yesterday and my first order of business was to replace the current Lorex NVR with the Reolink NVR and add the switch in between. The switch is POE+ with 30 watts per port. So to start I took a few of the current Lorex cameras ethernet wires out of the Lorex NVR and plugged them into the ports in the PoE switch and took another ethernet wire and plugged one end into the uplink port on the switch and plugged the other end into 1 out of the 4 ethernet ports on the RLN36. I took one cable from my router and plugged that into the LAN port on the NVR.

Started up the NVR, set it up and we were on a roll. It showed up on my routers client list, had an IP and everything looked good.

Unfortunately, no matter what, the cameras will not show up to be added to the NVR. How can I get these cameras to work? Am I missing a step? What am I doing wrong? I've been up all night trying to figure this out but can't. I'd eventually like to replace all 16 cameras with Reolink ones but for now it is far too much money to do that so I really need these to work D:

As always, I appreciate everyone taking the time out and offering help. Thank you!

If you know the IP addresses for the cameras then try to do a manual add on the NVR and use ONVIF. Sometimes the NVR camera search engine won't find a camera that I know is there but adding it manually works fine.

 

[ksp]

Reolink wants you in the " Reoverse" they want thier customers to " have to " buy their cameras to work in thier NVR's......There are other companies that do the same thing.....Like back in the day , my NightOWl dvr only options was their 5mp camera...At least that so it seeemed. I managed to get an Amcrest 4MP to show up on it....

my guess is that If the Reolink NVR has any kind of ONVIF settings to enable,,,,that might get you going....

The username password of the Lorex NVR is also the User/pass for the any cams that were added to the system " out of the box" new.
You might try a factory reset on one of the Lorex cams and then try to see if the Reolink can see it....

Hi! Thank you for the responses. I see what you mean. The camera does have ONVIF (picture below). I know the username and password of the cameras. I am assuming I will need to use port 80 for ONVIF?

Welcome to IPCT, new member!

That being said, if you had joined much earlier and done your due diligence, you would have discovered MANY negatives regarding Reolink. First, from the FAQ's located here, we read:

Q: Can I connect the NVR to the third-party cameras?
A: It's not suggested to do so. Compatibility issues can occur with third-party cameras. Please contact our support team if you have any concerns about protocols.

Their disclaimer in big red letters found here:

View attachment 175512

Second, Reolink is notorious for decent daytime images but poor low-light/night time images. This is due mainly to the slow shutter speed to allow more light in to compensate for the undersized sensor for the provided pixels, resulting in blur if there's any motion. What value is a camera that cannot accurately show movement at night?

If you can, return the Reolink and don't buy any more Reolink equipment...except their great doorbell!

Thank you for the info. I definitely understand the issues with Reolink and I probably wouldn't set this up for my home. However, this is to extend an existing system of 16 cameras at my parents small business that is very price sensitive and needs something with not too much upkeep. They love their Lorex system, they just want to expand it. They already have PoE setup with Lorex cameras everywhere but they need additional cameras and want everything within one app so they decided on Reolink and I am just here to put it all together unfortunately lol.

If you know the IP addresses for the cameras then try to do a manual add on the NVR and use ONVIF. Sometimes the NVR camera search engine won't find a camera that I know is there but adding it manually works fine.

So here's where I guess I have the problem. The Lorex NVR has it's own PoE that it provides so it hands out it's own IPs to the cameras and they show up just fine in the Lorex NVR. The camera appears to have ONVIF and inside the Lorex NVR (which I have reverted to for the time being) I set the viewing option to ONVIF and can see the stream on port 80 with the same username and password. For the Reolink NVR, it doesn't have PoE so I am using a PoE+ switch that can provide up to 30W per port. I was only testing with a few cameras connected to the switch, one ethernet cable from the uplink port on the switch to a network port (1 out of 4) on the Reolink NVR and then one cable from the LAN port on the NVR to the router. The NVR gets an IP fine, but how should the cameras connect to the NVR? What would be their IPs for manual adding if they're not directly receiving IP addresses from my router but instead they are plugged into the NVR and the NVR is the one getting internet? I guess this is where I am confused. Thank you for your response!

