[REVIEW] Reolink TrackMix Wi-Fi

johnny2064

Hello everyone !! Here my review of the spectacular TrackMix camera, with a summary of all my PROs and CONs at the end :

Impressive... I could just resume this new jewel of technology with this one word, but let's detail all these incredibles features who made of this camera an impressive jewel of tech.

{Little preamble, I unfortunately not be able to talk about the use in conjontion with a Reolink NVR because I still not have one so all my test are made using internal cams software through safari/chrome on my Mac and the iOS app on iPhone and iPad}.

-DESIGN AND INSTALLATION :
This camera look very solid and well made, nothings to envy at all the others prestigious brands of security's camera. Cute design, very small for all the techs inside ! Water resistant, you can feel the construction quality just by taking the camera in your hand !
The fixation system is really easy and convenient, you can fix it on a wall or under a roof (for exemple). Installation will be easy, you need to made 4 holes using drill pattern included. Anchors and screws are included in the package.

First connexion to your Wi-Fi network will be surprisingly easy compared with others older models, actually you will only need to scan the QR code of the camera by app then scanning a QR code showing on the app by your camera and that's it ! You will just need to choose your Wi-Fi network and password and it's done !

-IMAGE QUALITY AND ZOOM WITH DUAL-LENS :
Impressively sharp !! outstanding ! This main 8MP sensor produce gorgeous pictures !! Very rich in details and colorful (with great fidelity). I'm impressed by the gain of sharpness comparing to all my 4MP cams ! And what to tell about the secondary lens ? This one look awesome too ! This is a 4MP but this one can only show 1080p images due to processor limitation. This last offer the 6x zoom with his 8mm telephoto lens.The conjonction use of those two different lens, one for wide view (104° x 60° !!) and one 8mm for zoomed view are just perfect. This will permit you to intuitively navigate from wide lens to telephoto lens when you use zoom fonction, this will work like an iPhone 12 for exemple : at no zoom, camera use wide lens, from 0.1x to 2.5x will use digital zoom on wide lens, at 2.6x camera will swap on the telephoto lens, above 2.6x up to 6x will use digital zoom on telephoto (that also explain why they only use 2MP on telephoto lens, to be able to perform in-sensor zoom, brillant !) This way to work will lead the impressive "AI Digital tracking" feature (I talk about this in the next section).

One of the big plus of this dual-lens system is "IDual-view" feature ! with this you will have two separate view for your camera at the same time, letting you the confort to get one wide field of view AND an auto-zooming view with the help of "AI digital tracking" feature, permitting you to see the action with precision and also what occur all around !

Returning to images quality, the auto-exposure, 3DNR (noise reduction) and the encode are very good, I owned some cheap cam with worst video processing algorithms in the past and that clearly could make the difference ! Reolink show us again than they perfectly know their job.
About Video Resolution, you can't choose, this is fixed at 3840x2160 for wide lens and 1920x1080p for telephoto lens. About FPS and Bitrate you can choose from 2 to 25FPS and from 4096 to 8192kbps, but only for the main view (wide 8MP lens) the secondary view as their settings internally fixed. The field of view of this camera is also awesome, very very wide, this is a very good things to be able to see more surfaces but the cost to this will be some distortion on the side of the image (low fish-eye effect).

-AI TRACKING WITH DYNAMIC ZOOM :
That's principally why you will buy this camera !! This new concept is just incredibly smart and pleasant to use. This new way to use intelligent tracking will really change your life.
TrackMix camera are greatly named, like others PTZ camera with auto-tracking, she will track peoples, vehicles and pets on movement detection using her Pan-Tilt motor but her main difference is than she will also automatically track objects on the secondary view combining her two different lens to performing auto-zoom and in-frame tracking using "AI Digital tracking" feature !!

In settings, you will be able to choose between these 3 modes :
"lDigital tracking" this mode will perform tracking using "AI Digital tracking" only. AI will detect if objects enter in the field of view of camera, will zoom and use in-frame tracking to keep it correctly framed (not my favorite).
"lDigital tracking first" this mode will perform tracking using "AI Digital tracking" in priority (like the first mode) but the difference is, if subject move too far away of the center of the field of view of the camera, physical PT tracking will be performing.
"PT tracking first" this mode will perform tracking using physical Pan-Tilt in priority to follow objects who are moving too far away of the center, then when subject is correctly in frame camera will use "AI digital tracking" to be able to have a perfect close view of the subject (this is personally my favorite mode so far)

-AI MOTION DETECTION :
AI Motion detection work very well and can be really helpful for sorting your record between humans and vehicles detection independently, if your camera record in street with a lot of vehicles passing through that will be very very helpful for you if you want to isolate humans motion from vehicles (or vices-versa) and PET DETECTION !! This feature is still in beta but very promising, I still get some false detection time to time but this work surprisingly well !

In settings, you can set the general sensitivity and 3 separate sensitivity for AI : humans, vehicles and pets. You can create area for exclude motion detection in some specific area and also plan different sensitivity depending of hours (very useful !)
You will also be able to choose if you want to detect only human motion, only vehicles motion, both or any kind of movements . Also you can settings minimal and maximal size for both humans and vehicle detection (and now pet !) in case you get too many false detection !!

-RECORDING OPTIONS, AUDIO/LIGHT AND ALARM :
For recordings, you can choose between 3 modes, continuous record, record based on planning and motion detection. Video format is H264, no H265 (I still think for futures models that would be great to develop new chips includes H265 material encode/decode).
You can choose to record on SDcard, on NVR (Reolink or any others), on NAS (Synology, QNAP...).
You also could upload automatically your record on your FTP server if you want to secure your SDcard directly from your TrackMix camera.

