Reolink - good & bad

All of the Reolinks I have are bullets. And the spider problem is massively annoying, for sure! But as you point out, any bullet will likely be the same. Switching off the built-in IR should help a lot, but with the Reolinks I have, you cannot force the IR off. I did modify one by opening it up and making a foil-cut on the IR board so that it would still be able to switch from color to B&W, but never emit any IR. I have not tried this to see if it helps with the spider webs or not.

I'm not sure if the IR actually attracts the spiders, or if it's just the fact that with the bullet camera, the spiders can spin webs from the little "shade" down over the lens, and thus, have a web exactly the right space away from the lens and the IR illuminators that they light the web up really bright! The eyeball style or turret style cameras with built-in IR would not show the webs nearly as much because the webs would actually be in direct contact with the lens and the illuminators, and the light from the illuminator can't shine on the part of the web that's in view of the lens. I've thought about cutting the "shade" off of one of the bullets to see if that's all it is. Where I have a few, they're in under eaves, and don't need the little shade gizmo anyhow. On the Reolinks, I'll have to saw the shade off of the front section of the housing. They're not a separate piece. But if I was going to do that to any camera, it would be one of the Reolinks that I'd sacrifice to the cause!
 
EMPIRETECANDY said:
OK Guys, calm down. Not every guy can buy dahua or Hikvision for home security, actually speaking Reolink price not cheap, if can cost little more get a fancy system why not. For those 20-30usd cams, those just toys. Amazon has many fake review, to buy there just watch the 1-2 stars review, they are the real thing.
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Thank you Andy. I TRY to steer as many people as I can, your way :-) Un-fortunately, US Government passed a law recently, banning several Chinese IP Cams from government facilities and Dahua is one of them, so that has left a lot of people here leery of buying them due to previous security flaws (even though that either have work-arounds, or have since been fixed.) I'm pretty sure Reolink should be on that list,though, as well as Lorex, which if I'm not mistake, is owned by Dahua anyways, lol. Along w/ Honeywell, etc. :-P
 
J Sigmo said:
All of the Reolinks I have are bullets. And the spider problem is massively annoying, for sure! But as you point out, any bullet will likely be the same. Switching off the built-in IR should help a lot, but with the Reolinks I have, you cannot force the IR off. I did modify one by opening it up and making a foil-cut on the IR board so that it would still be able to switch from color to B&W, but never emit any IR. I have not tried this to see if it helps with the spider webs or not.

I'm not sure if the IR actually attracts the spiders, or if it's just the fact that with the bullet camera, the spiders can spin webs from the little "shade" down over the lens, and thus, have a web exactly the right space away from the lens and the IR illuminators that they light the web up really bright! The eyeball style or turret style cameras with built-in IR would not show the webs nearly as much because the webs would actually be in direct contact with the lens and the illuminators, and the light from the illuminator can't shine on the part of the web that's in view of the lens. I've thought about cutting the "shade" off of one of the bullets to see if that's all it is. Where I have a few, they're in under eaves, and don't need the little shade gizmo anyhow. On the Reolinks, I'll have to saw the shade off of the front section of the housing. They're not a separate piece. But if I was going to do that to any camera, it would be one of the Reolinks that I'd sacrifice to the cause!
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Yeah, the newer Reolink that I have has firmware w/ an IR on/off toggle. It's the Zoom version 5MP. The jury is still out on whether or not the turrets improve the spider webs enough to warrant doing just turrets (all my mounted cameras are turrets except one). Per other good advice on this forum, running in color only (full-color starlight anyone? :-) ) or using an external IR illluminator is the only real way to solve the problem.

What does work, regardless of the camera, is to be diligent about brushing the webs away. The spiders eventually get tired of building there and move on. But you have to stay on it (which isn't always practical for "THOSE PEOPLE" lol)
 
No average person has heard of dahua or even knows of the ban. The ban is political (which i agree with) but has nothing to do with security as is evident by the fact that there is no requirement to remove existing cameras and that companies that rebrand xiongmai (with repeat security issues that they intentionally fail to plug) as well as most other china companies are not on the list and their cameras are more vulnerable than any hik or dahua.
 
Burton_Flooring said:
Thank you Andy. I TRY to steer as many people as I can, your way :) Un-fortunately, US Government passed a law recently, banning several Chinese IP Cams from government facilities and Dahua is one of them, so that has left a lot of people here leery of buying them due to previous security flaws (even though that either have work-arounds, or have since been fixed.) I'm pretty sure Reolink should be on that list,though, as well as Lorex, which if I'm not mistake, is owned by Dahua anyways, lol. Along w/ Honeywell, etc. :p
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US gov can't use them, like here Chinese military or officers can't use iPhone, or any other overseas brands. Only can use Huawei. But for me, i always use iPhone
 
fenderman said:
No average person has heard of dahua or even knows of the ban. The ban is political (which i agree with) but has nothing to do with security as is evident by the fact that there is no requirement to remove existing cameras and that companies that rebrand xiongmai (with repeat security issues that they intentionally fail to plug) as well as most other china companies are not on the list and their cameras are more vulnerable than any hik or dahua.
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Yes, it's actually kind of humorous. There was news though, of a military installation being hacked (only nerds would know, lol) and several companies losing contracts to install the systems because of it.