 

[Starglow]

Hi! Thank you for the responses. I see what you mean. The camera does have ONVIF (picture below). I know the username and password of the cameras. I am assuming I will need to use port 80 for ONVIF?



Thank you for the info. I definitely understand the issues with Reolink and I probably wouldn't set this up for my home. However, this is to extend an existing system of 16 cameras at my parents small business that is very price sensitive and needs something with not too much upkeep. They love their Lorex system, they just want to expand it. They already have PoE setup with Lorex cameras everywhere but they need additional cameras and want everything within one app so they decided on Reolink and I am just here to put it all together unfortunately lol.



So here's where I guess I have the problem. The Lorex NVR has it's own PoE that it provides so it hands out it's own IPs to the cameras and they show up just fine in the Lorex NVR. The camera appears to have ONVIF and inside the Lorex NVR (which I have reverted to for the time being) I set the viewing option to ONVIF and can see the stream on port 80 with the same username and password. For the Reolink NVR, it doesn't have PoE so I am using a PoE+ switch that can provide up to 30W per port. I was only testing with a few cameras connected to the switch, one ethernet cable from the uplink port on the switch to a network port (1 out of 4) on the Reolink NVR and then one cable from the LAN port on the NVR to the router. The NVR gets an IP fine, but how should the cameras connect to the NVR? What would be their IPs for manual adding if they're not directly receiving IP addresses from my router but instead they are plugged into the NVR and the NVR is the one getting internet? I guess this is where I am confused. Thank you for your response!

View attachment 175521

Don't do the bolded...you only want one LAN network feed cable going to the NVR, not two. Keep the cable going from the LAN port on the NVR to the router, but get rid of the other one going from the uplink port on the switch to the NVR.

 

[wittaj]

How much of your time screwing around trying to fit a square peg into a round hole before you give up LOL. Is your time worth anything? Might be "cheaper" to pay the difference to buy something compatible and move on.

A 32 channel NVR for $200ish - you won't run 32 high MP cams on it. Even folks that have the high-end over $1,000 NVRs have to run more than one NVR because the NVRs just don't have the bandwidth capability for lots of higher MP cams. And the fact this NVR doesn't provide the total bandwidth number makes me believe it is low.

Lorex is made by Dahua - if your cams are Lorex, you would have much better luck with something made by Dahua. Here is just a sampling:





As pointed out, the existing Lorex cams will be better than Reolink.

Do they hope to have it provide video at night? Is there enough light to simulate daylight? If not all they will be able to tell the police is what time it happened.

In most instances, you want to get a camera that will perform at your location for the worse situation, which for most of us is at night when it is dark and there is little to no light. If a camera performs at night, it is easier to tweak settings to make it work during the day than it is the other way around.

Did I mention avoid Reolink, especially at night they are horrible. Look at these examples.

What you mean a missing hand isn't normal LOL (plus look at the blur on the face and he is barely moving and this should be ideal indoor IR bounce and it struggles):

How about missing everything but the head and upper torso

The invisible man, where can he be. Thank goodness he is carrying around a reflective plate to see where he is LOL (hint - the person is literally in the middle of the image at the end of the fence holding a license plate)

I've seen better images on an episode of ghost hunters

And of course, this is an example from Reolink's marketing videos - do you see a person in this picture...yes, there is a person in this picture.... Could this provide anything useful for the police other than the date and time something happened? Would this protect your store? The still picture looks great though except for the person and the blur of the vehicle... Will give you a hint - the person is in between the two visible columns:

Bad Boys
Bad Boys
Watcha gonna do
Watcha gonna do
When the cameras can't see you


Here is the unofficial Reolink page where people have provided their best nighttime image captures. As you will see, they are basically useless.

