Reolink - good & bad

[ipOsX]

Reolink should be avoided at all costs. How can you trust a company who actively lies? They are scum. To top it off the use shitty sensors and have defective firmware.

Most companies lie. Hikvision claims to support MacOs. All NVRs are sold deceptively imo. "Special offers" are often discontinued stock or stock with dubious provenance. Amazon is full of lies.

Meanwhile, Reolink are opening up the entry level market from which others, including Blue Iris, will profit sooner or later.

 

[fenderman]

Most companies lie. Hikvision claims to support MacOs. All NVRs are sold deceptively imo. "Special offers" are often discontinued stock or stock with dubious provenance. Amazon is full of lies.

Meanwhile, Reolink are opening up the entry level market from which others, including Blue Iris, will profit sooner or later.

Big difference. Reolink employees came to this site and posted fake reviews as pretending they were end users. They further lied to their users about issues with iframe intervals. Blue iris doesnt need reolink shit. Reolink cameras are NOT compatible with blue iris. Anyone selling hik on amazon is not an authorized seller. You are confusing sellers with the manufacture. Reolink is sold by scammers to clueless suckers like yourself who dont know this space and dont know any better.

 

[ipOsX]

Big difference. Reolink employees came to this site and posted fake reviews as pretending they were end users. They further lied to their users about issues with iframe intervals. Blue iris doesnt need reolink shit. Reolink cameras are NOT compatible with blue iris. Anyone selling hik on amazon is not an authorized seller. You are confusing sellers with the manufacture. Reolink is sold by scammers to clueless suckers like yourself who dont know this space and dont know any better.

I doubt they were the first to do that and they probably won't be the last. Forums and marketplaces are peppered with fake reviews. It's endemic. It would be heartening to hear that Blue Iris is the only software/service vendor which has never posted a fake review about itself.

I'm not confused. Hikvision - who make 8 of my cameras - hooked me in by assuring me that they supported MacOs, which turned out to be 90% untrue.

Reolink customers may well be verging on clueless. Most of them are novices. They don't have the inclination or the ability to learn how to install and use Hik or Dahua cameras - nor do they yet need 90% of the bells and whistles you pay for with semi-pro kit. From what I read, most Reolink customers are satisfied with their purchase/value for money and it's a waste of time trying to tell satisfied punters that they made a mistake.

I know what the shortcomings of my two Reolink wi-fi cams are but I also know what they are good at and I know how little they cost. Unfortunately I can't say the same about their POE zoom cams which I rapidly sent back to Reolink for a refund. And refunds are quick and painless - which should be a recipe for disaster if the company were making false claims.

 

[fenderman]

I doubt they were the first to do that and they probably won't be the last. Forums and marketplaces are peppered with fake reviews. It's endemic. It would be heartening to hear that Blue Iris is the only software/service vendor which has never posted a fake review about itself.

I'm not confused. Hikvision - who make 8 of my cameras - hooked me in by assuring me that they supported MacOs, which turned out to be 90% untrue.

Reolink customers may well be verging on clueless. Most of them are novices. They don't have the inclination or the ability to learn how to install and use Hik or Dahua cameras - nor do they yet need 90% of the bells and whistles you pay for with semi-pro kit. From what I read, most Reolink customers are satisfied with their purchase/value for money and it's a waste of time trying to tell satisfied punters that they made a mistake.

I know what the shortcomings of my two Reolink wi-fi cams are but I also know what they are good at and I know how little they cost. Unfortunately I can't say the same about their POE zoom cams which I rapidly sent back to Reolink for a refund. And refunds are quick and painless - which should be a recipe for disaster if the company were making false claims.

Too bad you didnt test 1 hik camera before you went ahead and purchased 8. You dont windows to install a hik camera. You can do it with IOS.
Hik didnt assure you of anything. In fact, hivision wants nothing to do with inexperienced end users like you. As far as reolink satisfaction, you read wrong. What you read is their FAKE amazon reviews. There is a reason they have a C rating on fakespot. They are making false claims. Reolink made false onvif compatibility claims as well. I cannot stress enough what a shitty company reolink is and that they should be avoided at all costs. You should literally buy anything but reolink.

