I always hear all the pros bashing out Reolink. Just wondering what everyone’s experience is good or bad and why people don’t like Reolink.
Reolink Cameras
- Thread starter jumper5558
- Start date
Stay away from Reolink unless all you care about is what time something happened. Their night time performance is horrible.
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.
Reolinks and most consumer grade cameras (Ring, Nest, Arlo, Blink, etc.) are designed to produce a nice bright static image. But then motion is a blur. We want clean captures of a perp at night, not a blur motion ghost.
If all you care about is watching the pets or being able to tell the police what time Casper the ghost stole your stuff, then go for it LOL. 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 the person altogether
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 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 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. We have had people come here and say their Reolinks are great, but see for yourself...
Reolink: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"
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.
Reolinks and most consumer grade cameras (Ring, Nest, Arlo, Blink, etc.) are designed to produce a nice bright static image. But then motion is a blur. We want clean captures of a perp at night, not a blur motion ghost.
If all you care about is watching the pets or being able to tell the police what time Casper the ghost stole your stuff, then go for it LOL. 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 the person altogether
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 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 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. We have had people come here and say their Reolinks are great, but see for yourself...
Reolink: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"
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Can you send similar from hikvision or some of the other leading companies?Stay away from Reolink unless all you care about is what time something happened. Their night time performance is horrible.
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.
Reolinks and most consumer grade cameras (Ring, Nest, Arlo, Blink, etc.) are designed to produce a nice bright static image. But then motion is a blur. We want clean captures of a perp at night, not a blur motion ghost.
If all you care about is watching the pets or being able to tell the police what time Casper the ghost stole your stuff, then go for it LOL. Look at these examples.
What you mean a missing hand isn't normal LOL
How about missing the person altogether
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. We have had people come here and say their Reolinks are great, but see for yourself...
Reolink: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"
Personally not using it much for dark so night vision doesn’t matter so much to me but I’d want to see the comparability.
mat200
IPCT Contributor
- Jan 17, 2017
- 15,520
- 26,130
Welcome @jumper5558
"I always hear all the pros bashing out Reolink. Just wondering what everyone’s experience is good or bad and why people don’t like Reolink. "
Lots of threads and evidence here for you to look at with regards to Reolink .. start with the thread above that @wittaj mentioned, and do a search for Reolink in the title for even more examples.
"Can you send similar from hikvision or some of the other leading companies?
Personally not using it much for dark so night vision doesn’t matter so much to me but I’d want to see the comparability. "
Unlike Reolink, Hikvision and Dahua make a ton of cameras .. many with better hardware components compared to Reolink and many which are meeting standards better.
This means you can find better options from Hikvision or Dahua for a particular camera and get better compatibility with 3rd party VMS systems ( Like Blue Iris ).
Firmware by Reolink has been shown by members to "cheat" on purpose .. for example, changing night time video captures to increase the shutter time so that still images look good at the expense of moving images ( that is shown in various image captures where the moving subject seems to disappear and yet the non-moving object look good. )
Also, as a company Reolink has done an extensive amount of astroturfing and spamming of various forums to support their sales.
Basically Reolink as a company has done a number of tricks to get those who know less about their cameras to become customers and fans.
Note : The forum will have various examples that members have posted on image captures from various Dahua OEM and Hikivision OEM cameras ..
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So what do you recommend as your best camera system? You mentioned these companies have so many cameras I think they sell only to Distributers and are hard to find for consumers. What’s the best home version for these in your opinion (without breaking the bank) and best place to find them?
I feel like Reolink is good enough for most consumers because they don’t care much these days anymore especially in nyc. Most of the time the cops just open a case and rarely close it unless they’ve been looking for that person or it was a reasonable sized theft. Most of our issues here are package pirates and the cops are just too busy to hunt down people for a package that can be worth a few bucks. Many stores closing because of shoplifting and policies were even made to prevent employees from stopping them. Even commercial, how many business still get a lot of cash on the daily? Other than possibly jewelry most people just swipe their credit cards from what I’ve seen.
So at the end of the day you can have the best camera system here but it’s mostly just a deterrence rather than using it to catch someone.
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If that is your mindset, which I get as parts of the country do nothing about crime, then go with the cheapest crap you can find or get dummy cameras as deterrents.
But if you want half a chance to be able to provide something meaningful to the police or shame the perp on FB and the media, then you need something better.
The stuff we buy and recommend here are cheaper than Ring cameras, so we are not recommending expensive stuff compared to what the average consumer picks up at a store.
The average consumer is naïve and doesn't know better when making a camera purchase.
It is amazing how conditioned people are to just accept the poor night images.
Consumer grade companies (and their affiliated YouTube reviewers) have convinced the average consumer that videos like this are acceptable. Consumers are conditioned to believe that you cannot get good quality night images from surveillance cameras. When was the last time we have seen a YouTube influencer show good nighttime video with motion?
Look at all the countless Nextdoor and FB posts where people are posting crap video and pics and not one person ever says "hey there are cameras that can give you better images". It is just accepted that this is the best that can be done.
