RLC-510WA

Crimp On

Three years ago, I installed an RLC-410WS (WiFi) near my front door. (Pulling PoE cable was too difficult.) Had to remove one antenna because the mounting bracket will not let the camera move far enough to the side. Quickly learned that the camera infrared night lights draw insects which appear to be very bright and very large when they fly near the camera, creating hundreds of 'motion events'. The solution was to install an infrared 'illuminator' about 8 ft. away from the camera which lights up the space and draws the insects away from the camera. The RLC-410WS had no capability to disable the night lights, so I covered the LED's with black electrical tape. Not the most attractive solution, but it worked 'pretty good'.

Reolink finally released the RL-510WA, a 5MP WiFi camera with person, vehicle detection. (Will see how well that works. On 'flag days' the RLC-410WS sensed motion all day long. The new camera also has a switch to disable the night LEDs, so no more electrical tape.

What a difference in installation! The old Reolink RLC mount was horrible. Tiny set screws needing a tiny Allen wrench. SO cumbersome. The new mount is fantastic! Noticed only one (tiny) issue. In my haste, I did not pick up on the mounting screw holes being just a bit farther apart than on the RLC-410 series. Far enough that I had to get the drill out and make new starter holes. Thats "my bad", but I wonder why? Maybe it makes it easier to reach the screws?

Cynthia

Because RLC-510WA has a different design of the camera RLC-410WS.

Crimp On

There appears to be a "learning curve" with regard to motion detection on this camera. The camera description says very clearly "vehicle and person" detection. The Windows Client offers sensitivity settings of Low, Medium, and High with pictures of a Car, a Person, and an Animal. (Remember: "animal" was not one of the special features of this camera.) It also offers the same sort of time periods that previous Reolink cameras have always provided, where the sensitivity can be set for different times of the day.

On the Record panel, recording can be "on" or "off" for individual hours of the day and days of the week. But there cannot be different choices for the 168 individual hours of the day. "Record" can be either "Any Motion", "Person", or "Vehicle".
I have now come to understand that "Any Motion" refers to the old Reolink process, which is based on sensitivity. I had set Record to "Any Motion" and was surprised today when the camera spent all afternoon recording tree shadows waving across the yard. (duh) That is "motion" the way Reolink cameras have always been sensitive to it.

What if I want to see animals (cats, possums, skunks, etc.) who pass through my yard but I do not want to see those irritating tree shadows? CAN'T BE DONE.

I can set the daytime sensitivity to the lowest possible and the nighttime sensitivity to very high. No tree shadows during the daylight hours and also NO ANIMALS. Animals at night. Back to the same old, same old problem: update the sensitivity every week as seasons change? yuck.

Will know more in a week as I experiment with settings.

Maybe this was obvious to everyone else, but it sure tripped me up.

Cynthia

Thank you for sharing the information. Since the smart detection camera is a new product, it is still being developed continuously.

Crimp On

I am resigned now that I simply cannot have what I want.
The new "Vehicles and Persons" software works pretty well. No more recording tree shadows moving across the yard.
But, also, no recording small animals (cats, possums, squirrels, etc.) I cannot come up with a strategy that makes sense.
If the recording mode includes "Any Motion" then the sensitivity level has to be VERY LOW during daylight hours to avoid recording shadows or waving flags (no animals during the day), and can be high at night to catch the animals, but this means constantly changing the sensitivity by time of day.

I will try that next and just make an arbitrary decision: Look for animals from say 8pm to 5am.

md

I have a mix of three POE Reolink cameras with Human/Vehicle detection, three Reolink battery cameras without H/V detection, a few Blink battery cameras. Several times a fox has walked through our yard at night. The Blinks and battery Reolinks detected and recorded them, the POE's did not. I use a POE switch and record to SD cards, I'm not as yet using an NVR. Of course I also get unwanted notifications/recordings, leaves, wasps, bees, etc. I've seen on YouTube reviews a couple other brand apps that have package and animal detection settings but I don't know if they work well. Maybe a battery trail camera would do the trick for you.

Crimp On

Yes, my experiment failed miserably. Setting the 'sensitivity' to the lowest possible setting still resulted in recording tree shadows moving across the yard as 'motion'. There is no guarantee that any animals will wander by overnight to become part of this test, but I will check tomorrow.

It seems a bit sad that after all these years of developing Artificial Intelligence that this is as far as we have come: cameras that cannot distinguish between scenes that are important and scenes that are not.

promisehalle2

Really? "the camera infrared night lights draw insects which appear to be very bright and very large when they fly near the camera, creating hundreds of 'motion events'.
Maybe I have to set up one.

RLC-510WA

Bloxorz

_Bloxorz