 

[cyberwolf_uk]

The iframe is a full frame as opposed to a pframe that consists of only the changes in the image. When using triggered recording, blue iris requires an iframe to begin the recording. If your I frame is 10 times your frame rate, you will miss 10 seconds of the recording unless you set your pretrigger to more than 10 seconds. The problem with reolink is you have no idea what the iframe inteval is because you cannot set it and im guessing its dynamic like with smart codecs. Long iframe will also cause video tearing in BI. BI also requires you to set iframe intervals to match your fps for other functions like email mp4 notifications. The help file calls this Key Frames.
Most importantly, reolink sells cameras with shitty sensors and form factors. You might as well buy from any other company who doesnt lie on forums or to its end users.

@fenderman I'm glad you posted the above... I have a friend who has brought three of these in the past 30 days! I kept telling them not to buy these, but you know when somebody just knows better! They were getting 50% off coupons being sent to them so they just couldn't help themselves. I tried to explain if a company is giving you 50% off then the product is either sh1t or overpriced in the first place... Fast forward a couple of weeks now asking me for help with BlurIris

I may just send the expert this link

 

[Daniel Ripley]

The iframe is a full frame as opposed to a pframe that consists of only the changes in the image. When using triggered recording, blue iris requires an iframe to begin the recording. If your I frame is 10 times your frame rate, you will miss 10 seconds of the recording unless you set your pretrigger to more than 10 seconds. The problem with reolink is you have no idea what the iframe inteval is because you cannot set it and im guessing its dynamic like with smart codecs. Long iframe will also cause video tearing in BI. BI also requires you to set iframe intervals to match your fps for other functions like email mp4 notifications. The help file calls this Key Frames.
Most importantly, reolink sells cameras with shitty sensors and form factors. You might as well buy from any other company who doesnt lie on forums or to its end users.

Thanks for explaining this. In my case as Im sure for many its the case the only reason I got a camera is because Iv had security issues where iv had attempted break in, damage, and my car was broken into on my drive. While these are legitimate reasons to own a security camera Im sure there are some who just love tech and find this kind of thing as a hobby or past time. Not everyone knows, understand or cares about the tech hece why some buy cheaper cameras to later learn the buy cheap buy twice lesson. Reolink are not the cheapest out there, there are far worse so I think for many Reolink fits the happy medium between crazy expensive to stupid cheap.

From what you describe I may have had some issues and not known they where down to the camera but thought was Blueiris. One such issues is I do at times lose some frames, but it didnt make any difference when someone hanged around for more than 10 or so seconds. Tearing, cant say Iv had that, delay in push notifications I do get a long delay, could this be down to iframe?

I have a 5mp dome, and a PTZ for back of house both Reolink, they do the job and far surpassed my first option which was Arlo Pro 2 system, now they where overpriced, buggy, under spec compared to what I have now at a fraction of the price. As far as set up was concerned it was simple, there was zero issues, Blue iris took care of all the set up finding the cameras and setting up the server. Im a hands on tech kind of person so I dont mind having a fiddle with things like this, but it was simple to get going, and Reolink where always polite, and fast to respond, hence why I got a PTZ from them.

Dan

 

[JK200SX]

Ok, this hasn't been covered in this thread, but I'll give it a go.

I'm a novice with cameras and just recently setup BI. BI was appealing as I'm a bit of a tinkerer when it comes to tech. When i first setup BI, I ended up purchasing a Dahua bullet and worked quite good, albeit quite expensive. What I did find was that I could stream the Dahua onto the IP Camera Viewer Pro app on a Roku streaming device, and this was a great way that anyone at home could quickly see what was happening by just going on the telly, rather than a pc. Then as part of my reading research, I decided to buya Reolink RLC-410-5MP, for an area that wasn't as critical as where the Dahua was. The review that help me decide on purchasing one of these:
Easy to setup and daytime picture is great. Didn't know much about the I-frame thingy, but come to think of it I have noticed some delayed recording and I'll look into this later.

However, one of the things I noticed was that I was able to finally connect up to the IP camera viewer on the Roku, which was another big plus. After a bit more tinkering, I found out that these cams are google/alexa compatible and have been great in that you can just automatically stream a camera to a TV through a chromecast just buy talking out aloud to the google speaker. I think you can also setup the Reolinks through IFTTT to automate other functions. These little quirks just make the device a little more interactive for the family.

I do need to get a few more cameras; these ones need to be better such as the Dahuas. However, I was wondering if there is any of the other high end brands that offer the integration similar to the Reolink camera's?