“The ban itself will not have substantial impact on the company’s business. But due to its unclear points and semantic ambiguity in some terms, the bill might generate broader interpretations, which could extend the ban from federal agencies to non-federal installations [from using our products],” Hikvision said in a statement on Friday.

China’s top two surveillance camera makers take beating from US ban

House of Representatives Passes Bill Banning Government Use of Chinese Surveillance Gear -- Security Today

Ban of Dahua and Hikvision Is Now US Gov Law
 
Burton_Flooring said:
Yes, it's actually kind of humorous. There was news though, of a military installation being hacked (only nerds would know, lol) and several companies losing contracts to install the systems because of it.

“The ban itself will not have substantial impact on the company’s business. But due to its unclear points and semantic ambiguity in some terms, the bill might generate broader interpretations, which could extend the ban from federal agencies to non-federal installations [from using our products],” Hikvision said in a statement on Friday.

China’s top two surveillance camera makers take beating from US ban

House of Representatives Passes Bill Banning Government Use of Chinese Surveillance Gear -- Security Today

Ban of Dahua and Hikvision Is Now US Gov Law
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The ban has been covered extensively on this forum. There has not been US military installation that has been hacked. All your links are to industry sites. No average user reads them. Its important to note that ANY camera device should be blocked from internet access and treated as a threat regardless of vendor. Hik and dahua are actually much more secure then these smaller no name china crap brands because folks are trying to find vulnerabilities in them.
 
fenderman said:
The ban has been covered extensively on this forum. There has been US military installation that has been hacked. All your links are to industry sites. No average user reads them. Its important to note that ANY camera device should be blocked from internet access and treated as a threat regardless of vendor. Hik and dahua are actually much more secure then these smaller no name china crap brands because folks are trying to find vulnerabilities in them.
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Yes I agree.
 
EMPIRETECANDY said:
OK Guys, calm down. Not every guy can buy dahua or Hikvision for home security, actually speaking Reolink price not cheap, if can cost little more get a fancy system why not. For those 20-30usd cams, those just toys. Amazon has many fake review, to buy there just watch the 1-2 stars review, they are the real thing.
Click to expand...
Most people are not well informed about all of this. So they just buy what they see advertised on TV, or what the local stores sell, or what they find on Amazon, etc.

Have you ever tried a website called "Fakespot.com"? I use that site a LOT to check the reviews on Amazon. It's surprising how many of the reviews are "fake" or "low quality" as they put it. Amazon shares a lot of the responsibility for not properly policing the reviews. But they only do what makes them the most money, of course. ;)

Burton_Flooring said:
Yeah, the newer Reolink that I have has firmware w/ an IR on/off toggle. It's the Zoom version 5MP. The jury is still out on whether or not the turrets improve the spider webs enough to warrant doing just turrets (all my mounted cameras are turrets except one). Per other good advice on this forum, running in color only (full-color starlight anyone? :) ) or using an external IR illluminator is the only real way to solve the problem.

What does work, regardless of the camera, is to be diligent about brushing the webs away. The spiders eventually get tired of building there and move on. But you have to stay on it (which isn't always practical for "THOSE PEOPLE" lol)
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I have one location where I have several Reolinks and one Dahua starlight. We have a porch light that stays on all night, and the Reolinks fire up their IR illuminators when they switch over to B&W mode. The porch light is enough to keep the Dahua Starlight from ever switching over to B&W mode, so it does remain in color mode all night, while all of the Reolinks are switched to B&W. (All are set with their default "medium" settings for switching between B&W and Color).

But if I force the Dahua into B&W mode, it benefits from the IR illuminators in the Reolinks, and has a lovely B&W IR image due to the very even lighting that this "array" of IR illuminators throws!

I do think using an external IR illuminator or white light illumination that is separate from the camera will always be better than using any built-in IR illumination, regardless of the camera style. But the bullets really suffer from the spiders here.