Reolink: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"

Executive Summary: DO NOT be a sheep. Ask what a reviewer can be missing, ask if a reviewer is using hype words to sell the cheapest product. Test your cameras and kits right away. Just do a bench test. Test real world conditions. Test moving suspects. Test at night, test at day. Use a test rig...

ipcamtalk.com

But if you really want to continue messing around with the Lorex, do a factory reset and that will put the camera back at 192.168.1.108, which may or may not be the IP address range of your system.

Unhook a computer or laptop from the internet and go into ethernet settings and using the IPv4 settings manually change the IP address to 192.168.1.100

Then power up your camera and wait a few minutes.

Then go to INTERNET EXPLORER (needs to be Explorer and not Edge or Chrome with IE tab) and type in 192.168.1.108 (default IP address of Dahua cameras) and you will then access the camera.

Tell it your country and give it a user and password.

Then go to the camera Network settings and change the camera IP address to the range of your system and hit save.

You will then lose the camera connection.

Then reverse the process to put your computer back on your network IP address range.

Next open up INTERNET EXPLORER and type in the new IP address that you just gave the camera to access it.

OR use the IPconfig Tool, but most of us prefer the above as it is one less program needed and one less chance for the cameras to phone home or for something to get screwed up.

 

[ksp]

How much of your time screwing around trying to fit a square peg into a round hole before you give up LOL. Is your time worth anything? Might be "cheaper" to pay the difference to buy something compatible and move on.

A 32 channel NVR for $200ish - you won't run 32 high MP cams on it. Even folks that have the high-end over $1,000 NVRs have to run more than one NVR because the NVRs just don't have the bandwidth capability for lots of higher MP cams. And the fact this NVR doesn't provide the total bandwidth number makes me believe it is low.

Lorex is made by Dahua - if your cams are Lorex, you would have much better luck with something made by Dahua. Here is just a sampling:

View attachment 175536



As pointed out, the existing Lorex cams will be better than Reolink.

Do they hope to have it provide video at night? Is there enough light to simulate daylight? If not all they will be able to tell the police is what time it happened.

In most instances, you want to get a camera that will perform at your location for the worse situation, which for most of us is at night when it is dark and there is little to no light. If a camera performs at night, it is easier to tweak settings to make it work during the day than it is the other way around.

Did I mention avoid Reolink, especially at night they are horrible. Look at these examples.

What you mean a missing hand isn't normal LOL (plus look at the blur on the face and he is barely moving and this should be ideal indoor IR bounce and it struggles):

How about missing everything but the head and upper torso

The invisible man, where can he be. Thank goodness he is carrying around a reflective plate to see where he is LOL (hint - the person is literally in the middle of the image at the end of the fence holding a license plate)

I've seen better images on an episode of ghost hunters

And of course, this is an example from Reolink's marketing videos - do you see a person in this picture...yes, there is a person in this picture.... Could this provide anything useful for the police other than the date and time something happened? Would this protect your store? The still picture looks great though except for the person and the blur of the vehicle... Will give you a hint - the person is in between the two visible columns:

Bad Boys
Bad Boys
Watcha gonna do
Watcha gonna do
When the cameras can't see you


Here is the unofficial Reolink page where people have provided their best nighttime image captures. As you will see, they are basically useless.

Reolink: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"

Executive Summary: DO NOT be a sheep. Ask what a reviewer can be missing, ask if a reviewer is using hype words to sell the cheapest product. Test your cameras and kits right away. Just do a bench test. Test real world conditions. Test moving suspects. Test at night, test at day. Use a test rig...

ipcamtalk.com

But if you really want to continue messing around with the Lorex, do a factory reset and that will put the camera back at 192.168.1.108, which may or may not be the IP address range of your system.

Unhook a computer or laptop from the internet and go into ethernet settings and using the IPv4 settings manually change the IP address to 192.168.1.100

Then power up your camera and wait a few minutes.

Then go to INTERNET EXPLORER (needs to be Explorer and not Edge or Chrome with IE tab) and type in 192.168.1.108 (default IP address of Dahua cameras) and you will then access the camera.