The police are shocked when something happens and folks here can actually provide them video and pictures that are useful. Even they are conditioned to believe that good night video isn't possible. I have been asked by the police several times "What kind of Ring camera captured this?" LOL.
Most of us purchase from Andy @EMPIRETECANDY a trusted member here with an Amazon store and his own website.
He sells Dahua OEM International models, which are usually better than the models available from an authorized US dealer. And cheaper too as you are not paying for the logo and the distributor markups!
Further, Dahua gives him models to try and sell first before they sell them. And we make suggestions to the firmware that they make and sometimes are only available to Andy's customers as Dahua doesn't rollout the improvements to their firmware site.
We have literally had people come here after buying authorized Dahua USA cameras and then replacing those and buying from Andy and getting better cameras at a fraction of the cost.
The 5442 series is the go to camera and this would be the one I would recommend to try - it is a great low light camera.
https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-IPC-T5442T-ZE-Vari-Focal-Eyeball-Starlight/dp/B08C77TNY9/ref=sr_1_4?m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&qid=1703951417&s=merchant-items&sr=1-4&th=1
But if you want half a chance to be able to provide something meaningful to the police or shame the perp on FB and the media, then you need something better.
The stuff we buy and recommend here are cheaper than Ring cameras, so we are not recommending expensive stuff compared to what the average consumer picks up at a store.
The average consumer is naïve and doesn't know better when making a camera purchase.
It is amazing how conditioned people are to just accept the poor night images.
Consumer grade companies (and their affiliated YouTube reviewers) have convinced the average consumer that videos like this are acceptable. Consumers are conditioned to believe that you cannot get good quality night images from surveillance cameras. When was the last time we have seen a YouTube influencer show good nighttime video with motion?
Look at all the countless Nextdoor and FB posts where people are posting crap video and pics and not one person ever says "hey there are cameras that can give you better images". It is just accepted that this is the best that can be done.
The police are shocked when something happens and folks here can actually provide them video and pictures that are useful. Even they are conditioned to believe that good night video isn't possible. I have been asked by the police several times "What kind of Ring camera captured this?" LOL.
Most of us purchase from Andy @EMPIRETECANDY a trusted member here with an Amazon store and his own website.
He sells Dahua OEM International models, which are usually better than the models available from an authorized US dealer. And cheaper too as you are not paying for the logo and the distributor markups!
Further, Dahua gives him models to try and sell first before they sell them. And we make suggestions to the firmware that they make and sometimes are only available to Andy's customers as Dahua doesn't rollout the improvements to their firmware site.
We have literally had people come here after buying authorized Dahua USA cameras and then replacing those and buying from Andy and getting better cameras at a fraction of the cost.
The 5442 series is the go to camera and this would be the one I would recommend to try - it is a great low light camera.
https://www.amazon.com/EmpireTech-IPC-T5442T-ZE-Vari-Focal-Eyeball-Starlight/dp/B08C77TNY9/ref=sr_1_4?m=A329YQ83EBQGJF&qid=1703951417&s=merchant-items&sr=1-4&th=1
As an Amazon Associate IPCamTalk earns from qualifying purchases.
There isn't much in this thread as most pictures of "better" systems are posted in other threads, but here are some specific posts made for non-Reolink cams.
The Better typical picture of a Perp we capture with better cameras than the consumer grade camera images we tend to see on Nextdoor
A while back I started the thread for us to comment and point out the issues and problems with consumer grade cameras and the images that people have posted to the NextDoor type apps. That thread has been a great resource to send the NOOB to in order to see what quality they don't get from...
I think also a big part to do with it is the immediate specs you see on Amazon listings. Like on the listing you sent it’s a 4MP camera for $189 whereas Reolink would have an 8MP camera for about $60. There’s def a price difference for the average consumer and most just compare specs and say I can get better resolution for cheaper. Less details of FPS and other important specs are shown unless you dig deep
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Yeah, but Reolink and the cheap cameras put 8MP on a sensor designed for 720P or 2MP, so it needs 4-6 times more light at night to produce an acceptable image. One would be better off with a 2MP.
Let's face it, consumer facing companies market to the unsuspecting and unknowing consumer.
As it relates to cameras, consumers think more MP is better, so consumer grade companies cater to that mindset and produce high MP cameras that are junk at night. And then with marketing and word of mouth, people accept that you just don't get clean motion at night with these cameras.
And people will spend over $250 for a Ring camera that can't come close to the capabilities of the $189 camera I linked to you.
And to those of us that have spent enough time with these types of cameras, 4MP on the 1/1.8" sensor is the sweet spot.
Sometimes you do get what you pay for. If a $60 camera results in the images I posted above, it doesn't tell you or the police anything. We have had people come here where Reolink missed them pulling their car into their garage. How useful is that?
Here was a thread I made that shows the importance of focal length and sensor size over MP.
ipcamtalk.com
Let's face it, consumer facing companies market to the unsuspecting and unknowing consumer.
As it relates to cameras, consumers think more MP is better, so consumer grade companies cater to that mindset and produce high MP cameras that are junk at night. And then with marketing and word of mouth, people accept that you just don't get clean motion at night with these cameras.