Our spiders are recidivists. They never learn! I've cleaned the cameras in question at least once per day all summer. The only thing that slowed them down was a recent very cold spell (down to 15°F at night for a few nights). But it's warmed up again, and they're back! :)

fenderman said:
No average person has heard of dahua or even knows of the ban. The ban is political (which i agree with) but has nothing to do with security as is evident by the fact that there is no requirement to remove existing cameras and that companies that rebrand xiongmai (with repeat security issues that they intentionally fail to plug) as well as most other china companies are not on the list and their cameras are more vulnerable than any hik or dahua.
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And none of these cameras, DVRs, industrial controllers, etc., should be "exposed" directly to the internet, anyhow. So one would hope that secure government and military installations have their camera systems properly disconnected from the internet, regardless of what brand of cameras they're using.
 
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Burton_Flooring said:
P. S. - I beleive their updated product is a 5 Megapixel sensor (very similar if not the same to the HDW-2531R-ZS) when you look at their products, these are "night and day" better than the 4MP ones they replaced. They are now only selling the 5 Megapixel (just a way better camera).

NOT starlight quality at night, but for HOME use in WELL LIT areas, they're fine. They are also wireless, which makes a lot of people happy that are not savvy enough to know how to create and run CAT5e ethernet across their house.
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I had just the opposite experience. I have an RLC-410S 4MP version and when I bought a second unit, it was the 5 MP version.

First, the lens on the reolink is not good enough to resolve the full 4 mp in the first place so the extra resolution is lost.
Second, the 5 MP sensor is WAY worse at night than the 4 mph sensor so it's pretty much a downgrade. I can only speculate why they changed the sensor but it's not an improvement.
 
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sorka said:
...I can only speculate why they changed the sensor but it's not an improvement.
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Marketing ploy. :)

The average consumer thinks that more pixels is always better.

Camera nuts tend to believe that larger pixels are always better.

Of course the truth is somewhere in between for a number of reasons.

But still, regardless of whether or not the extra photosites do any actual good, megapixels sell. ;)
 
sorka said:
I had just the opposite experience. I have an RLC-410S 4MP version and when I bought a second unit, it was the 5 MP version.

First, the lens on the reolink is not good enough to resolve the full 4 mp in the first place so the extra resolution is lost.
Second, the 5 MP sensor is WAY worse at night than the 4 mph sensor so it's pretty much a downgrade. I can only speculate why they changed the sensor but it's not an improvement.
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Interesting. Obviously my RLC-411 has better optics with which to utilize the 5MP. Good to know! Thank you @sorka for sharing :-)
 
Burton_Flooring said:
Interesting. Obviously my RLC-411 has better optics with which to utilize the 5MP. Good to know! Thank you @sorka for sharing :)
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I have one 410, 411, and 423(the larger PTZ one with the big lens).

Not one of them has optics good enough to resolve more than half the resolution. Not even the RLC-423.

The 410 comes close for objects that are 10 feet away as that's where the focus is. It's soft for objects closer or further away.
The 411 has auto focus but the overall crispness is compromised because the low quality of the optics is more obvious when you go through a multi focal lens that has more glass between the outside and the sensor.

Brighter scenes suffer less as the iris is closed down for those. Night time on all of them suck.

You might think they look fine until you compare them to my Hikvision cameras that are vastly superior in image quality at only 1920x1080.
 
sorka said:
I have one 410, 411, and 423(the larger PTZ one with the big lens).

Not one of them has optics good enough to resolve more than half the resolution. Not even the RLC-423.

The 410 comes close for objects that are 10 feet away as that's where the focus is. It's soft for objects closer or further away.
The 411 has auto focus but the overall crispness is compromised because the low quality of the optics is more obvious when you go through a multi focal lens that has more glass between the outside and the sensor.

Brighter scenes suffer less as the iris is closed down for those. Night time on all of them suck.

You might think they look fine until you compare them to my Hikvision cameras that are vastly superior in image quality at only 1920x1080.
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Oh, on the contrary, I totally agree, that's why I'm running Dahua's now :) Those Swann/Reolink cameras are only good down to a certain lighting level, which is where Dahua picks up the torch and Hikvision, and carry on where the other companies revel in mediocrity, lol.

I have Swann NHD-817's flashed to RLC-423 firmware as well :-)
 
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mat200 said:
FYI - for not much more than what Reolink is asking for their bullet cameras you can get some significantly nicer Hikvision OEM ( rebranded as Swann ) bullet cameras -

4x for "4K" / 8MP cameras - for $250
Swann 4K Ultra HD Bullet Outdoor Security Camera with EXIR LED IR Night Vision - 4 Pack Bundle (Plain Box Packaging)

Note - they sold out of the "4K" turret awhile back at $120 each ( the form factor many prefer here over the bullets )
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Just make sure and check if you have gain controls. Hikvision stupidly disabled them on their last firmware update . Not sure about the Swann rebrands. (Swann rarely updates or fixes anything).
 
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