Convince me Reolink is bad to buy

[blocksog]

Hi all,

I have been reading this forum for a while, and often the advice I read here is to avoid buying Reolink. There are no good arguments or facts to support the advice, so I am asking here to dump all the concrete examples why Reolink should be avoided with concrete facts or own experience. Comparisons, camera specs, etc.

I am asking because I am looking to upgrade a bunch of cameras.

My experience and current setup:
My cameras are on a separate network with no access to internet. NVR is Synology's Surveillance Station (any camera model is fine). I have to upgrade at least 3-4 cameras to get human/vehicle detection at key points (driveway, front lawn, entry points), but I have 15 upgradable cameras in total.

I have used a couple Reolink and Amcrest indoor cameras in the past, but not for surveillance. Reolink still works after 5-7 years; Amcrest too, but the camera model is too cheap. Both Reolink and Amcrest have a crappy microphone that produces noise (too much gain I guess). Another recent experience with Reolink is to upgrade the firmware of a camera they sent me for free years ago (RLC410-5MP). I never used it, but now I am consider to put it on to replace one of the broken surveillance cameras. The RLC410-5MP firmware was too old to upgrade with newest firmware, but Reolink support provided the files for step wise upgrades and I managed to bring it up to date. So, Reolink's support seem to work fine.

Now, bring it on, why do you think Reolink is not worth considering? AI detection quality, prices, etc, anything you can argue is fine, just not the usual "Reolink is crap"

Thank you.

 

[wittaj]

There are a ton of arguments and facts here regarding Reolink and its performance, or lack thereof at nighttime.

If all you care about is to look around, then probably ok. But if you plan to be able to use them in the event something happens and you need to get the police involved, forget about it...


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 rectangular reflective piece of metal)

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 visible columns:

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


Here is the unofficial Reolink thread where we have challenged someone to provide a clean capture of someone moving at night with a Reolink and as you can see with 20 pages, nobody has yet to provide a usable image with motion at night..

You can see all the attempts people have provided to demonstrate the quality of Reolink, and they are all a blurry mess at night or missing body parts or other messes.


Reolink's algorithm is designed to produce a nice bright static image at night and that comes at a cost of blur and ghost and missing body parts at night.

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

Most will say these don't cut it. There is also much talk in that thread about the issues of Reolink and BI.

 

[Sybertiger]

Convince me Reolink is good to buy

 

[Ssayer]

Heck, it sounds to me like he has already chosen to buy Reolink. I say go for it! When he actually needs to identify someone at night and the image is absolutely useless he may begin to understand and find he needs to rethink and re-buy. The lessons best learned are when they hit you in the wallet...

 

[TonyR]

Hi all,

I have been reading this forum for a while, and often the advice I read here is to avoid buying Reolink. There are no good arguments or facts to support the advice,

You're joking, right?

site:ipcamtalk.com reolink issues

 

[blocksog]

The reason I opened this thread is to have a constructive conversation. I know most of you guys know better than me, but I like to follow the evidence. Trust and belief is for religious people, which I am not much

Ok, so Reolink is missing arms. Last night I installed the $400 Empiretech PTZ425FB-AT. Frist footage of me walking at night was a bunch of ghosting. I have an example video but cannot upload here. Here is a screenshot:


My question is: does Reolink have sensors similar to Dahua (1/1.2, 1/1.8, etc.) and still doing worse on those cameras (algorithm issue). Or do they simply put worse sensors in their cameras?

Yes, I know itt is not about the pretty picture, it is the motion at night, and I know the PTZ above is not designed for that. I am clearly looking for ways to identify cars and people as much as possible.

 

[samplenhold]

That PTZ is not going to pick up humans with any identifying information from the distance and FOV you have selected.

Pick your cams based on the job you want them to do at the position you want the FOV from. Look at your requirements and the cams specs. Look at reviews of those cams doing the job you want them to do, such as tracking humans in low light, nice overview in daylight, etc.

But if you are picking a brand because of the price, or because you want that brand, expect to be disappointed by the performance.

@wittaj and @TonyR have given you 'good arguments or facts to support the advice' of staying away from Reolink. What you do with that information is up to you. But if you are not willing to consider that advice, then why are you here?

 

[wittaj]

Not sure if you are trolling at this point as I think we made it clear, or if you simply need to be educated on how these cameras work.