The night vision LEDs are very powerful, include night and day detection and auto IR-filter. You could also disable it if you prefer to use natural colors in night with external light for exemple.
Or you could also choose the option to activate the 2 powerful white LEDs when movement is detected, this will shutdown the 2 IR LEDs and IR-Filter to enjoy perfectly lighted and colored images !

With the TrackMix you will be able to use 2 ways audio ! One mic and one speaker are on this camera, so you can ear what's happen around your cam but also talk through her.
Other very useful feature is audio alarm on motion detection, you can activate it in settings and the camera produce a very loud (and adjustable) alarm sound on detection and even better, a personalized message with your voice !!! You can program if you want this all the time or only on certain period of the days.

-NETWORK CONNECTIVITY AND SDCARD :
This camera come with two fixed WIFI antenna, dual band MIMO (2.4 and 5Ghz) 802.11n.
I would clearly love to get WIFI 5AC (or even better : WIFI 6AX) on this new camera... maybe on future models... that will certainly extend the range and stability with compatible router, for exemple, the difference of strength signal between this cam and my iPhone 12, connected on the same network (eero pro 6) and at the exact same location, we can see the strength of the WiFi signal clearly lower with Reolink camera than with iPhone, that could result in less effective range in comparison with more efficient and modern WIFI protocols.
You can also use Ethernet (10/100) if you want more stability or if you want to install your camera very far of your router.

Now about micro SDCard compatibility, you can use up to 256Gb ! For those who not have an NVR or NAS, that would clearly be suffisent to record locally for weeks with a lot of motion detection !When your SDcard will be full, your older records will be delete automatically one by one to records new ones perpetually.

-SOFTWARE/MOBILE APP AND PLAYBACK :
From all the apps of security system I used so far, the Reolink is one of my favorite. Tested on iOS (iPad and iPhone), this application is by far one of the best I tested. Even if some little things need to be improved or added to be perfect, this app is easily accessible and very complete, you can access to "almost" all the settings of your camera, without any particular competence so you could custom a lot of settings and made work your camera exactly how you want to.This app is very responsive, the interface is clear and complete, the interaction with every feature are natural and well made.

The playback menu is also very well made, you can choose specific date, if you want to see all detection or only specifics ones (like human detection for exemple). You have a chronological band with blue marker for each detection, you just need to press or slide your finger on and video will be played ! You can also choose speed of play and downloading parts of records. One default about playback (in my opinion) is about the max duration when you want to download record from the sd card from app, 120s max per file, if you want to download lot of files you will loose a lot of time, so you will prefer to get out the sd card to do it... There is a thing to improve imo.
To improve this app some little things need to be added, like landscape mode on iPad for the entire app, actually you can only have landscape mode for full screen view.
Other little thing will be to add a preview pic or gif when you receive a notification from the app for movement detection (like some smart doorbell does for exemple).

The internal software of Reolink cameras are also very well made. Tested on Safari and chrome browser (Mac os and iOS). The interface of the internal software are clear and smooth, a lot of settings can be customized. OTA firmware update are possible with an option for auto-update, that a very cool feature !

GOOD TO KNOW : if you want to use all feature at 100%, I recommend to record on a SD Card or even better, on a compatible Reolink NVR. I tried recording on my Synology through Surveillance Station and this is totally work but Surveillance Station is not as better as Reolink software in my opinion. Settings and sorting depending on AI detection are more complicated and less efficient than on Reolink software (app or NVR).

-Now a little summary of all my PROs and CONs :

PROs :

-Image quality are impressive ! fluidity, great colors and awesome sharpness
-8MP sensor really made the difference
-Two different sensor with different focal lens ! (allow awesome hybrid zoom and in-frame tracking)
-Dual-view permit you to follow very precisely everything with two views, one wide and one with "AI Digital tracking"
-Auto PT-tracking + "AI Digital tracking" on secondary view. This is a game changer to me
-Night vision very efficient, especially with this 2 powerful white LEDs activated on motion
-AI motion detection ! Very effective !
-Cristal clear microphone and speaker
-Micro SD Card up to 256Gb !
-Great mobile app and very well made Internal software
-Third party Software Compatibility are solid (so far I could tell)
-Strong structure and beautiful design
-Very long extension power cable !

CONs (or improvement suggestions) :

-WiFi 5 (AC) or WIFI 6 (AX) would be appreciable for more stability and extend range
-Max duration for download record from the sd card with the app are too short
-Only H264 encode, for next models I would love a chip capable of H265 encodings
-Only 1080p on the secondary view, I would love to have 2160p too.
-Some improvement need to be achieved on their compression algorithm in objective to improve the clarity on quick movements and quick PT tracking.
-This last one is just a suggestion for your next high end camera
Having two different lens for dual-view feature are very great, awesome idea than I love and will really change the way we use our security camera, but what about using a variable optical zoom on the seconds lens ? why not using two identical sensor, one for the wide view, without zoom, and the other one with 10 or 20x optical zoom ?? This could be very powerful combining to your "AI digital tracking" algorithm, this could be named "AI optical tracking"

Here two videos, one little demo of the camera tracking me and one video review of some of these capability:

user_676579347222644

@johnny2064_368119747915946 This camera quelity is really great for me.