[REVIEW] DUO 2 PoE

Jedi2020

Hey everyone, here is my review for the DUO 2 PoE camera.

Installation:

The camera in the pictures is my old DUO 1 camera since I already mounted my DUO 2 camera. But both look the same physically and the mount hardware is identical as well. Installing the camera is straight forward. Just attach the silver metal plate to the wall by screwing the two top holes of the metal plate. Then snap the camera mount arm to the plate and screw the bottom hole to secure the camera. The camera is attached to the mount arm via a ball joint. You can tighten the ball joint with the supplied allen wrench after adjusting the camera angle. I assume many people here are Reolink users so I am not going to bother with the usual Reolink camera setup.

Camera appearance:

Appearance wise, it doesn’t look like a typical security camera - dome, turret, bullet, etc. It looks more like a small floodlight and perfect for people who care about aesthetic and stealth look.

Who should use this camera?

I use this camera for my front that requires a wide coverage that a single lens camera can’t accommodate. The camera provides a seamless stitched panoramic view with one video stream. I can literally see the entire block of my street with this camera.

Highlighted features:

4K resolution
Seamless stitched 180 degree view
Smart AI detection (human, car, pet)
IR/Spotlights
Siren
2 way audio

4K 180° panoramic view

Reolink did a good job with stitching the two camera views into a one panoramic view. As you can see from the video, I can’t detect any seam from a jogger or fast moving car. First generation DUO1 camera doesn’t stitch the two views so it is rather gimmick. DUO2 is not only wider than DUO1 (180° vs 150°), the vertical field is also taller (60° vs 44°) which is more important to me as I couldn’t see the front too far with DUO1 when pointing down to cover the area closer to the house including the side gate.

DUO2 also provides much sharper image than DUO1 (4K vs 2K) and it makes a difference when performing digital zoom to see the far objects. Another notable feature is that DUO2 uses more advanced H265 codecs compared to DUO1 which uses H264. As a result, it cuts down the storage space despite storing 4K images.

Seamless video

Morning image

Early evening image

Early evening digital zoom image

Smart AI detection

The camera detects human, car and pet reliably. I have yet to experience any false alert. Pet detection is new and isn’t available with DUO1. With pet detection, I can easily track the dogs that are making mass on my lawn by simply setting the push notification for pet.

Human detection

IR/Spotlights

Like DUO1, DUO2 provides both IR and Spotlights to operate at night. One notable feature for DUO2 is that the Spotlights can be triggered based on alarm events (human, car, pet). This feature isn’t available on DUO1. I am providing pictures for IR and Spotlights for reference. Personally, I don’t use either at night. My street light alone is sufficient for the camera to get the color image at night.

The image below is in color auto mode with street light. No IR, no Spotlights. The street light in real environment isn’t as bright as it appears in this picture. DUO2 is noticeably sharper than DUO1 even at night.

In color manual mode with street light. It brightens the tree shadow area a bit. I can literally see the entire block of my street in color at night.

IR light on

Spotlights on

Siren

DUO2 siren is probably the same as DUO1 because it sounds the same to me. Siren is ok. Not too loud to annoy my neighbors but does the job for warning the dog owners that making mass on my lawn.

2 way audio

Like DUO1, DUO2 microphone is very sensitive and clear. As you can see from my video, it can easily pick up voices from the playground which is 90 yards away from the camera. The speaker is okay but can be improved. It could work to communicate with people that are nearby.

Conclusion

DUO2 is vastly improved compared to DUO1. Perhaps, DUO1 was a good experiment and DUO2 is a complete product. For people on the fence, DUO2 is the camera to get even though it costs slightly more than DUO1. I believe you will be much happier with DUO2.

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I'll be sure to keep an eye on this thread.