False Positives

Crimp On

The Reolink RLC series of cameras are a tremendous combination of hardware at a reasonable price. With the new mounting bracket, the cameras are much easier to install. However, constantly recording "motion" that is not valuable just bugs the heck out of me. Specifically, when something happens that takes less than a second, and the camera produces a 20 second recording. (5 seconds prior and 15 seconds after) Specific examples are (a) a bug or bird flying across the camera, and (b) when the camera changes from "night" to "daytime" mode.

I thought that I had a solution, which is to FTP the records to a server and write a script that deletes every recording so small that it would be under 21 seconds. Alas, that doesn't work because (a) when the camera is in black & white mode the MP4 files are a lot smaller (and there is no way to know when the camera is going to switch modes), and (b) even when the camera is in color mode if significant motion is only in a small part of the screen the compression makes the total recording smaller.

Reolink has never shown interest in providing a way to keep only recordings that "move" for more than a minimum time. Has anyone come up with a way to discard stupid recordings? Like, is there a DOS command that will identify MP4 files by length?

Carl

Sorry for the bad experience. The false alert caused by the change of day and night can't be avoided at present. But you can set the proper sensitivity to avoid the alert trigger by a bug or a flying bird. You can refer to this article to learn How to Avoid False Alerts on Reolink Cameras.
In addition, we will forward your suggestion to our R&D people, we will notify you if there is an update. If the problem still can't be solved, please send an email to support@reolink.com for further assistance. Thank you for your understanding and patience.

Crimp On

Carl,

As always, the support team gives the best advice which Reolink has made available. There are two issues with using sensitivity level to adjust what the camera regards as "motion".

(1) The camera does not report what "level" caused a motion to be detected. i.e. was it "10", "20", "21", ??? If the camera would report, "I tagged this as 'motion' because it rated xx on a scale of 1 to 50", then the user could say, "hey, if I set the sensitivity to xx, then most of these non-events would not register." But, we have NO IDEA what the value was.
(2) The switch from day mode to night mode changes every day of the year. The user cannot be expected to change the time limits for every camera, every week. That is just ridiculous.

I am strongly in favor of introducing a "time" component. If "motion" persists for a defined number of frames, then it truly IS "motion". If not, then it should be ignored. Yes, it is a LOT harder to program than a simple frame-by-frame comparison, but these guys are 'smart', n'est pas?

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Peste

The motion detection needs work, this is like the only brand that doesnt have some sort of smart motion detection, a $25 wyze cameras have this functionality. Its impossible to get false settings.

Every day, the transition from night to day triggers an alert, this is unavoidable.
Ajusting sensitivity doesn work either, if i put more sensitive, if it rains or snows i get triggers every minute, if i put less sensitive, i wont get alerts from people walking on my driveway or sidewalk, there is no middle ground

Crimp On

I agree 100% that the thing that frustrates users the most is motion detection. Alas, I fear there will not be a change in this feature any time soon. It's pretty obvious that whoever programmed the camera firmware thought this "sensitivity" plus different hours of the day, plus exclusion zones was the way to go. I doubt that person even works for Reolink, and may no longer work at the place that designed the camera. Massive companies like Wyse have a lot more leverage over engineering than smaller firms like Reolink.

There are a whole bunch of things that customers have been asking for that seem to always be "on the horizon, but not here yet." Things like IFTTT integration, geofencing, what can be put in the Cloud, What countries the Cloud operates in, changes to the Windows/Mac client, how IP addresses are configured, changes to how much is recorded. The list goes on and on. BUT... there is no facility where customers can do things like support/reject or vote on ideas.

I knew going in that purchasing this brand rather than the "Big Names" that I see in all the stores was taking a chance. So far, it does what I want and it didn't cost nearly what 4MP cameras (now 5MP) did from the "Big Boys."

With the benefit of hindsight, the only two things I regret are (1) not "biting the bullet" to pull ethernet cable and install PoE cameras rather than WiFi, and (2) dabbling with the battery cameras. I now have two of them hooked up to USB plugs (using the hidden USB inspection port). Could just as easily done PoE, but I had the cameras already.

Would I buy Reolink again? I think so, yes.

Cynthia

So sorry for the inconvenience caused, if there is any concerns about the camera please feel free to contact:support@reolink.com, reolink tech support will help you out soon, thank you!