We have a thread with over 20 pages showing how poorly the Reolinks perform at night, yet we have thread after thread of camera reviews here showing how well the Dahua and Hikvision OEM cameras work in low light conditions with motion (unlike all the amazon reviews of cameras that show a static image like they are entering the County fair photo contest).

For the sake of those finding this later, here goes the education and evidence.

Here are the problems with your image above:

1. You are on default/auto settings (or you have it set up wrong and is basically mimicking default settings). EVERY camera will have trouble on default/auto settings at low light.
2. Your field of view is too wide and the person too far to get any useful video or photos. That would be same even for cameras costing 5 times the amount. That is why this thread exists: The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection
3. You are trying to do too much with one field of view. One camera cannot be the be all, see all. Each one is selected for covering a specific area. Most of us here have different brands and types, from fixed cams, to varifocals, to PTZs, each one selected for it's primary purpose and to utilize the strength of that particular camera.
4. You have only had the tracking PTZ installed for one night.
5. These cameras are not plug-n-play and can take weeks of a few minutes here and there making tweaks to the settings to get it right, and even more so with a PTZ.

While the PTZ you have is not on an ideal MP/sensor, it can still perform ok in the right conditions. I have that exact PTZ. This is probably a comparable distance to yours. Notice how the field of view is a lot tighter - that is what is needed the further the object is away.




Regarding your question about sensors and algorithms, if two manufactures are using the same model sensor, then it comes down to firmware implementation as to how well the camera performs.

It is somewhat common to see many cameras claim Starlight capabilities. Starlight and Starvis are simply a marketing term created by Sony for certain models of a Sony sensor. But at least we know the camera has the same sensor.

So we will see many 2MP cameras on the market claiming Starlight as their selling point. HDView, Dahua, Amcrest, Lorex, Reolink, and many no-name brands on Amazon and AliExpress use Starlight in their write-up.

But does that mean these no-name cameras will perform as well as say a Dahua with the exact same Sony Starlight sensor?

The answer is NO. This is an example from Reolink's marketing videos of their Starlight camera with the same sensor in a 2MP Dahua - do you see a person in this picture...yes, there is a person in this picture. This is why you cannot buy a system based on marketing terms like Starlight.... Could this provide anything useful for the police? 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:

I have found there is a simple test to determine the quality of the firmware as it relates to the sensor - shutter speed!

It has been shown that Reolink (and most consumer grade cameras) favor nice bright static images at night over performance. So at some point even if you can set shutter settings, the camera will override your input in favor of a nice bright image. This is done by slowing down the shutter and increasing the gain. So then you see what Reolinks are notorious for - ghost blur invisible person images at night and inability to capture plates.

So the difference between a better camera like say a Dahua and a Reolink or some no-name camera on Amazon with a Starlight sensor is that you can set parameters on the Dahua and it will hold. If you set parameters on these other cameras that would result in a darker image the algorithm internally says "idiot alert" and it won't let you set parameters that the firmware thinks will result in not displaying a nice bright image. Don't believe me, set the shutter to 1/10,000 at night and the image should be completely black. It won't with the reolink...or any cheap camera. It will override your 1/10,000 shutter and favor a bright image. It is a good test to determine how good the camera is.

But most consumer grade camera manufacturers know that consumers chase MP, so to keep costs down, they will put 1/3" or 1/2.8" sensors in the cameras. And 8MP on a 1/3" sensor looks great on default settings for a static image at night....and that is what the consumer looks at. No consumer then tests it with motion.

It is always comical to me when a neighbor buys a camera and asks me to help them set it up. I set the shutter to 1/60 or 1/120 and the image gets darker (because the faster the shutter, the more light that is needed but the faster shutter is what gets clean captures with motion). And they always complain the image is too dark. So at some point they go back to auto settings and then capture a blur motion of the perp that door checked their car.

 

[blocksog]

Ahh, ok. Thanks @wittaj . This is more helpful. I did play around last night with shutter speeds, trying to see if I can capture license plates with a PTZ (don't laugh!). I managed to put shutter down to 1/120 coz the PTZ did not go any lower. And yes, I could read license plates far away with good zoom on street. But... only when the car was static, not if the car moved 10-20mph which is typical for my street.