 

[fenderman]

Ok, this hasn't been covered in this thread, but I'll give it a go.

I'm a novice with cameras and just recently setup BI. BI was appealing as I'm a bit of a tinkerer when it comes to tech. When i first setup BI, I ended up purchasing a Dahua bullet and worked quite good, albeit quite expensive. What I did find was that I could stream the Dahua onto the IP Camera Viewer Pro app on a Roku streaming device, and this was a great way that anyone at home could quickly see what was happening by just going on the telly, rather than a pc. Then as part of my reading research, I decided to buya Reolink RLC-410-5MP, for an area that wasn't as critical as where the Dahua was. The review that help me decide on purchasing one of these:
Easy to setup and daytime picture is great. Didn't know much about the I-frame thingy, but come to think of it I have noticed some delayed recording and I'll look into this later.

However, one of the things I noticed was that I was able to finally connect up to the IP camera viewer on the Roku, which was another big plus. After a bit more tinkering, I found out that these cams are google/alexa compatible and have been great in that you can just automatically stream a camera to a TV through a chromecast just buy talking out aloud to the google speaker. I think you can also setup the Reolinks through IFTTT to automate other functions. These little quirks just make the device a little more interactive for the family.

I do need to get a few more cameras; these ones need to be better such as the Dahuas. However, I was wondering if there is any of the other high end brands that offer the integration similar to the Reolink camera's?

Your link to the fake review on youtube has been removed. That review is spam. It is discussed elsewhere on the forum. He deliberately uses skews the reviews using different size lenses (of course there will be less detail in the 2.8mm lens vs a 3.6/4mm lens with similar resolution) and does not mention large sensor cameras available from the competition. Not to mention using still images in which reolink firmware cheats. Reolink is a lying spamming company and the youtube "reviewer" is either inept or a shill. I will let you choose.

 

[JK200SX]

Ok, fair enough, I thought the reviews seemed legit. On the other topic, which other wired cams have integration with google home?

 

[Snaffs]

Feel I need to post something here, as I'd bought a couple of Reolink 5mp Turrents (420) a while ago, and also a really nice 8mp 4K Hikvision Turret.
To the average consumers, there is little in it, build wise. Both pretty much all white painted metal. Same position of SD Card slot. The Reolink has a microphone which is nice.
Basically the Hikvision looks like a scaled up Reolink.

Software/app size, I'd have to give the win to Reolink here.
This may sound harsh, but HikVision should be ashamed of themselves when it comes to software, esp in 2020 when it has advanced so much.
I understand it's not supposed to be home user stuff, but still. It looks more 1990's than 2000's
That's actually my BIGGEST complain with HikVision. Amazin hardware, but come on people. fire your software team and get it up to speed for a modern offering.
Even a guy at works £29 iGeek home 3mp camera has software which does things Hikvision can't

Anyway, with that out the way, and back to the two cameras.

I have to be fair here and say, without any question whatsoever Hikvision is the best quality image with the most adjustments by far.
No question about it. HikVision Camera quality is amazing.

However, I need to be honest here, and say, the Reolink is pretty resonable.
And I have to take into account the Hikvision was about FOUR times the price, per camera of the Reolink, and you must take this into consideration.

I mean you'd not complain that a £20,000 car was not as good as an £80,000 car.

Is the reolink as good? No.
Is the night vision as good? No.
Is the daytime vision as good? No, but it's not a million miles away.

Is the reolink mobile phone app, more user friendly to a normal person? 100% yes (HikVision you should be ashamed)

Before I fixed camera's into position I set them up by my front door, simply to run a comparison test.
The sun to the right hand side,

Below are 100% zoomed in crops of both camera's. With stock settings. I have since make little adjustments to both.
Whilst this does not tell the whole story, for a 4x price difference, it's hard to say reolink is rubbish.

Welcome your thoughts: (and yes I use a letter/number printour stuck my my t-shirt to test readability)

I had both camera's set, pointing the exact same direction, both running at the same time, and took the photo's seconds apart.

 

[alastairstevenson]

This may sound harsh, but HikVision should be ashamed of themselves when it comes to software, esp in 2020 when it has advanced so much.
I understand it's not supposed to be home user stuff, but still. It looks more 1990's than 2000's

For cosmetic or functionality aspects?

Even a guy at works £29 iGeek home 3mp camera has software which does things Hikvision can't

That implies functionality.
Examples of missing capabilities?

