Posts made by Crimp On_62210811129

Thanks. Now.... for the truly retarded, a tutorial on using cgi with generic cameras, as it appears that Reolink supports only a subset of the common commands (correct?)

Can you please provide a link that explains accessing a camera api? I have several models of Reolink cameras and would like to experiment with how they function.

Thanks

Have been monitoring the battery level of an Argus 3 Pro for 10 days. Now at a reported 75% remaining. This comes out to about 2.5% per day.
Of course, this is totally dependent on activity. I live on a very quiet street where the camera typically makes 45-85 short recordings per day. The day the gardener came to visit, 153 recordings were made as he worked in several yards in view of the camera.

I would quickly tire of climbing the stepladder every month to take the camera down, put it on a charger for a couple of hours, then put it back up again. This weekend I will remove the original Argus camera and use its USB to power the Argus 3 Pro.

Power is the Achilles Heel of battery cameras.

Engineering reports that they have discovered the issue and will fix it in the next firmware release. Possibly something to do with my WiFi using the same SSID for both 2.4G and 5G channels. I notice that when the camera brings up a list of available channels, it shows each of my WiFi access points separately (router and three satellites). Samsung tablet does something similar. Kudos for Reolink taking the question seriously.

Thanks for providing the link. I followed the directions to display the QR code and then scanned the QR code with two different "QR Scanner" apps on my phone.
Both apps report the contents of the QR code as a string that includes the UID of the camera, but not the user name or password.

My conclusion remains the same. The neighbor can (a) enter the UID manually, or (b) scan the QR code, but either way the app will not connect to the camera until the user name and password are entered.

The follow-on link clearly states that the user name and password must be entered (Step 4): https://support.reolink.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003432894

When I have installed the Reolink app on a new device (phone, tablet) I add cameras to the app using the UID code and then enter the user name (default is 'admin') and password for the camera.
Reolink RLC cameras have a provision to configure multiple users and each can be an Administrator or a 'regular' user. (When I all Reolink engineers to connect to a camera, I set up a user account for them to use and then delete it after the support episode is finished.)

I do not have a PT camera, but the two models of battery cameras that I do have do not have a provision for adding users. This would seem to indicate that you need to share the admin account password for the camera with the neighbor.

A fascinating concept. Can you please explain how this is different than

• Defining an area where motion is to be detected. I presume that one side of the "line" is important and the other side is not.
• Excluding the entire frame except for a narrow strip running across the picture.

I am having difficulty visualizing how this "works". i.e. if a person walks all over on one side of the line, or on the other side of the line, we don't care.
But, if they "cross the line", that is important???

Support confirmed that the camera has the latest firmware. They did ask questions about my WiFi network: specifically whether the WiFi has different names (SSIDs) for the 2.4G and 5G channels. My Netgear Orbi uses the same name for both channels. The issue has been referred to Engineering. Since it is mostly a cosmetic issue (not affecting performance), it will be interesting to see if anything comes back.

I was one of the lucky people who sponsored the first Reolink Argus battery powered security cameras. I still have two, although I tired of replacing batteries and instead power them using the hidden USB port inside the battery case.

Argus 3 2K improved the video resolution and added a spotlight, color night vision, person/vehicle detection, and H.265 compression.

Argus 3 Pro adds 5G WiFi, pet detection, exclusion zones, and Time Lapse recording. This photo shows the Argus 3 Pro mounted next to an original Argus.


Initial Impressions:

Build quality remains excellent. A solid, attractive unit. I especially like the new mounting scheme. This makes taking the camera down to charge batteries and putting it back up again almost painless. There is also an optional magnetic mount ($15), similar to the original Argus mount. Not nearly as secure as the screw on mount, but would make moving the camera around very convenient. (Buy several mounts and just 'snap' the camera onto one of them.) The regular mount even provides a slot to strap the camera to something (post? tree?) and includes a bright white strap in the box.

Picture quality is excellent. (4K vs. 1080p) with 16x digital zoom vs. 6x zoom. Viewing angle remains about the same (122 degrees diag. vs. 120 degrees diag.) A major surprise was how much better the Pro picture is at night. Here's the original Argus:

Then the Argus 3 Pro:


The list of features and options is incredible!

Spotlight, which makes color night vision possible and can be used to let people know that the camera "sees them." (I leave the spotlight off, but apparently a LOT of people like the idea of a bright light warning people "I'm recording you!" I do have several motion activated lights which serve a similar purpose, as well as light the path to my trash cans at night.

