Why is REOLINK JUNK?

[mat200]

FYI - here's a screen capture from a video posted on a Reolink product page on Amazon "Reolink Captures-Halloween Dancer"



This was from a Halloween night, and the subject is a trick or treater - his guardian was dancing prior to this screen shot and you can clearly see the quality difference between moving and non-moving objects.

 

[Arjun]

I think this conversation needs to end here, lol A picture contains thousand words. In other words, "Avoid at all cost"

FYI - here's a screen capture from a video posted on a Reolink product page on Amazon "Reolink Captures-Halloween Dancer"

View attachment 53584

This was from a Halloween night, and the subject is a trick or treater - his guardian was dancing prior to this screen shot and you can clearly see the quality difference between moving and non-moving objects.

 

[mat200]

I wanted to include a couple more stills from a video capture that was linked to on a Reolink product page.

I've included the Amazon URL for reference

 

[GBJames]

You missed the other two more important reasons, 1 - defective firmware, 2- poor image sensors that dont do well in low light.
Its more than just fake online reviews on amazon (which they do), a reolink employee came to this forum, posted fake praise then the lied about it when I called them out.
The cameras are shit. There are much better options that will get you a fantastic image. Reolink is for suckers.

Why do you say he missed the other two reasons? He clearly said that he assumes the other things you say are true.

 

[fenderman]

Why do you say he missed the other two reasons? He clearly said that he assumes the other things you say are true.

If you want to nitpick the Poor image sensor and defective is not a quality issue. It’s working as designed. they intentionally removed the I-frame interval setting. Your late post is much appreciated

 

[cdoublejj]

i like my ReoLink 420-5MP so much that i bought 4 more for other projects! They were ridiculously cheap. so even if they do crap pout in a year it's no skin off my back. quite happy so far.

EDIT: seems to do OK at night, good enough for the distance i need.

I have read about the starlights but, i only ever find them 1080p variants. supposedly the better sensors helps get a decent picture despite 1080p but, i've never felt like spending that kind of cash just to see if they can zoom in on plates or car emblems as well as a 5mp cam. however for $30 some bucks a pop i guess JUST good enough will do. EDIT: at least for now. if there are any 1440p or up starlights i'd definitely be interested. also i tried grabbing a screen cap from Blue Iris but the screen cap is not the same quality as the clip in the web server client

 

[ipOsX]

Reolink is a company selling inferior products with poor firmware and sensors.

I agree with this but still use one of their solar-powered wires-free cameras in a non-critical role in a location I can't get wires to. Relying on wi-fi is asking for trouble at the best of times but Reolink's wireless transmitter is hopelessly underpowered being incapable of smoothly transmitting 15fps of 2MP video despite a strong LAN signal and a wi-fi speed test of 600Mbps.

It's not a good security camera because there's always a 2-second lag between the live action and the live view. And also because the PIR sensor always kicks in late no matter where you point it. So recorded events are usually of the intruder's shadow as he disappears from the frame. And every clip begins with a flash as the camera's exposure and white balance adjust. And I have to wait minutes, sometimes longer, for a new clip to show up on the camera's SD card. Some vehicles passing right in front of the camera never trigger the PIR whereas every passing cloud invariably does. Even then, the camera can't cope with the reflections from a wet road so the footage is useless. When saving still images, they somehow become upscaled 33MB TIFF files instead of 2MB JPEGs (Reolink claimed not to know about this one until I demonstrated it to them). And when I ask them where the firmware upgrade is that they promised for 18 months ago, it's never there.

So, useless for mission-critical duty but still useful in some scenarios. And Reolink do some things right. I applaud them for trying (albeit failing so far) to develop usable wires-free cameras. And their online support people are very responsive and always happy to offer an exchange or refund. And they are one of the very, very few who produce a decent client app for MacOs.

I did try their POE products for a few minutes but when they couldn't detect my son walking across my lawn and it took a full 20 seconds for their optical zoom lens to focus, I sent them back. I also tried their NVR but sent that back too - although to be fair I was possibly expecting too much of it.

But I wish them well. There are plenty of nasty and overpriced bits of consumer kit out there and the Reolink range is at least competitively priced - and could one day improve. And joe public has to start somewhere and I can imagine a lot of people not being brave or knowledgeable enough to pick Dahua or Hikvision as their first CCTV system. I assume a great many Reolink customers do graduate to better kit though so everyone benefits from that, even if some give up CCTV forever as a bad job.