Ok then, your reply and the link @TonyR provided helped clarify better the issues. Fyi, I fully know static images are useless for surveillance. And sometimes is funny Amazon pages contain examples of a bright sky obtained with low shutter speed (including Empiretech see

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BC18KVF...=1E7S5PPT4AM5U&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it

).

Btw, I watched several YT videos of people comparing cameras that are not same FoV or specs. Thanks for your help.

 

[wittaj]

That camera shutter speed goes a lot faster than 1/120. You must have enabled anti-flicker as that limits the shutter speed.

But PTZs are not the camera to get to read plates because of the focus issues - you cannot set a focus limit like you can a fixed camera. You would have to turn it into a fixed camera and have it set about an hour before sunset so that it can focus.

Regarding plates, you would have to set the camera up specifically to read plates. You need the proper camera with OPTICAL zoom for the distance you are covering and the angle to get plates.

Keep in mind that this is a camera dedicated to plates and not an overview camera also. It is as much an art as it is a science. You will need two cameras. For LPR we need to OPTICALLY zoom in tight to make the plate as large as possible. For most of us, all you see is the not much more than a vehicle in the entire frame. Now maybe in the right location during the day it might be able to see some other things, but not at night.

At night, we have to run a very fast shutter speed (1/2,000) and in B/W with IR and the image will be black. All you will see are head/tail lights and the plate. Some people can get away with color if they have enough street lights, but most of us cannot. Here is a representative sample of plates I get at night of vehicles traveling about 45MPH at 175 feet from my 2MP 5241-Z12E camera (that is all that is needed for plates):

See the LPR subforum for more details.


In terms of getting the most out of the camera, here is my "standard" post that many use as a start for dialing in day and night that helps get the clean captures and help the camera recognize people and cars.

Start with:

H264
8192 bitrate
CBR
15FPS
15 iframes

Every field of view is different, but I have found you need contrast to usually be 6-8 higher than the brightness number at night.

We want the ability to freeze frame capture a clean image from the video at night, and that is only done with a shutter of 1/60 or faster. At night, default/auto may be on 1/12s shutter or worse to make the image bright.

In my opinion, shutter (exposure) and gain are the two most important parameters and then base the others off of it. Shutter is more important than FPS. It is the shutter speed that prevents motion blur, not FPS. 15 FPS is more than enough for surveillance cameras as we are not producing Hollywood movies. Match iframes to FPS. 15FPS is all that is usually needed.

Many people do not realize there is manual shutter that lets you adjust shutter and gain and a shutter priority that only lets you adjust shutter speed but not gain. The higher the gain, the bigger the noise and see-through ghosting start to appear because the noise is amplified. Most people select shutter priority and run a faster shutter than they should because it is likely being done at 100 gain, so it is actually defeating their purpose of a faster shutter.

Go into shutter settings and change to manual shutter and start with custom shutter as ms and change to 0-8.3ms and gain 0-50 (night) and 0-4ms exposure and 0-30 gain (day)for starters. Auto could have a shutter speed of 100ms or more with a gain at 100 and shutter priority could result in gain up at 100 which will contribute to significant ghosting and that blinding white you will get from the infrared or white light.

Now what you will notice immediately at night is that your image gets A LOT darker. That faster the shutter, the more light that is needed. But it is a balance. The nice bright night static image results in Casper blur and ghost during motion LOL. What do we want, a nice static image or a clean image when there is motion introduced to the scene?

In the daytime, if it is still too bright, then drop the 4ms down to 3ms then 2ms, etc. You have to play with it for your field of view.

Then at night, if it is too dark, then start adding ms to the time. Go to 10ms, 12ms, etc. until you find what you feel is acceptable as an image. Then have someone walk around and see if you can get a clean shot. Try not to go above 16.67ms (but certainly not above 30ms) as that tends to be the point where blur starts to occur. Conversely, if it is still bright, then drop down in time to get a faster shutter.

You can also adjust brightness and contrast to improve the image. But try not to go above 70 for anything and try to have contrast be at least 7-10 digits higher than brightness.

You can also add some gain to brighten the image - but the higher the gain, the more ghosting you get. Some cameras can go to 70 or so before it is an issue and some can't go over 50.

But adjusting those two settings will have the biggest impact. The next one is noise reduction. Want to keep that as low as possible. Depending on the amount of light you have, you might be able to get down to 40 or so at night (again camera dependent) and 20-30 during the day, but take it as low as you can before it gets too noisy. Again this one is a balance as well. Too smooth and no noise can result in soft images and contribute to blur.