 

[Snaffs]

Oh, I'm not for one moment comparing, the guy at works cheap camera against a hikvision.
But when he was saying about getting it to recognise sound differences between a bady crying and dog barking, and people moving vs other things, and my Hikvision is beeping all day every time a tree moves a bit, I was like.... hmmmmm.

Just in case you think I am, I'm not in any way having a go at HikVision hardware. It just feels a high end quality product.
Though if I am honest, I felt the same about my Nest Hello doorbell, that also feels a very quality product (and should be for the price of it !!!!)

I don't think honest, anyone could say the HikVision mobile apps are anywhere near as good as they should be.
It's a crying shame. Hardware = stunning. Software (for a modern 2020 smart-home AI (Google/Apple) level it's not even close.

Yes, I know we can always use the "well it's made for buisiness/company use" as an excuse, but really that's a poor excuse IMHO.
We all, as individuals enjoy the best of class software on our mobile devices for all manner of product we own at home. So why should be not hold such an excellent hardware company such as HikVision to the same level of expectation?

Just looking at the reviews of the Hikvison 4200 app on the android store is terrible, even installers saying how bad it is......
Please, I just wish for it to be better.

 

[PrincessClevage]

For better power camera and Argus 2 I am yet to find one that has a open api or has means to remote arm/disarm from a central automation hub which would make alerting much more accurate and save battery than simple set scheduling ( no one uses the app to manually arm/disarm) every time their premises is empty )

 

[fenderman]

For better power camera and Argus 2 I am yet to find one that has a open api or has means to remote arm/disarm from a central automation hub which would make alerting much more accurate and save battery than simple set scheduling ( no one uses the app to manually arm/disarm) every time their premises is empty )

So dont use a batter power crap camera. Reolink is junk and a lying spamming company.

 

[Snaffs]

So dont use a batter power crap camera. Reolink is junk and a lying spamming company.

Fully appreciate your viewpoint, and why you say that.
However, I must be fair and having both Reolink an Hikvision as a home user to test, there are positives and negatives in both.
Build quality, image quality and adjustments, etc, an easy win for Hikvision. 100% agree.
yet, the Reolink mobile app, is quite a polished piece of software now, and for a normal person, it's head a shoulders above what Hikvision offers.
Hell, the Hikconnect app is not even on the app store anymore, leaving you with the 4200 app which has terrible reviews.

Fully appreciate this may not be of concern to some, but nonetheless it is a shame the software is not given as much love and attention as the hardware.
Also to be fair, we need to consider pricing, if it's 2x or 3x the cost per camera, then this should be considered.

Like i'd not say a £200 phone is rubbish if I'm comparing it to a £600 phone.

Honestly right now I want more cameras, but the banning of the HikVision app, and the utter disgrace of the 4200 app is stopping me from making my purchase right now as I'd like to know what they are planning to do. And I would hope they take the mobile apps seriously one day, in 2020 people expect good apps, with some polish and finish. Not something which looks like it was written 5 to 10 years ago.

 

[fenderman]

Fully appreciate your viewpoint, and why you say that.
However, I must be fair and having both Reolink an Hikvision as a home user to test, there are positives and negatives in both.
Build quality, image quality and adjustments, etc, an easy win for Hikvision. 100% agree.
yet, the Reolink mobile app, is quite a polished piece of software now, and for a normal person, it's head a shoulders above what Hikvision offers.
Hell, the Hikconnect app is not even on the app store anymore, leaving you with the 4200 app which has terrible reviews.

Fully appreciate this may not be of concern to some, but nonetheless it is a shame the software is not given as much love and attention as the hardware.
Also to be fair, we need to consider pricing, if it's 2x or 3x the cost per camera, then this should be considered.

Like i'd not say a £200 phone is rubbish if I'm comparing it to a £600 phone.

Honestly right now I want more cameras, but the banning of the HikVision app, and the utter disgrace of the 4200 app is stopping me from making my purchase right now as I'd like to know what they are planning to do. And I would hope they take the mobile apps seriously one day, in 2020 people expect good apps, with some polish and finish. Not something which looks like it was written 5 to 10 years ago.

