The Local LAN Network Breakdown of Home Hub

Reolink.Oskar

If you are curious about the whole "local LAN network" concept with the Reolink Home Hub. We would like to share a few insights and open up a discussion on the pros and cons of this setup—particularly around how it affects camera performance and network reliability.

What is LAN Access?

Essentially, the Reolink Home Hub creates its own local LAN network that connects your security cameras. The cool part? You don’t need the internet for the cameras to function properly. The cameras stay connected to the hub and keep recording locally, with footage saved directly to the hub or on local storage.

Why Does This Matter?

Internet Independence: One of the big perks is that your cameras won’t go offline if your internet does. If your ISP has a hiccup or you lose connection, your security cameras will still be fully operational on the local network. This is huge for uninterrupted monitoring.
Network Efficiency: Since it’s a LAN network, your cameras can potentially have faster, more stable connections compared to relying on cloud-based streaming or remote access through the internet. It’s all about that local speed and reliability.
Privacy Benefits: Since you don’t need to rely on cloud servers to store footage (unless you want to), there’s less exposure to external breaches or potential hacking, which is something worth considering if you’re all about keeping things private.

Based on the information above and your past experience, do you think relying on a local network for security cameras makes a noticeable difference in performance or reliability? For those of you using the Reolink Home Hub already, what are your thoughts on the LAN Access feature? Any surprises or things you didn’t expect?

Credit to salvo_nomad_by_fate_

Chopstix

Having deployed Reolink NVR's for customers, I found the Home Hub (Pro) initially confusing. On the NVR's the camera ports are labeled 1-16 and the network port is labeled LAN. In the HHP, the LAN port is effectively the ports 1-16 equivalent (Reolink private LAN) and the WAN port is effectively the NVR's LAN port. I feel that this cross of labels could be released better as to minimize confusion for those that have previous experience with Reolink NVR's.

Here at home with HHP, I have Wi-Fi cameras connected to the Reolink private Wi-Fi on 172.16.25.x. I have a Layer-2 PoE switch that is segmented into 2 VLANs... one for PoE cameras and the HHP's LAN port (VLAN25), and the other for general access for my home VLAN1). I have the HHP's WAN port connected to VLAN1. This isolates all Reolink traffic on VLAN25 and the HHP's NAT handles all the traffic routing to VLAN1. For me, I could not have asked for a simpler setup. If the HHP did not have it's own private LAN, I would have had to upgrade to a Layer-3 switch for the VLAN routing. The topology that the HHP offers is near perfection in my opinion.

From the perspective of a "non-techie", I think some of the advantages of this are lost. In fact, it might even come across as confusing. After spending some time here on this Community page, I do see that there are users that do not easily comprehend the Reolink private LAN concept.

The Home Hub series is definitely geared for Wi-Fi cameras. The setup process is simple and easy to follow and Wi-Fi cameras integrate easily for creating the Reolink private LAN within the user's existing home network. This ease of setup is a great talking point as well.