Do not use backlight features until you have exhausted every other parameter setting. And if you do have to use backlight, take it down as low as possible.

After every setting adjustment, have someone walk around outside and see if you can freeze-frame to get a clean image. If not, keep changing until you do. Clean motion pictures are what we are after, not a clean static image.

 

[bigredfish]

As mentioned, any camera treated as plug and play without adjusting numerous settings to tailor it to the scene is a useless toy.

Here's the same PTZ, working with other cameras, to zoom in and capture license plates, at night.
It took many hours to get it dialed in. Will it work under ANY condition or distance? Nope. It was dialed in to work in that specific scene.
No one camera can be all to every scene. You have to make choices about overview coverage vs ID coverage at choke points, whether a scene needs white light or added IR, whether a scene needs two cameras instead of one. etc etc

But if you want plug n play and dont care about image quality, buy reolink, or ring



View attachment Home_ch7_20231007204435_20231007204449.mp4

 

[blocksog]

Thanks guys. This turned into a PTZ425 thread, but your help is great. I didn't know the Anti Flicker threw the limit up. I am familiar with photo variables, F aperture, Shutter Speed, ISO, etc. These are the only three parameters that matter in real photography, but these concepts have different terms in the IP world. I still have no idea what is Exposure Compensation, and what do they mean by Gain. Which one goes to modify the ISO or Aperture.

Anyway, I am looking forward to try the 1/1000 shutter tonight. It would by fine by me to make the PTZ fixed just for plate reading at night (fixed shutter, focus, zoom, etc.), and then regular auto track during the day.

Ok then, about the main topic, death to Reolink solutions. I still have one question: is there a difference in AI human/vehicle detection accuracy bw Reolink and Dahua, etc.? Are there more false alarms with Reolinks, too?

 

[wittaj]

Yeah, folks come into surveillance cameras from the photography world and find that while many of the names are the same, the behavior is different LOL.

If you are trying it for PTZ, make sure to turn IR to manual and at 100 and turn it and set before the sun goes down LOL.

Exposure Compensation is supposed to only work during auto/default settings, yet in some instances it has shown to impact manual settings. Best to leave it at default.

Gain electronically amplifies the video signal from the sensor and essentially brightens the image by increasing the intensity of each pixel, similar to how ISO works on a standard camera; however, increasing gain can also amplify noise in the image. This is how we get the ghosting and blur seen when gain it too high. Some cameras can go to 70 before issues and some are much lower.

The AI between a Reolink and a Dahua is somewhat comparable in terms of false alarms.

There are some here that got burned on the reolink spiel and bought some and realized how poor they are at night, so they repurposed them to use as spotter cams to trigger other cameras and have haven't reported lots of false alarms. In my experiences Reolink AI is better than most of the other consumer brands like Ring and Nest.

 

[tangent]

The AI between a Reolink and a Dahua is somewhat comparable in terms of false alarms.

My reolink doorbell occasionally decides snowflakes or insects at 2 or 3 AM are people. My Dahua cameras haven't done that.

Is reolink better than Ring, Nest, Wyze, or Arlo? Perhaps, perhaps not. There are certainly products on the market that are worst than reolink just as there are better products.

 

[mat200]

Hi all,

I have been reading this forum for a while, and often the advice I read here is to avoid buying Reolink. There are no good arguments or facts to support the advice, so I am asking here to dump all the concrete examples why Reolink should be avoided with concrete facts or own experience. Comparisons, camera specs, etc.

I am asking because I am looking to upgrade a bunch of cameras.

My experience and current setup:
My cameras are on a separate network with no access to internet. NVR is Synology's Surveillance Station (any camera model is fine). I have to upgrade at least 3-4 cameras to get human/vehicle detection at key points (driveway, front lawn, entry points), but I have 15 upgradable cameras in total.

I have used a couple Reolink and Amcrest indoor cameras in the past, but not for surveillance. Reolink still works after 5-7 years; Amcrest too, but the camera model is too cheap. Both Reolink and Amcrest have a crappy microphone that produces noise (too much gain I guess). Another recent experience with Reolink is to upgrade the firmware of a camera they sent me for free years ago (RLC410-5MP). I never used it, but now I am consider to put it on to replace one of the broken surveillance cameras. The RLC410-5MP firmware was too old to upgrade with newest firmware, but Reolink support provided the files for step wise upgrades and I managed to bring it up to date. So, Reolink's support seem to work fine.

