Newb with Questions About Reolink Cameras

[HomeWPoe]

Hi! As much as I would like to venture into the Blue Iris world, I decided I'd rather keep things simple with our system. Have plans to install a 6-8 cameras, an 8ch POE switch, an iOS app, and 128/256gb micro cards.

As a start, I purchased two Reolink RLC510a bullets (5mp, 80 deg FOV) and a Reolink RLC1240a dome (12mp, 121 deg FOV) from Amazon a few days ago. I was surprised to find the RLC510a had noticeably better resolution than the RLC1240a (both day and night). With all things being equal, I realize a wider FOV requires more pixels to maintain the same resolution; however, I thought the extra 7mp in the RLC1240a would more than make up for this.

A 2nd issue I noticed with the RLC1240a is the spotlight. Even when used on the dimmest setting, during an alert it causes white flare (or ghosting) on the left and right side of the image (the two spotlight LED's are located on each side of the lens). It's bad enough that it's hard to see anything on the left/right sides.

Giving some thought to exchanging the RLC1240a for another unit if it's defective. If this is the way the RLC1240a normally operates, I may consider using two RLC510a to get the coverage I need for our driveway. I've also given some thought about switching to Hikvision if they have any good 4k cameras with at least 110 deg FOV. Did notice the Hikvision ios app is rated a bit higher than the Reolink. After testing it a few days, the Reolink ios app handle alerts reliably (accurately identifies our cat as pet/animal). However, accessing alerts after the fact is very cumbersome.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks.

 

[wittaj]

Since you mentioned Reolinks....

Keep in mind that reolinks, especially at night are horrible.

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, return them....


What you mean a missing hand isn't normal LOL :lmao (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)

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.

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.

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.

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)"

 

[wittaj]

Many will say Reolink has one of the better apps out there (they invest in the app experience over the quality of the cameras), so if you find that you struggle with that app, then you will struggle with Hikvision apps. Or Dahua. Or any quality camera that can provide IDENTIFY quality at night.

The better camera manufacturers figure people will use another platform for their VMS needs so they don't invest a lot in their app whereas the consumer grade cameras know the app experience will be what drives sales and they invest in the app.

The consumer grade companies invest more in their app experience because that is what is driving their sales are a consumer that wants the ease/simplicity/simple setup and app more so than camera quality.

Nothing in this arena is true plug-n-play if quality and able to IDENTIFY is important.

All cameras need to be dialed in to the field of view. Even the best cameras left on default will result in motion blur and ghosting at night. It is the same process for the dialing in the camera whether you have BI or an NVR.

I have had both and personally find BI easier to setup than an NVR.

If you want true plug-n-play simplicity and do not care about nighttime motion quality, then go with one of the consumer brands - Ring, Arlo, Reolink, Nest, Blink, etc. They are true plug-n-play because those cameras all run on default/auto settings with very little, to no ability to change camera parameters.

Simply download their app and scan the camera QR code and you are up and running, with a better app experience also.

But their plug-n-play simplicity comes at a cost of nighttime performance and ability to customize stuff, but obviously many do not seem to care about that as those systems are popular and those consumer grade systems are a perfect fit for those that want simplicity and not having to learn how to use an NVR.

Just don't expect those cameras to provide anything useful to the police as shown in this thread:

The Typical picture of a Perp on Nextdoor-type Apps with Consumer Grade Cameras like Ring, Nest, Arlo, Canary, Wyze, etc.

Love these posts on Nextdoor type apps LOL. This thread will be used for members to post the poor quality consumer grade type camera images that we see people post to the Nextdoor type apps. Can anyone make out this person that went thru their cars LOL.... And this thread is where members...

ipcamtalk.com

If you decide that you want more than just looking around, then don't chase MP.

See this thread for the commonly recommended cameras (along with Amazon links) based on distance to IDENTIFY that represent the overall best value in terms of price and performance day and night.

The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection

 

[looney2ns]

With the exception of Reolinks doorbell cam, Reolink should be avoided like the plague.

Avoid using Dome cameras outdoors, the dome will cause all sorts of problems.

 

[samplenhold]

As much as I would like to venture into the Blue Iris world, I decided I'd rather keep things simple with our system.

BI is quite simple. I started with consumer grade cams with a cloud experience and an iPhone app. That did not last long. Found this forum and bought Dahua cams and BI. Never looked back.

But I am retired and like to do my own thing. This has become a hobby, some say an obsession, that I like. While my neighborhood is not very active, I have provided several sets of evidence to the authorities to the point that they come to me and ask if I have anything on video to help them. You will never get to that point with consumer grade cams like Reolink et al.

Here are a few posts that document some of the incidents. There are others, including one in July of this year that I have yet to write about.

Use of Overview and LPR Cams to Document Midnight Vehicle Distributing Offensive Flyers on Lawns

We were out of town and I was checking my cams remotely one morning and noticed one of the Deputies that regularly patrol my subdivision had been at my front door. She has come to me a few times requesting video as she knows I have fairly good coverage of the streets at my corner. I noticed that...

ipcamtalk.com

Door Checker?