Two-way audio. This makes it possible to talk to someone and hear what they say back. It is a major feature of video doorbell products. Not sure how often it would be useful unless (a) the Pro camera is literally mounted next to the door and (b) the user keeps the app open on a smartphone and responds quickly to the Push notification. (I do neither.)

Siren. Like the spotlight, the siren can be set to sound when motion is detected. (Really? OMG. Neighbors are going to love that!)

Different sensitivity levels for automobiles, people, pets, and just "motion".

5G WiFi means that downloading recordings is blindingly fast. Seriously, the difference is amazing.

Time Lapse recording is a brand new feature that is supported by the Reolink 'app' and the Windows v8.8.1 Client. My first test of Time Lapse recording was very interesting. I learned (a) that it generates HUGE files. In normal recordings, very little 'changes' from one video frame to the next, so compression is highly effective. With Time Lapse, there are many more changes, so the compression is not nearly as great. (b) the camera seems very SLOW to 'cache' those images into an MP4 file. (c) the battery drain is ENORMOUS. (d) Transferring the Time Lapse is thus sort of an ordeal.

Like all battery powered cameras, the Argus 3 Pro involves design compromises.

Live Viewing has a time limit. Keeping the camera on with active WiFi streaming drains the battery. The app and Windows Client pop a warning at 5 minutes: "Do you want to keep viewing?" If the user is not alert, then Live View stops. Powering the camera with USB or a solar panel does not change this, although there is an option in the 8.8.1 Client to ignore it. Preserving battery capacity is part of the fundamental design.

PIR sensors are always used on battery cameras because (a) they are dirt cheap, and (b) they use so little power. (A single AA battery can power a PIR sensor for months and months.) But PIR sensors are notoriously bad at detecting motion. If an object that radiates heat moves "across" the picture, the Argus 3 Pro will pick it up in about 0.1 second. If something is moving fast, of course, by the time the cameras comes on the object may be almost totally out of the picture. When cars drive down my residential street, it is common for the Argus 3 Pro to start recording when they are more than half-way across the picture. The mailman, however, was caught almost the instant he stepped into the picture. Notice how the original Argus only 'saw' the mailman when he got within a few feet.
Mailman.mp4
Note how the original Argus almost missed the mailman completely. If he had not dropped something and stopped to pick it up, the camera might not have recorded anything at all.
Old Argus.mp4

No FTP. The RLC cameras can automatically FTP motion recordings to a server so if the camera is damaged (or stolen) recordings are not lost. That would impact the battery too much, so none of Reolink's battery cameras are capable of FTP.

The obvious power solution is an inexpensive USB power supply and USB cable. That is what I did with the original Argus (and what I will do with the Argus 3 Pro after I see how long a battery charge lasts). But, that effectively 'tethers' the camera to a power source. No longer 'put anywhere'. Compromise.

Aha! What about using a $30 solar panel. (Which, by the way, has a very good mounting bracket.) Solar panels need at least a few hours of direct sunlight to generate enough power to keep the camera going another day. In that first picture above, where would a solar panel go to get hours of direct sunlight? I'm one of the users who are not exactly convinced by "weather resistant" ratings. I prefer to place cameras where they are not exposed to rain. In my neighborhood, solar panels have begun sprouting on the eaves as people decide to give up on batteries.

Are there any "downsides" to the Argus 3 Pro? (besides the obvious battery compromises)

The WiFi setup does not allow users to define a Static IP address. Probably not a major concern to most customers.

There is a bug in the WiFi display which showing the current network connection as 2.4G WiFi when it is actually 5G WiFi. Not a serious issue, but disappointing.

Summary:

Choosing security cameras is a complicated undertaking. Reolink has products covering every category (PoE, WiFi requiring power, totally wire free, LTE) and every resolution from 1080p to 12MB. There are fixed and zoom lenses. Some pan and tilt. Retail prices vary by capability, but are all 1/2 to 1/3 the equivalent product from major companies such as ARLO or Nest.

The Argus 3 Pro is now charging so that I can measure how long it lasts on a charge (when I'm not doing battery draining things such as Time Lapse recording or keeping the Live View on for long periods.

More detail would help to understand the question:

• All of the cameras have the ability to save ("Download") motion recordings to a folder specified in the Client setup. The user must manually select which recordings to save, or use the scheduling feature of the Client to save all of them automatically.
• The RLC cameras also have the ability to motion FTP files to an FTP server by IP address, which means the server can be anywhere.