 

[fenderman]

I agree with this but still use one of their solar-powered wires-free cameras in a non-critical role in a location I can't get wires to. Relying on wi-fi is asking for trouble at the best of times but Reolink's wireless transmitter is hopelessly underpowered being incapable of smoothly transmitting 15fps of 2MP video despite a strong LAN signal and a wi-fi speed test of 600Mbps.

It's not a good security camera because there's always a 2-second lag between the live action and the live view. And also because the PIR sensor always kicks in late no matter where you point it. So recorded events are usually of the intruder's shadow as he disappears from the frame. And every clip begins with a flash as the camera's exposure and white balance adjust. And I have to wait minutes, sometimes longer, for a new clip to show up on the camera's SD card. Some vehicles passing right in front of the camera never trigger the PIR whereas every passing cloud invariably does. Even then, the camera can't cope with the reflections from a wet road so the footage is useless. When saving still images, they somehow become upscaled 33MB TIFF files instead of 2MB JPEGs (Reolink claimed not to know about this one until I demonstrated it to them). And when I ask them where the firmware upgrade is that they promised for 18 months ago, it's never there.

So, useless for mission-critical duty but still useful in some scenarios. And Reolink do some things right. I applaud them for trying (albeit failing so far) to develop usable wires-free cameras. And their online support people are very responsive and always happy to offer an exchange or refund. And they are one of the very, very few who produce a decent client app for MacOs.

I did try their POE products for a few minutes but when they couldn't detect my son walking across my lawn and it took a full 20 seconds for their optical zoom lens to focus, I sent them back. I also tried their NVR but sent that back too - although to be fair I was possibly expecting too much of it.

But I wish them well. There are plenty of nasty and overpriced bits of consumer kit out there and the Reolink range is at least competitively priced - and could one day improve. And joe public has to start somewhere and I can imagine a lot of people not being brave or knowledgeable enough to pick Dahua or Hikvision as their first CCTV system. I assume a great many Reolink customers do graduate to better kit though so everyone benefits from that, even if some give up CCTV forever as a bad job.

Reolink does nothing right. They lie to the end users, they lie to me, they spam forums and amazon with fake reviews. They market their useless wire free cameras for surveillance use - which is a joke. For a scenario where it really is impossible to run wire (which is almost never the case) a solar solution is the answer. Reolink is for suckers.

 

[fenderman]

i like my ReoLink 420-5MP so much that i bought 4 more for other projects! They were ridiculously cheap. so even if they do crap pout in a year it's no skin off my back. quite happy so far.

EDIT: seems to do OK at night, good enough for the distance i need.

I have read about the starlights but, i only ever find them 1080p variants. supposedly the better sensors helps get a decent picture despite 1080p but, i've never felt like spending that kind of cash just to see if they can zoom in on plates or car emblems as well as a 5mp cam. however for $30 some bucks a pop i guess JUST good enough will do. EDIT: at least for now. if there are any 1440p or up starlights i'd definitely be interested. also i tried grabbing a screen cap from Blue Iris but the screen cap is not the same quality as the clip in the web server client

There are plenty of 4mp starlights (lots of threads on them) and there are 4k cameras with large sensors (1/1.8 and 1/2) that will blow away reolink crap. Because reolink controls the iframe interval and does not let the end user do so, your 5mp image even in bright light is often worse than a 2mp image. Note that 5mp is not 2.5 times more clear than 2mp. You fell for the MP scam, exactly as planned.
Worst part of reolink is that they lie, post fake reviews. Its one thing to have a low end product, its another to commit fraud.

 

[mikeynags]

Just proves the adage that one man’s junk is another man’s treasure


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[cdoublejj]

There are plenty of 4mp starlights (lots of threads on them) and there are 4k cameras with large sensors (1/1.8 and 1/2) that will blow away reolink crap. Because reolink controls the iframe interval and does not let the end user do so, your 5mp image even in bright light is often worse than a 2mp image. Note that 5mp is not 2.5 times more clear than 2mp. You fell for the MP scam, exactly as planned.
Worst part of reolink is that they lie, post fake reviews. Its one thing to have a low end product, its another to commit fraud.

I figured as much that's why i only get them when they are on sale for $36 or so. will def check out the 4MP Starlights. is that what the "2.8~12mm" on the hik-visions at work stand for is sensor size? i thought i might be something about the lenses since the zoom/ptz?