This morning this guy was in my driveway. Looks like he is running from someone? He avoided my cameras fairly well. Got a reasonable profile view. He ran across the street and messed with a car in the driveway, but I do not think he got in. He then ran across the front yards staying close to...

ipcamtalk.com

Door Checkers - Critique Please

Caught some door checkers last week and finally getting around to posting it. These guys got into at least one pick up that night. Gave some video to the police. Luckily my doors were locked. Still need to tweak settings/lighting to get a better facial pic. Any help on settings is appreciated...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[HomeWPoe]

@wittaj, thank you for the very informative replies and helpful links. You've definitely provided some added perspective. It's somewhat encouraging to hear the Reolink ios app is not the worst ios app out there--lol!

I believe I'm clear on how focal length, aperture, lens quality and sensor size/quality plays into the equation. Seeing the 5mp camera beat out the 12mp camera in terms of resolution drove this whole point home.

For now, it appears the Reolinks may fill the bill. Our testing is still in progress. We still have 26 days to change our mind--lol. We only need to monitor simple things around the house---little to no crime in our area, so need for serious bells & whistles for the time being. If things change, we'll certainly be looking at Hikvision, Dahua etc. (and BI) a lot closer.

 

[HomeWPoe]

With the exception of Reolinks doorbell cam, Reolink should be avoided like the plague.

Avoid using Dome cameras outdoors, the dome will cause all sorts problems.

Thanks for the reply. For those of us that just want to use cat6, poe switch, micro SD's and an ios app, can you recommend a good alternative to Reolink?

As for not using dome cams outdoors, do they leak? Does the clear dome degrade the optics over time?

 

[wittaj]

Domes are not recommended outside unless it is well protected from the elements. The big issue is that the domes will hold onto water droplets much longer than other cameras and thus any dirt on it can then become problematic. And during a rain event with IR, the camera is basically blind...but even without rain, the reflections of lights even outside the field of view can throw weird reflections into the dome.



The domes attract lots of dust. Then rain. Then dirty rain spots. Glare from all angles of the sun. Then over time the sun will "fog" the dome like a car headlight.

We have more people coming here posting a problem picture at night thinking there is a problem with their dome camera when in reality it is the IR bounce from some object that the dome is then capturing and magnifying.

 

[HomeWPoe]

BI is quite simple. I started with consumer grade cams with a cloud experience and an iPhone app. That did not last long. Found this forum and bought Dahua cams and BI. Never looked back.

But I am retired and like to do my own thing. This has become a hobby, some say an obsession, that I like. While my neighborhood is not very active, I have provided several sets of evidence to the authorities to the point that they come to me and ask if I have anything on video to help them. You will never get to that point with consumer grade cams like Reolink et al.

Here are a few posts that document some of the incidents. There are others, including one in July of this year that I have yet to write about.

Totally get it. Through the years I've gone down a few serious rabbit holes.

I just started researching sec cams about 5 days ago, so plenty of time to dig deeper. Bought a 500ft roll of cat6. Been running it throughout the house. Saw your system description---sounds wildly capable to say the least!

 

[wittaj]

Is the cat6 pure copper or CCA?

 

[HomeWPoe]

Is the cat6 pure copper or CCA?

Thanks for the heads-up. We made sure it was pure copper. Definitely easy to end up with CCA if you don't read the fine/small print.

 

[mat200]

Hi! As much as I would like to venture into the Blue Iris world, I decided I'd rather keep things simple with our system. Have plans to install a 6-8 cameras, an 8ch POE switch, an iOS app, and 128/256gb micro cards.

As a start, I purchased two Reolink RLC510a bullets (5mp, 80 deg FOV) and a Reolink RLC1240a dome (12mp, 121 deg FOV) from Amazon a few days ago. I was surprised to find the RLC510a had noticeably better resolution than the RLC1240a (both day and night). With all things being equal, I realize a wider FOV requires more pixels to maintain the same resolution; however, I thought the extra 7mp in the RLC1240a would more than make up for this.

A 2nd issue I noticed with the RLC1240a is the spotlight. Even when used on the dimmest setting, during an alert it causes white flare (or ghosting) on the left and right side of the image (the two spotlight LED's are located on each side of the lens). It's bad enough that it's hard to see anything on the left/right sides.

Giving some thought to exchanging the RLC1240a for another unit if it's defective. If this is the way the RLC1240a normally operates, I may consider using two RLC510a to get the coverage I need for our driveway. I've also given some thought about switching to Hikvision if they have any good 4k cameras with at least 110 deg FOV. Did notice the Hikvision ios app is rated a bit higher than the Reolink. After testing it a few days, the Reolink ios app handle alerts reliably (accurately identifies our cat as pet/animal). However, accessing alerts after the fact is very cumbersome.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks.

Welcome @HomeWPoe

Do check out the DORI section of the cliff notes.

Effective Pixel Density is key to getting good possible ID images .. key word is effective ..

 

[looney2ns]

Thanks for the reply. For those of us that just want to use cat6, poe switch, micro SD's and an ios app, can you recommend a good alternative to Reolink?

As for not using dome cams outdoors, do they leak? Does the clear dome degrade the optics over time?

