Alternatives to Reolink?

[dccam]

I have just moved into a new house and am wanting to set up a system. Youtube and thehookup etc had be excited about Reolinks, until I came here are started to read about how they do not work well with Blueiris.

The for eg Reolink822A looks like a great camera for the price, object and person detection, good resolution, decent build, mic etc and all for under $100US

Looking at the Hikvision side, something like the DS-2CD2347G2-LU looks amazing, but it is twice the price, and for most of my locations, I think 2 reolink ones (if they worked well with blueiris) would be better than one G2.

All the camera brands and models can get very confusing, are there any cameras that do work well with Blueiris that offer similar price performance as something like the 822A?

 

[garycrist]

If one wants a steak, then would one be satisfied with 2 hamburgers?

 

[user8963]

If one wants a steak, then would one be satisfied with 2 hamburgers?

I take hookups piss, thanks.

 

[Rob2020]

Avoid Reolink, there are a lot better options out there and that is putting it mildly.

Spend some time on this site and you will see why Reolink is not well liked here.

Read the cliff notes first

Look at Dahua rebrands offered by Empiretech AKA Andy on this site, they work very well with Blue Iris and you have tons of technical support, should you need it.

 

[sebastiantombs]

It's not just that Reolink doesn't work well with Blue Iris. They don't work well with Blue Iris or at night for the same reasons. Reolink plays games with their firmware to make a static, still, picture look really good. To do that they lower the shutter speed, exposure, making it very long as well as drop the bit rate and iframe rate of the video stream probably to unload the "CPU" of the camera so it can over process the video to make that still scene look good. As soon as motion happens it's nothing more than a blur, at beast, at night which make it, basically, useless.

This type of behavior, fooling with firmware to produce nice still images, is common with most, if not all, of the low end consumer cameras. Always, ALWAYS, look for video samples of the low light performance of any camera you might consider buying. If you can get blur free night video you're wasting your money. Any decent quality camera allow you, the user, to actually set things like exposure, bit rate and iframe rate and will adhere to what you select. Every camera needs to be set for the specific location and lighting conditions it has to function under. "Auto" setting will always fail, especially at night when it is most critical not to have failure.

See this specific thread concerning Reolink and its' problems -

Compiled by mat200 -

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

See this thread for lower priced cameras that will adhere to the settings you select -

Less expensive models -

Budget Dahua Cams or china alternatives under $100?

Well here we go. I dont see anywhere more approriate to discuss this. Ive been messing around with putting together a cctv system for close to 3 years now. Ive bought everything i needed and also bought 2 cheap cams from a third party seller on walmart. Those cams cost me a grand total of $50...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[dccam]

The reolink hate is strong I see. To be clear, yes, I have read about Reolink problems and after that I'm not planning on buying anything reolink, I'm saying the quality of the 822A video to me looks right around what I want for the price, so looking for recommendations for other brand cameras with similar specs eg have mic, have on camera person detection while giving similar camera quality as the 822A for similar prices but from a brand with software that works properly and plays well with Blueiris.

The number of cameras also mixed with the unbranded and rebranded ones is quite overwhelming for someone new.

@sebastiantombs, thanks for that second link.

 

[sebastiantombs]

My two favorite "less expensive" cameras are the 2231R-ZS and the 3241T-ZAS. Both are 2MP varifocals, 3-12mm. The 2231 is the least expensive, ~$120, and the 3241 is a little more expensive ~$135. The difference between the two is that the 3241 has built in audio and basic AI, human and vehicle detection capability. They both provide excellent video both day and night.

 

[wittaj]

, I'm saying the quality of the 822A video to me looks right around what I want for the price, so looking for recommendations for other brand cameras with similar specs eg have mic, have on camera person detection while giving similar camera quality as the 822A for similar prices but from a brand with software that works properly and plays well with Blueiris.

@sebastiantombs, thanks for that second link.

We assure you that the quality you think Reolink has isn't there.

What Reolink makes up in for static image quality (and the static image is what almost every NOOB gets fascinated with), they lack when it comes to motion at night...

The budget cams @sebastiantombs will run circles around the Reolinks at night when there is motion. And that is what we want is to be able to stop the playback and get a clean capture of a perp in motion.


What you mean a missing hand isn't normal LOL

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

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 home? 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 columns:

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

 

[mat200]

I have just moved into a new house and am wanting to set up a system. Youtube and thehookup etc had be excited about Reolinks, until I came here are started to read about how they do not work well with Blueiris.

The for eg Reolink822A looks like a great camera for the price, object and person detection, good resolution, decent build, mic etc and all for under $100US

Looking at the Hikvision side, something like the DS-2CD2347G2-LU looks amazing, but it is twice the price, and for most of my locations, I think 2 reolink ones (if they worked well with blueiris) would be better than one G2.

All the camera brands and models can get very confusing, are there any cameras that do work well with Blueiris that offer similar price performance as something like the 822A?

Welcome @dccam

Before you just jump on a deal .. take some time to determine what you functionally want from a security camera system / setup.

If you want to ID something in low light conditions, Reolink and many other very affordable cameras do not do well in such conditions.

See the DORI section of the cliff notes to help out on concepts which many online reviewers have avoided sharing with the audiences, and not DORI is a theoretical concept and that under real world conditions some cameras perform poorly regardless of the stated specs like MegaPixels and FOV.