There are no positive to reolink. Hikvsion makes crappy cameras as well, you need to purchase the correct models. If you would, you would know how shitty reolink really is. Reolink does not make a single camera that is good in low light. Their firmware is utter shit not allowing for iframe interval adjustments making them incompatible with blue iris and other pc based vms.
I hope you are not using reolinks p2p or port forwarding their mobile app. If you have you likely have already been hacked. Most users here are not using any shitty apps by manufactures but rather a pc based vms.
I dont know why you think the hikvision app was banned. That is simply a false statement. If you want a pretty app buy a ring camera and suffer the consequences. Since you are using reolink you have already evidence that you prefer looks and price over function.
Dont forget reolink spammed this forum, lied about it, lied to their end users about the reason why they dont have iframe interval adjustments and they purposely have their cameras increase exposure to 1/12 at night to falsely suggest a clear night image but the result is a blur when the subject is moving.

 

[m1rc34O]

There are no positive to reolink. Hikvsion makes crappy cameras as well, you need to purchase the correct models. If you would, you would know how shitty reolink really is. Reolink does not make a single camera that is good in low light. Their firmware is utter shit not allowing for iframe interval adjustments making them incompatible with blue iris and other pc based vms.
I hope you are not using reolinks p2p or port forwarding their mobile app. If you have you likely have already been hacked. Most users here are not using any shitty apps by manufactures but rather a pc based vms.
I dont know why you think the hikvision app was banned. That is simply a false statement. If you want a pretty app buy a ring camera and suffer the consequences. Since you are using reolink you have already evidence that you prefer looks and price over function.
Dont forget reolink spammed this forum, lied about it, lied to their end users about the reason why they dont have iframe interval adjustments and they purposely have their cameras increase exposure to 1/12 at night to falsely suggest a clear night image but the result is a blur when the subject is moving.

I was looking for comparison between Reolink and something else because I want to put some security cameras in my newly created house. I see that in almost all the pages you state how bad Reolink is but I somehow fail to see a side by side comparison made by somebody. Also technology is advancing, but no matter how many years are passing you state the same. This is not helping me too much. I want to look more over Dahua stuff but somehow I'm not able to find many reviews of their cameras let alone comparisons of the cameras.
When somebody is comparing Reolink with something else, are they comparing them in the same pricepoint or not because price point is the key here. Everything must be compared in the category price point, otherwise the comparison is not fair. So no 2k to 4k caparisons and no 100$ vs 200$ comparisons?
I just seen some reviews with Dahua cameras that were not so impressive as stated here.
So I'm very confused.

I don't work for anybody in the security industry, I just try to be informed when I purchase a system.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Look at this thread. Reolink is total crap. A smooth, attractive, app is useless if the video s crap to begin with. Dahua and Hikvision are not consumer grade products and neither of them are interested in supporting the consumer as fenderman has mentioned multiple times. Comparing a mid level Dahua or Hikvision to a Reolink is like comparing a limousine to a skateboard. Nice still shots are meaningless. The most important shot is night motion with NO blurring. Reolink is simply not capable of that unless you have the place lit up like a ball field with a game in progress.

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

 

[VorlonFrog]

I was looking for comparison between Reolink and something else because I want to put some security cameras in my newly created house. I see that in almost all the pages you state how bad Reolink is but I somehow fail to see a side by side comparison made by somebody. Also technology is advancing, but no matter how many years are passing you state the same. This is not helping me too much. I want to look more over Dahua stuff but somehow I'm not able to find many reviews of their cameras let alone comparisons of the cameras.
When somebody is comparing Reolink with something else, are they comparing them in the same pricepoint or not because price point is the key here. Everything must be compared in the category price point, otherwise the comparison is not fair. So no 2k to 4k caparisons and no 100$ vs 200$ comparisons?
I just seen some reviews with Dahua cameras that were not so impressive as stated here.
So I'm very confused.

I don't work for anybody in the security industry, I just try to be informed when I purchase a system.

You won't find too many side-by-side comparisons of Reolink hardware with anything else, especially not here. I'm one of the earliest users here of a Reolink camera, and I got rid of it pretty damned quick. Their product is crappy, their support is worse, and they lied and spammed this forum for months. That alone should tell you something about them and their products.

 

[wittaj]

In addition to the great thread above that has pieced it all together collectively from members here with those cameras not working, this is an example from their marketing videos - do you see a person in this picture...yes, there is a person in this picture. This is why you cannot buy any system that you cannot change the shutter speed or control any other parameter. Could this provide anything useful for the police? 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