Tell it your country and give it a user and password.

Then go to the camera Network settings and change the camera IP address to the range of your system and hit save.

You will then lose the camera connection.

Then reverse the process to put your computer back on your network IP address range.

Next open up INTERNET EXPLORER and type in the new IP address that you just gave the camera to access it.

OR use the IPconfig Tool, but most of us prefer the above as it is one less program needed and one less chance for the cameras to phone home or for something to get screwed up.

I definitely get what you're saying but they want to give this a go fully and with your advice and the others I was able to get the cameras to be able to be viewed live but now I'm having a hard time getting them to play live in the Reolink app or clients. Any thoughts on that issue now?

 

[Ckb3]

I would encourage you to consider the best and most cost effective solution. Replace the Reolink NVR with a compatible NVR and ditch the app while you're at it. Time is money and if you want to keep spending money, then keep trying for a solution that will result with indefinite challenges.

 

[Flintstone61]

If you haven't messed with the Lorex cams settings for DHCP or Static, it is likely they could all be defaulting to 192.168.1.108...... what are the IP addresses of each cam? you would need the Reolink Nvr to "see" each IP address uniquely, and if the NVR has a " remote device" menu, you would want to let it search for camera IP's and show you what it finds.
However I have no idea of Reolink will allow " other cams" to pass thru to apps etc....

 

[ksp]

I would encourage you to consider the best and most cost effective solution. Replace the Reolink NVR with a compatible NVR and ditch the app while you're at it. Time is money and if you want to keep spending money, then keep trying for a solution that will result with indefinite challenges.

Compatible NVR hmm okay so what would be recommended to integrate the 16 existing Lorex cameras + add any new ones up to maybe even 5-10 more? Want to keep this pretty simple for them - well as simple as can be.

If you haven't messed with the Lorex cams settings for DHCP or Static, it is likely they could all be defaulting to 192.168.1.108...... what are the IP addresses of each cam? you would need the Reolink Nvr to "see" each IP address uniquely, and if the NVR has a " remote device" menu, you would want to let it search for camera IP's and show you what it finds.
However I have no idea of Reolink will allow " other cams" to pass thru to apps etc....

So the NVR does "see" each IP address. I added a couple cameras to this way and it shows up fine when viewed directly from the Reolink NVR (HDMI out to monitor). However, I can't get them to show up in the Reolink apps for some reason.

 

[Flintstone61]

Ive never been inside a reolink NVR or thier App,,,,so I can't be of much help at this point...:/

 

[Starglow]

Compatible NVR hmm okay so what would be recommended to integrate the 16 existing Lorex cameras + add any new ones up to maybe even 5-10 more? Want to keep this pretty simple for them - well as simple as can be.



So the NVR does "see" each IP address. I added a couple cameras to this way and it shows up fine when viewed directly from the Reolink NVR (HDMI out to monitor). However, I can't get them to show up in the Reolink apps for some reason.

Can you see any cameras in the app or just not certain cameras? Just for grins....try using the Lorex Cloud app to see if it will connect.

 

[Ckb3]

Compatible NVR hmm okay so what would be recommended to integrate the 16 existing Lorex cameras + add any new ones up to maybe even 5-10 more? Want to keep this pretty simple for them - well as simple as can be.

a NVR5432-16P-EI from @EMPIRETECANDY

 

[EMPIRETECANDY]

If you add more dahua cams we recommend to use this one, lorex will be easier to work with our nvr. Reolink we haven't test before, better make the system as simple as possible. Too many brands will make you crazy if you are not tech-savy

Amazon.com : EmpireTech NVR 5-EI Series 32 Channels 1.5U 16PoE 4HDD Smart H.265+ AI Wiz Network Video Recorder,Face Recognition and SMD Plus,Max. 384 Mbps Incoming/Recording/Outgoing Bandwidth,NVR32CH-16P-4AI : Electronics
But