 

[dccam]

Thanks for the two helpful replies. I have decided to order a few different cameras for various spots and to test out including DS-2CD2347G2-LU, IPC-T5442TM-AS and IPC-T3241T-ZAS.

In relation to the Reolink hate, spamming regurgitated posts about how they don't work well in specific low light conditions so therefore they are non-starters is not very helpful. I have looked at video samples and for some of my use cases, and with the features they offer, they are amazing value. My own conclusion for the answer to my question "any cameras that do work well with Blueiris that offer similar price performance" appears to actually be no there isn't, for eg th RLC-510A is a $50 5MP camera with mic, vehicle and person detection and not great low light performance, but if that is suitable for what I want, there looks like there is no real alternatives for that price / performance.

looking elsewhere, there also does seem to be talk of firmware for specific cameras that fixes the iframe issues, so I will also be ordering a few reolink cameras on top of the ones above for testing, just have to investigate these firmware changes / anything else that might impact non-image based things with Blue Iris

 

[sebastiantombs]

Just be aware that the firmware fix for the Reolink iframe problem wasn't particularly effective or dependable, especially across the various models. Personally, after owning a Reolink, I wouldn't buy another with your money and if you offered me one for free I'd give you five bucks and tell you to keep it.

 

[wittaj]

Enjoy the Reolinks. If they meet your use case, then fine. After you get them, please post video examples with motion both day and night on how great they work in the thread linked above - we are still waiting for someone to demonstrate that, so maybe you will be the first! People are cheap, and if a $50 camera can do what a $150 camera can do, we would be all over it.

When your first post to the site give no specifics as to your use case, then you should expect folks to warn you about the cameras and the lack of performance with examples that have been posted here before because this site has a lot of posts and people will miss it, even if it is "spamming" as you call it (which it is not BTW).... This site is geared towards those seeking performance IDENTIFY capabilities, not what time something happened but useless beyond that. This site is made of people that have been there, done that with the cheaper cams. If you don't want that wisdom from folks that went down that path and were not satisfied with the performance of those cheap cams, then ignore our advice and learn it yourself the hard way.

The key to a good post is to have specifics - "I am looking for a camera with this use case. I have seen the following threads (link threads you have seen) and I understand the limitations and have seen the examples..."

You provide a first post without specifics, then be prepared to be presented with all the information, good, bad, what you may have seen before, etc. The more detail you can provide, the better folks can provide you with a solution.

Keep in mind that people came here mentioning that the new firmware was going to fix things (probably Reolink employees LOL), and they never came back to prove that it did indeed fix the issues as it relates to working with BI, so if you can prove it works well with BI, then please come back and prove it because folks here that have tried the firmware fix said the same problems exist.

Reolink tries to play with other systems, but they should simply stay paired with a Reolink NVR like the other systems in their category.

 

[wittaj]

From a different thread just in the past few days:

Im having this problem with the 810A and 410.

during daylight, the cameras work "fine" at the right fps, but during the night, the cameras are at half fps.

i couldn't find any settings, reolink support told me is what reolink camaras do, they switch to half fps during night.

im guessing there is nothing i can do right?

And what this person didn't realize is that the iframes are cut at least in half as well, which is what is problematic with BI and Reolinks.

 

[mat200]

Thanks for the two helpful replies. I have decided to order a few different cameras for various spots and to test out including DS-2CD2347G2-LU, IPC-T5442TM-AS and IPC-T3241T-ZAS.

In relation to the Reolink hate, spamming regurgitated posts about how they don't work well in specific low light conditions so therefore they are non-starters is not very helpful. I have looked at video samples and for some of my use cases, and with the features they offer, they are amazing value. My own conclusion for the answer to my question "any cameras that do work well with Blueiris that offer similar price performance" appears to actually be no there isn't, for eg th RLC-510A is a $50 5MP camera with mic, vehicle and person detection and not great low light performance, but if that is suitable for what I want, there looks like there is no real alternatives for that price / performance.

looking elsewhere, there also does seem to be talk of firmware for specific cameras that fixes the iframe issues, so I will also be ordering a few reolink cameras on top of the ones above for testing, just have to investigate these firmware changes / anything else that might impact non-image based things with Blue Iris

Hi @dccam

Good to see you got something helpful for your situation here.

Re: Reolink
"In relation to the Reolink hate, spamming regurgitated posts about how they don't work well in specific low light conditions so therefore they are non-starters is not very helpful."

1) Reolink and spamming.
Perhaps you are uninformed about the massive amount of Reolink spam and astroturfing which Reolink and their agents actually do on numerous online forums and reviews. ( they've done it in the past on this forum for example )

Reolink as a company and product brand gets a justified response from many members here who know more about the dirty tricks Reolink plays to catch the unsuspecting customers.

At first many are not aware of it, as they have not tracked the Reolink posts in any sort of frequency. Once you start tracking the posts by Reolink and their agents - you can understand better when some who are interested in a more fair and balanced assessment find a passion to set the record straight when given an opportunity.

SO, what you see here is not Reolink SPAM .. but a counter to Reolink SPAM.

This is to be expected.

2) Use cases:
Indeed many may have use cases where Reolink cameras work for them .. and that's ok.

So far, we have found many buying into use cases for Reolink in which Reolink products are not very suitable for ( working with Blue Iris, Low Light image capture, .. )

3) Facts.. on Reolink:
We've got a number of threads were we discuss it, and do allow appropriate comparisons and contrasts.

As @wittaj notes we have yet to see evidence showing Reolink to do well in low light conditions.