Now, bring it on, why do you think Reolink is not worth considering? AI detection quality, prices, etc, anything you can argue is fine, just not the usual "Reolink is crap"

Thank you.

The reason I opened this thread is to have a constructive conversation. I know most of you guys know better than me, but I like to follow the evidence. Trust and belief is for religious people, which I am not much

Ok, so Reolink is missing arms. Last night I installed the $400 Empiretech PTZ425FB-AT. Frist footage of me walking at night was a bunch of ghosting. I have an example video but cannot upload here. Here is a screenshot:
View attachment 212963

My question is: does Reolink have sensors similar to Dahua (1/1.2, 1/1.8, etc.) and still doing worse on those cameras (algorithm issue). Or do they simply put worse sensors in their cameras?

Yes, I know itt is not about the pretty picture, it is the motion at night, and I know the PTZ above is not designed for that. I am clearly looking for ways to identify cars and people as much as possible.

Welcome @blocksog


1) "NVR is Synology's Surveillance Station (any camera model is fine). I have to upgrade at least 3-4 cameras to get human/vehicle detection at key points (driveway, front lawn, entry points), but I have 15 upgradable cameras in total."

Synology Surveillance Station, iirc first 2 camera feeds are included with the base license. Additional licenses are about $50 per camera .. so ( 15 -2 = 13 camera licenses needed, so about $650 in license costs for Synology Service Station and 15 cameras )

2) "Now, bring it on, why do you think Reolink is not worth considering? AI detection quality, prices, etc, anything you can argue is fine, just not the usual "Reolink is crap"

We've covered this numerous times, I don't know why you didn't just take a quick look at the numerous threads on this topic ?

The issues with Reolink have been very well documented here, even with examples of camera captures.

3) Now, my question to you is .. Why did you spend so much money on software licenses and buy cheap hardware ( reolinks ) ?

 

[mat200]

Re: Youtube reviews ..

once you know more about security cameras, many of the youtubers reviewing Reolink are deceptive reviews.

We've covered this topic also .. and reviewed the youtube reviews.

Some youtubers are getting better at their reviews, yet you need to understand some may get paid for their reviews and may have a bias which people new to this topic are not aware of.

Ahh, ok. Thanks @wittaj . This is more helpful. I did play around last night with shutter speeds, trying to see if I can capture license plates with a PTZ (don't laugh!). I managed to put shutter down to 1/120 coz the PTZ did not go any lower. And yes, I could read license plates far away with good zoom on street. But... only when the car was static, not if the car moved 10-20mph which is typical for my street.

Ok then, your reply and the link @TonyR provided helped clarify better the issues. Fyi, I fully know static images are useless for surveillance. And sometimes is funny Amazon pages contain examples of a bright sky obtained with low shutter speed (including Empiretech see

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BC18KVF...=1E7S5PPT4AM5U&ref_=list_c_wl_lv_ov_lig_dp_it

).

Btw, I watched several YT videos of people comparing cameras that are not same FoV or specs. Thanks for your help.

 

[blocksog]

3) Now, my question to you is .. Why did you spend so much money on software licenses and buy cheap hardware ( reolinks ) ?

I have not bought any Reolink IP cameras. Just slowly getting ready to find the right cameras to upgrade. As for the Synology, I have not spent anything either. The NAS was mine and turned out to work as NVR very well. As for the camera licenses, I have not spent anything yet, thanks to alternative solutions out there. Maybe I will spend the money when Synology stops asking more money on software than on hardware You see @mat200 I did the opposite, I took the money and threw it to a decent PTZ

 

[Flintstone61]

Can a reolink do this? normal cams in color get washed out from the headlights. like the over view cam.
But I got the plate and the last known area of travel. If there were some kind of incident at the Apt's.
LEO could get useful data.
View attachment 20250128-0735-54.0999395.mp4
View attachment 20250128-0815-35.2025568.mp4

 

[Flintstone61]

How about that? I can see Jupiter and Aldebaran lol, just above the Pine tree to the right of center.
But I get additional data about anything moving thru this area that the other 2 cams might miss.

 

[Flintstone61]

older Z4E accidentally catching plates beyond it serviceable LPR limit
View attachment 20250128-0846-29.6080760.mp4