Thanks for explaining the context of this request. Makes good sense to me. Reolink is not particularly fast in terms of firmware changes, so it may be a considerable time before such a feature might show up (if ever).

I had a similar issue with the camera IR lights attracting insects. When they zoom very close to the camera, they appear as very large, very bright objects which trigger motion recordings. My solution was to purchase some 850nm Infra-red Illuminators. Mine came from Amazon, but they are widely available. (Search for Trendlux Illuminator. There are many similar brands. I would have posted a link, but the web site does not allow links. I mount them 6-8 ft apart from the cameras so if bugs are drawn to the light, they do not appear as bright spots to the cameras.

In my case, the normal daylight/dark sensor in the illuminator works fine (I never get snow!) Your situation may require more creativity. Perhaps something along the lines of powering each light with a "Smart Plug" and setting up the smart plug app to turn the power on and off on that varying schedule. (Cover the daylight sensor so that any time power is applied the light comes on.)

@bbugaski_390328908112013 Quite a puzzle. Ordinarily, selecting the "Gear" icon brings up a menu where the last item (bottom) is "Delete Camera".
I have an extra camera on the Reolink app on my Android phone that wants me to "Enter user name and password". The gear icon allows me to delete that camera even though it is not physically connected to anything.

Would you mind sharing the reasoning for not using Google to watch for and notify of new Reolink app versions?

@faasio82_480971996033257 Periodically restarting a computer device has been a practice since since the first computers. (I get a notice on my smart watch every month, "It would be a good idea to restart the watch.") The general theory is that computer software cannot possibly be 100% perfect and random junk is almost certain to accumulate here and there, so "clearing out the cobwebs" is a good idea. If manufacturers do not provide an option to do this automatically, customers complain. Nobody is forced to have their systems reboot.

In other words, do it if you want to or ignore it if you want to.

What type of computer is the Reolink Client running on?
Can you open a command window and 'ping' the NVR by its IP address?

When the NVR is connected to your home network, there should be an entry in the network management showing the IP address that was assigned to the NVR.
(I typically use a router feature to "permanently assign" an IP to things like printers, file servers, NVRs, etc. so that they will always have the same IP every time the router restarts or power is restored after an outage.)

I would try putting the IP address into the Client program to search for the NVR.

DDNS is a method used to connect from the Internet into a local network and is set up on the customer's router. It should not be required when the client software is installed on a computer on the same network as the NVR.

The "Good News": the Download site now appears to function correctly.

The "Bad News": for at least one camera, the information is woefully inappropriate.
The RLC-510WA result shows "new" firmware as of June 1, 2022, version v3.1.0.764.
Yet, when I download the package, the *.pak file in it is v3.1.0.764 dated December of 2021.
The version currently on my RLC-510WA is v3.1.0.902 from March, 2022.

Anyone searching for new camera firmware might want to check the version and date on the *.pak file and compare it against what has already been loaded on the camera.

"If I created a new 5Ghz-only network just for this camera, I couldn't access/manage the camera from the network I'm usually logged on to, which would be inconvenient. "

Not entirely. On WiFi systems that allow the user to create different WiFi names (SSIDs) for the 2.4G and 5G bands, there is nothing to stop the user from using the same password for both SSIDs. If they are both on the same WiFi system, then they will be in the same 'network' and a user logged into one band will have access to devices on the other band.

I also agree completely that "most of the time" a device that is capable of connecting at both 2.4G and 5G should choose the 5G band because (a) speeds are higher, and (b) interference is usually lower. In most cases, the 2.4G WiFi signal will be greater than the 5G WiFi signal, which has never stopped my RLC cameras from connecting at 5G.

Several of the current "Mesh" WiFi systems allow only one SSID for both the 2.4G and 5G WiFi channels. (Netgear Orbi for one.)
That makes it impossible for the user to create a separate 5G band for the security camera.

I have had a couple of different RLC WiFi models that both automatically selected the strongest WiFi band.

The bandwidth needs for a 2K camera are fairly modest. Does the camera continue to perform when connected at 2.4G?

The previous "Download" page was not particularly 'cool' and might have been tedious to maintain, but it worked. Given how seldom firmware is updated, the option to be notified of new firmware is a wonderful concept (which also is not functional).

This appears very much like a "work in progress" which has not made much progress. On other vendor support sites, a 'drop down' menu (with that triangle pointing down) opens a list of all the possible choices and the user simply selects one.

So sad.