EmpireTech IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 1/1.8" CMOS 4MP IR Starlight 2.7mm–12mm Var

The EmpireTech IPC-T54IR-ZE-S3 offers advanced features such as a 4MP 1/1.8" CMOS image sensor, 40 m max. illumination distance with integrated IR LED, deep learning algorithms for face and object recognition, 512GB Micro SD card slot, built-in microphone, IP67 rating, and SMD 3.0 support.

empiretech01.com

 

[HomeWPoe]

Update on the Reolink 12mp RLC1240a dome. The overexposed, washed out look I was getting when the infrared or spotlight was active goes completely away when the clear dome is removed---the video is perfectly clear. Interesting. I returned it. Going to stick with bullets and/or turrets moving forward.

 

[HomeWPoe]

Appreciate all the helpful input so far. Got the Reolink cams up and running using the Reolink iOS app and POE switch.

Experiencing the two following issues with the Reolink iOS app:

1. All new alerts (less than 2 min old) revert to the live view when you tap the iOS alert notification. During those two minutes, the odds are high that whatever triggered the alert has already disappeared from the live view.

2. If you want the iOS alert notification to take you to the video associated with the specific date/time of the alert (NOT the live view) you must wait 2 min then tap the iOS alert notification. Once you tap, you only get one chance to view the alert---the alert is permanently deleted. There is no secondary list of past alerts to fall back on. Unless you memorize the date/time stamp on the video for this initial view, there is no way to quickly access the video for the alert again.

Contacted Reolink support and they more or less confirmed this is how their app works. Wow. Prior to these Reolink cams, we'd been using some $20 wifi cams for a number of years. They offered the basics: instant access to an alert video and a running log of past alerts (whether viewed or not). Wrongly assumed this basic functionality would be baked into most any security app.

Do we really need to upgrade to BI Windows and iOS app for this basic capability?

 

[wittaj]

As I mentioned, sadly, the better the camera gets, the less they invest on the app experience for the camera. The better camera manufacturers know most will go a different direction for their VMS needs.

Many will say the pure cloud based systems have the "easiest" or most user friendly apps. Why...because they are targeting the naïve homeowner that favors the app experience over the quality of the camera. The make them easy that the 80 year old grandma can use it.

Reolink tries to act like they are the best of both worlds and while their app is better than most, the cameras lack.

How long are you telling it to record on motion - I am guessing two minutes and the app cannot record and play at the same time.

 

[HomeWPoe]

Thanks for the reply, @wittaj.

Have the record-on-motion sent to 15 seconds---the minimum. The Reolink cams appear to record video in 2 min blocks. During video playback you can see a slight hesitation when it transitions from one block to the next. My guess the app and/or camera can't playback any part of the 2 min block of video that's being currently being recorded to. That may explain the two min delay.

We're using micro SD cards for storage. Wonder if the use of an NVR or BI, which both store data off-camera, would negate the above issue?

Another question: When using BI, I'm guessing alerts are sourced using the camera's own detection algorithm and simply passed onto BI?

Supposedly the current crop of Reolinks are BI compatible. Giving some thought about purchasing BI and the BI iOS app, temporarily loading it on my laptop/iphone, and testing it with the Reolinks.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Thanks.

 

[wittaj]

Well even if the Reolink model has fixed the issues with BI, they are still problematic from a video quality capture standpoint.

Just keep in mind that for some of the models, it is a hack to make it work.

Yes BI you can literally watch the alert practically up to the second it is being recorded.

You can use the camera built-in motion detection or the BI motion detection.

BI allows you to demo for 15 days, so load it to the laptop and give it a try. Don't buy the app. Most here don't use it. The native UI3 browser from BI is more than adequate for most people.

The app is only used for two-way talk cameras (Which are gimmicky) or for push notifications, but most have gone to the cheaper pushover app that provides more functionality regarding push notifications.

 

[HomeWPoe]

Got the 5 Reolinks connected and running with BI. Did this just to get a general feel for BI. No doubt, BI offers massive flexibility, but requires more hardware, additional support software and lots of tweaking. We love the simplicity of a POE switch and micro SD cards. However, if we can't find an iOS app that offers the basic alert functionality we need, BI may be a reluctant Plan B.

Anywhoser, after using the 5 Reolinks for two weeks, the Reolink iOS app is the biggest disappointment (specifics discussed earlier). It goes without saying the night-vision is sorely lacking, too.

Giving serious thought about returning the Reolinks and trying out an EmpireTech 1/1.8 2.6 (fixed) 4mp bullet cam from Andy. Confident this cam will be more than capable---as it should be for twice the money. The huge unknown is the DMSS iOS app.

Has anyone used both the Reolink iOS and DMSS iOS apps that would care to comment about how they compare?

 

[wittaj]

As I mentioned previously, if you don't like the Reolink app, you will hate the DMSS app LOL.

And many will say reolink is one of the better apps, so if you hate it....

And yeah I warned you on the night capabilities!

Reolink invests in their app to try to make it grandma user friendly because they are going after a different market than Dahua, whereas DMSS is more utilitarian and not grandma friendly.