UPDATE: So, originally gave 3 Stars due to the issues mentioned below, most of the problems still apply, but honestly, I don’t think you can get a better camera on the market. I spent literally days on end researching these cameras, hours and hours, and I found the Reolinks to be the ONLY actual “reliable” ones and made well. So, despite the below-mentioned issues, I HIGHLY recommend these cameras.
I also recommend them because Reolink’s customer service was excellent. They fixed the issues I had that they could fix (and forwarded the rest), and for upgrading my star they even sent me a free power adapter (though I made that offer, they just asked if I would upgrade my star, but they bent over to help me, so you can’t beat that kind of customer service). While it is too late, bought the switch/injector already, I still want it as a backup and if I need to use it in other situations, etc. So, still very happy with that.
Anyway, despite the flaws, I’m VERY happy with the Reolink product, and my research also demonstrated that. So, you can’t find better than the Reolinks in Camera quality, image quality, features, and customer services. So, I give them 5 Stars for doing whatever they could to help…!
PREVIOUS REVIEW: (with a couple of updates)
1. They don’t allow you to use the “Cloud” with the POE cameras, apparently only the “wireless” or whatever cameras. That’s not fair. I would have gotten one of the wireless, but I wanted reliability, thus a wired connection option, so I had no choice but to go POE. I’m just using one camera, so I should be allowed to use the Cloud also.
2. The Motion Detection doesn’t work well… I have it set to high, like 75% which was the default, and I have the camera in my room. And the camera apparently detected “light” changes that came through the window. The camera isn’t even facing the window. It detected “shadows” on the friggen WALLS or something. So, I had to put the motion detection lower. We’ll see how I low I have to go, I’m testing 50% now.
UPDATE: 50% seems to be working fine, no more false positives save I think one for some reason, which is okay.
3. The firmware update was confusing… They have apparently two versions of this camera a “B” version and a version # that has no “B” in the middle of the #. Though, it looks like they fixed the firmware update article and the update.
UPDATE: Looks like they fixed this and I was able to get the proper update thanks to support.
4. I almost thought there wasn’t a way to activate and deactivate the camera, but I finally discovered the “Scene” function, so I create activate and a deactivate scene options. However, I don’t understand why they don’t also provide a “Camera Off” function. At least in the Android APP they don’t. In the Desktop App you can “disconnect” the camera which I guess serves like an “off” switch turning off the camera, but we need it in the App too. Though, I also don’t know when you shutdown the Desktop App whether the camera comes back on or not? I’m going to “assume” it actually remains off? But still, we need a setting in which the Camera is totally shutdown in all Apps.
Otherwise, all seems to be working so far… They do really need to give us single-camera users access to the Cloud also. That’s just not fair. I thought I was able to have access, so that wasn’t clear either. And I likely would have gotten the E1 Zoom or whatever, but I wanted to ensure a reliable connection, was disappointed they didn’t provide a “wired” ability to that camera. That would have been my preferred option since I only need one camera for my current situation.
P.S…. Oh, one other thing…. The camera didn’t come with a “Power Adapter” (and there is a plug for it)…. I was forced to get a POE Injector, which was a pain trying to figure out, they don’t make that easy either as to what and how to do it, and it’s easy to get the wrong thing and unnecessarily expensive switch/injector too. But, at least the one I got was cheap and is working. I got the “IPCamPower Mini POE Injector Wall Wart Plug | 802.3af Full 15 watts | Designed for IP Cameras”. You have to make sure you get the right rated switch/injector, and that it’s an injector, not just a switch etc. The information was seriously lacking in this area that needs to be improved.
Worse… On their website they had some power adapters you could buy, but NONE of them said they were compatible for the RLC-520. So, I couldn’t even buy one.
Also forgot to mention they don’t provide a way to DELETE recorded scenes…. I mean what is that? Can’t do it in the App nor the Windows App. You have to Re-Format the entire drive to delete videos. This is a big flaw too…
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