And people will spend over $250 for a Ring camera that can't come close to the capabilities of the $189 camera I linked to you.
And to those of us that have spent enough time with these types of cameras, 4MP on the 1/1.8" sensor is the sweet spot.
Sometimes you do get what you pay for. If a $60 camera results in the images I posted above, it doesn't tell you or the police anything. We have had people come here where Reolink missed them pulling their car into their garage. How useful is that?
Here was a thread I made that shows the importance of focal length and sensor size over MP.
The Importance of Focal Length over MP in camera selection
At the urging of several folks here, I created a thread to show the importance of focal length and how focal length can be more important than megapixels (MP). I mentioned some of this in the post regarding The Hookup’s latest video demonstrating different cameras, including one sold from a...
The vendors know that the uninformed public feels that "bigger is better" and "more is better" so they offer more megapixels for less money and NEVER mention what size the sensor is that comes at that price.
You got it, man.
And it's the lack of understanding of which specs to look for and how important those specs are in reproducing a good, usable image, especially in reduced lighting and with movement, that the vendors count on when touting their product to the average consumer.
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mat200
IPCT Contributor
- Jan 17, 2017
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Forget the cameras then and get a couple of big dogs and a gun ..
Honestly we have tons of knowledge and experience shared here on the threads for anyone seriously interested..
I started out with crappy cheap cameras, and then cloud dependent wifi cameras ..and I can tell you that I ended up with dahua oem and hikvision oem ip poe cameras for my core system.
Since then newer models are out, many which members here even review.
If you want a cheap setup that is fine .. just do not expect great results in low light conditions.
And politics about various topics are in the chit chat area. Yes retail theft is up .. and part of the counter to that is security cameras .. but you also need the authorities to behave reasonably to help counter theft also
i do not no why they bash them they have good wifi range decent video the newer ones work with edge browser i do not have any problems with the 3 i own
Can you provide us an example of this decent video at night under low light conditions with motion like a car or person passing by?
mat200
IPCT Contributor
- Jan 17, 2017
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Yes @stoneyc please post an example of what you view as decent low light image and video captures with the reolink cameras you have.
Definitely need to see a good moving suspect or subject in low light. So far Reolink cameras in general I have seen very poor low light image captures. I've posted numerous images from reolink cameras in the various threads for reference.
unsped
n3wb
as someone who has color4k T and T180 cameras, the CX410 is not bad at all for night performance and works fine with frigate. The CX810 is still on a 1/8" sensor so I suspect this will be a step backwards. the reolink nvr's have an intuitive interface and work well, and the mobile app is pretty good albeit missing events lists and rich notifications.
Sybertiger
Known around here
If you just want to know what time of day the crime was committed then Reolink is the way to go. A cheaper route for "deterrence" would be to install a fake camera with a blinking LED. Yes, I still see people do this....LOL!
If that isn't good enough then doing it right is probably the way to go and you've been given some good advice on that and where a good source for cameras is.
Or, you can open up a UPS Store mailbox account (or equivalent) then go to the UPS Store to pick up your packages when they email/text you that a package has come in.
Many thieves don't even care anymore about cameras. They just put a hoodie on and a Covid mask on even if it's 95 degrees. As you pointed out, many retail stores have thieves just pile the goods into a cart then wheel it out without attempting to cover up their identity. Many on this forum go through great lengths to conceal their cams. Personally, I like for them to be seen hoping that deterrence may still be a factor with some crooks.
And for all those people is places where the cops don't care and shoplifting is acceptable because the retail stores just jack up prices so you pay for losses I'd advise moving. I hate it for the good people in that situation but I don't think I could stay. Or maybe people will learn to vote correctly....probably not.
Bill Gates
n3wb
Reolink cameras are really good at day time, but they have 2 issues.
1. They suck at night
2. Reolink forces you to stay with Reolink brands (although I've heard you can use other NVRs and the likes but it is more of a hassle to work with, not your average joe friendly in this case).
Reolink promises to change their crappy color night vision with their colorX models. Hopefully more reviews will come out for the cx810 to show its capabilities, as other pointed out cx410 isn't a bad camera. But reolink is still young in their color night vision models.
I guess the pros of owning a reolink system is that it will be cheaper. You can get a colorX for $100 USD. Sure, reolink can have its place, depends on the situation that you are in and what you want to achieve.
1. They suck at night
2. Reolink forces you to stay with Reolink brands (although I've heard you can use other NVRs and the likes but it is more of a hassle to work with, not your average joe friendly in this case).
Reolink promises to change their crappy color night vision with their colorX models. Hopefully more reviews will come out for the cx810 to show its capabilities, as other pointed out cx410 isn't a bad camera. But reolink is still young in their color night vision models.
I guess the pros of owning a reolink system is that it will be cheaper. You can get a colorX for $100 USD. Sure, reolink can have its place, depends on the situation that you are in and what you want to achieve.
Hey, bot...you copied and pasted line 7 from @mat200 's post above.
@Teken called you out on another thread. Hey @Mike, are you seeing this? It's another bot.
alastairstevenson
Staff member