I had about 5 hours of footage from four cameras I wanted to download (to make a time-lapse montage). You may already know that the phone app and web UI are limited to downloading no more than a few minutes of video, you're supposed to use the PC app.

I did - latest version 8.7.1 - but had very unreliable results. The direct 'download' function plain didn't work - it would claim success but each video segment was cut short, usually by more than half.

I found partial success by using the 'snip/trim/scissors' function to select the period of interest in the playback window, then select download; this seems to work at least some of the time. It can take a few attempts (3 or more), but the files were downloaded to the PC. Unfortunately these videos are only the low-resolution stream - 640 × 480.

I then changed the recording length to the minimum of 30 minutes (was 60) and that seems to have made a big improvement for new footage since the length change - the entirety of the full-resolution files now download directly (don't have to use the 'snip' tool).

The person detection on at least the RLC-510A seems quite good.

It would be great to also be able to detect pets (specifically, large dogs in my use case!). This should be a separate mode to the existing two: i.e. dogs/cats, person, vehicle.

@reolink-fiona - I've found that yes, I can add the freshly-reset camera to the NVR using both the methods you've noted; the camera will be connected to the NVR however will not have a password set. Anyone on the LAN can connect to the camera and take it over; moreover the Android app continues to prompt me to set up the camera (directly), which is a bit annoying.

Reolink support (ticket #789430) have confirmed the problem and advised that "I will feedback to our engineers", and to use the console in the meantime. Hopefully it'll be fixed for the web and Android apps "soon".

I have an NVR RLN8-410 with some cameras connected directly to the NVR and a new RLC-510A camera connected to a switch on the same LAN as the NVR.

When the RLC-510A camera is new, or reset, the NVR detects it and I'm able to add it to the NVR's camera list using both the Windows desktop client and the Android app. However the camera continues to show up in the Android app as "uninitialised device". If I use the app to set up the camera, or connect to the camera's web interface on the LAN, it prompts me to set up the camera with a password/etc, if I do so it then becomes disconnected from the NVR. There appears to be no way to re-add the camera - i.e. with a password - via the Windows client, NVR web UI or Android app.

This is a problem as if you just add the camera via the NVR's desktop client, web UI or Android app, this will leave the camera open without a password. Anyone on the LAN can lock out the camera by setting a password for it. Fortunately it's easy to reset it via the hardware button but that's annoying.

It seems the only way to resolve this is to:
1) log in to the new camera via it's web interface and set a password, and then
2) use the HDMI console to add the camera: the console allows you to enter the camera's password (unlike the Windows desktop client, the NVR web UI or Reolink Android app which do not support adding a camera with a password )


Aside: my NVR has 'Auto-Add' enabled, which allegedly will add cameras with the default username (admin) and password. However that didn't work for me. I don't see anywhere in the console to set this "default password" (unless they mean the factory default password, which is blank...!).

One warning / heads-up I'd give, after basically going through the same head-scratching, is that a Reolink NVR has four distinct user interfaces:

1) the NVR console itself (HDMI port + mouse)
2) desktop client (Windows, and Mac I believe)
3) web UI
4) mobile phone app.

And then the cameras also have a web UI too... but we'll ignore that as it's not needed when you have the NVR.

As far as I can tell, the console is the only one that has "all" features; the desktop client and the web and phone apps are missing a lot of things - especially about adding devices. For example, you can only add a camera that has a password on it via the console.

Reolink appear to be attempting to bring all the apps to parity with the console, but aren't there yet. In the meantime it can be very confusing and frustrating.

It does seem that when you do make a config change using any of the interfaces, it applies to the NVR - the apps appear to not have any state.

When using the web and mobile UIs for the RCL-423 PTZ, you can manually set the focus. However there appears to be no means to tell the camera to go back to autofocus!

(a workaround is changing the zoom level which seems to trigger autofocus again; simply changing the pan/tilt does not work)

There needs to be a "autofocus" button.

So it's not possible via the Reolink clients, however it is relatively easy to do via the camera's (undocumented?) CGI commands.

Here's a simple shell script that provides elementary control of a Reolink PTZ camera:
gist github com/bdlow/5553b43037e2fcaacfa8b82a2e78e639


It requires curl and jq.

Usage:
./camctrl.sh -i 192.168.1.99 -p secret -c TOPOS -m 1 -f snap.jpg

Will move to position ID 1 and take a snapshot.

Running this script from a cron job will do what I need.

Is it possible, either via the camera, the Reolink NVR, or by some other means, to have the RCL-423 PTZ move to a patrol point (mark) on a time of day schedule. i.e. I'd like to point the camera at a particular location at the same time each day.

For bonus points, moving to a mark on an astronomical event, e.g. dawn, sunset, would be excellent - my security camera would become a nice time-lapse cam as well.

Right, so the root cause seems to be the NVR crashing when it sees the other cameras on my network. I've turned off Channel > Auto Add, and deleted the previously auto-added cameras, and it's no longer crashing.

There are still bugs of course, for example playback of recordings via the app doesn't work. Sigh.

I've discovered this crash seems to be triggered only when the device is on the network (with an Internet connection). So far it's stayed up for 10 minutes when plugged in to a totally isolated network.