Operating temperatures of cameras under -10°C

Hello,

without a doubt i guess that here has to be someone who uses their cameras in conditions or. lets say temparatures under -10°C. What happens with electronics in and cameras itself when temperature drops under -15°C, -20°C? Any experiences?

Lisa

The working environment of our cameras is
Working Environment -10°C~+55°C (14°F~131°F), Humidity: 10%~90%
So it's easily to get the camera broken to use it in the environment which is not in the range.

patsy

I do, so far it hasnt broken, but it will 'stick' when trying to focus. to get around that I use the trick of setting the camera movement to 1 in ptz, then hitting zoom ot or in, just tapping it, then when it gets to about the right focus , I mve the camera 1 pixel in some direction which stops the auto focus where it is, hopefully in focus.....then I leave it the way it is until a warmer time of day. 'if' someone wanted to get fancy I imagine you could take a heating coil, like the kin d they use in electric blankets and warm the unit up whenever you wanted, even running it off of the poe line, but well, I do not see the need to 'yet'. it would be cool if they actually implemented a type of sleeve/cover for the camera with that built in though. but it does get down to -20 here, there are a lot of areas that get lower, so not sure how it works there.

reolink com

I'm not sure why more work isn't put into normal temps, for a lot of the world.

There are literally more than two billion people that you can't sell to, thanks to this -10C restriction.

You have all of Canada, about 2/3 of the US population, all the Nordic countries, a load of Europe, Russia, and random parts of the rest of the world.

I've just bought a reolink, but didn't realise this temperature range was so... silly. All you guys need to do, is buy a freezer, modify it to go down to -40C, and put some cameras in. Heck, most walk-in freezers will do -25C easily, and you can build a walk in very cheaply / reasonably, if you do it yourself.

Why do you even have reolink outdoor cameras in your store in Canada? Why even sell this to Canadians?

One last thing -- electronics *love* cold. No overheating, for one!

My suggestion to you is to find some model with the least moving parts, say one without auto-focus, and test this for cold countries!

EDIT:
I might add, I live in a rural area.. and power is not always reliable. Especially in massive winter storms, where trees will get knocked down, taking out power lines. Expecting people to unscrew and bring in 20 cameras, to warm them up before starting them, is beyond absurd.

On top of the fact? It's not like a person is always on-location when power dies for 4 hours, then starts back up.

So, some questions:

- Do your cameras actually die, just because they get cold?! If so, why?

- If it is due to a part, like say the IR lens, or focus being too cold.. then why not put in a 0.001 cent temperature sensor, and only operate these parts once the camera has warmed up? Here's a quick hint -- most modern CPUs, and many types of RAM have temperature sensors built in.

Even if you did not include an ambient temperature, but have a RAM temp sensor, you could use that to more directly detect ambient temp.

I'm sort of saddened by this. I bought a few reolinks, tested one, liked it, but now I'll have to return the rest? Seems -- weird that you guys won't test.

Or just say "It will surely break!".

And again -- "keeping it always on" isn't a valid option.

Carl

Yes, the operating temperature of the camera is -10°C~+55°C (14°F~131°F). You can't install it outside below than this temperature because it cannot withstand. The low temperature will affect parts of the performance of the camera. Thank you for your suggestion, I will collect them and forward to our R&D staff. Sorry for any inconvenience caused to you.
We will try our best to overcome this difficulty in the future. Thank you for your patience and understanding. If you have other problems during operation, please send an email to support@reokink.com, we will check it for you soon.

reolink com

Today it is 28th April, at 4am. I live in Southern Canada.

It is -1C.

Do you not understand, that all your outdoor cameras are not usable in Canada? In New York City? In Washington DC? Chicago? Moscow? Even Beijing?

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1111738/cold-waves-hit-many-parts-country-beijing-sees-30-year-low

What good is a camera, if maybe you have one bad year, and the camera breaks?

I think you need to improve this response.

reolink com

By the way, just to add.

I *like* your cameras. I like that I can access them with my web browser, that I can use them with open source / standard security software. Which is why I am sad that you have no "normal temp" support for my home.

So take this as good news, even though I am upset... because I *want* you to work here!

Carl

I am glad to hear you are a big fan of our camera. Thank you for supporting Reolink. Sorry that we didn't test our camera under such low temperature before. The camera might not record or powered on normally, the problem caused by extremely cold temperatures is unpredictable, so we don't suggest you install it in the temperature lower than -10°C. We are collecting the suggestions from other customers now, then our R&D team will test the camera at a lower temperature in the future. We will try our best to improve the performance of our product.
Sincerely wish you apologize again. Thank you for choosing Reolink.

patrick l

"Extremely cold temperatures" Temp below -10C is NOT extremely low. To be a player in Northen Europa, Most parts of Russia and Northen Part of North America you have to shoot for a validation of at least -25C.

Cynthia

Thanks so much for your kindly suggestions, i will forward this request to our development team to follow up whether we can arrange the test at least -25C, thank you!