Posts made by Crimp On_62210811129

Is this camera wired to an NVR, or stand-alone with an SD Card in it?

I was unable to find "POSE/PSE socket". Is there a typo? Or, could you spell it out?
When a computer has both WiFi and ethernet jacks, my experience is that connecting via ethernet often takes over and shuts down the WiFi connection. Is this computer Windows, Mac, Linux?

a) Yes, you may be able to periodically connect to the camera as follows:
* Before mounting the camera permanently,
* Create a WiFi Hot Spot on your phone.
* Configure the camera to connect to the phone Hot Spot.
* Turn off the Hot Spot and wait a day.
* Leave the camera "waiting".
* Turn the Hot Spot back on and see if the camera connects.
The non-battery Reolink cameras (mine anyway) have an option to set
a "static" IP address. My Argus battery cameras do not.
I honestly have no idea how long a battery camera will wait for WiFi
to return.

b) Oh, yes. Battery cameras create their own hole through the router by connecting to the Reolink "cloud".
The Reolink app and Client software use the camera UID to learn where the camera can be found.
In this case, of course, you can do "live view", get alerts, and look at recordings without
going to the site. MUCH BETTER as long as the hotel allows you do to this. My experience with
hotel networks is they typically force users to grovel (Click "I understand") at least once every 24 hours.
The camera does not know how to do this. (Ha!)

I believe so. What you need is a Power over Ethernet (PoE) injector, such as this one:
https://www.amazon.com/TP-LINK-TL-PoE150S-Injector-Adapter-Compliant/dp/B001PS9E5I/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=poe+injector&qid=1582658774&sr=8-3

Of course, I would test it with the 500' of Cat6 cable before physically installing the cable. The PoE injector is not expecting to see PoE on the input side, so the first step is to determine whether you need a PoE splitter (see the diagrams on Amazon). Probably ask TP-Link about that.

Good Luck

Does Norton write anything to any of the various logs (system, application, etc.) when it takes action against a program?
Are the cameras defined in the Reolink Client program by IP address or UID?

I would "start small" before investing massive amounts in battery-powered cameras (from any vendor). I fear you are in for disappointment in terms of replacing batteries more frequently than desired, not "catching" motion when it starts, detecting "motion" that is not people, animals or cars, coverage area, and WiFi connection issues. Put in two and see "how it works" before buying 10 more.

I have two of the original Argus cameras. I now power them using USB adapters. My "go to" cameras are the new 5MP Power over Ethernet (PoE) cameras. They are a chore to install, but the picture is amazing compared to the Argus.

Good Luck

Does Norton require you to allow the "app" to accept connections through the firewall? In my Windows Firewall, there is an entry for "Reolink Client", checked for both private and public.

Yes, Reolink cameras have a HUGE bundle of cords!

Even though these models support Power over Ethernet (PoE), they also can be powered by a transformer. (I have done it.)

The reset button is convenient during initial setup. The cameras can be rebooted remotely, but not "Factory Reset". That takes the button. I have not pressed the reset button since my cameras were installed.

With an NVR, cameras can be viewed using a TV set connected directly to the NVR. No network required.
But, most of us would prefer to view cameras or recordings from elsewhere. For that, the NVR has to be connected to a local network (router). To view files remotely, the local network has to be connected to the internet through a modem (and an Internet Service Provider).

I found that the weatherproof ethernet connector was the critical component when drilling holes for installation. I would shove that part through the hole first, and once it was through the power cord and reset cord went after it.

Cat6 is "overkill", but the cost difference is so little between Cat5e and Cat6 that you might as well.

When I mounted cameras, I thought that the mounting template had a hole in the center of the correct size.
What I did was estimate hole size (think I started with 3/4"), drill a hole in a scrap of wood, and see if I could shove all that stuff through it. No? Need bigger hole. Certainly practice before drilling into the house!

I would email support@reolink.com about the disk drive. I do not have an NVR and was unaware that it provided for attaching USB hard drives. Silly me, I thought all the drives had to be internal hard drives. All I see on the NVR "specs" are SATA internal and eSATA (external). No mention of USB drives.

(Caveat: I have only stand-alone cameras, no DVR.) When I want to set up cameras to view remotely, I have to define them by their UID, not their IP address. Each of my cameras automatically contacts the Reolink "Cloud" and registers using the UID.
Maybe what happened when the Reolink App was activated was it learned a similar identifier, maybe an NVR UID.

Not having one to look at, I do not know if DVR's have a unique identifier that can be used for remote access.

My advice is to email support@reolink.com and ask, "How do I set up my Windows Reolink Client software to access a Reolink at a remote location?"

There was a question previously about this and the answer is, "No. Not on the NVR."

If this were a stand-alone camera with internet access, there are things you could do to grant access to others, but the NVR appears to be "all or nothing."

Reolink gathers suggestions for product improvement. You could find that previous post and "Second it". Or, send email directly to support@reolink.com and make the suggestion.

I would have to climb a ladder to reset either of my Argus cameras, and I cannot remember (so long ago).
Is the Argus setup one of those screens where the password is shown only as "dots" and not the actual letters?
I have this vague memory of my pudgy fingers entering characters that I did not intend to enter and being very frustrated. I might have even had a period in the password and my phone would "autocorrect" and add a space.

On my Reolink Windows Client, when I click on the "Stop" icon in the lower left (looks like a square), my camera pictures all go blank. This matches the images above. When I click on the "Start" icon (triangle), they appear.

Can you try clicking on the triangle?

Yes, the Argus camera should have got a new IP address by itself.

The Reolink battery cameras connect to 2.4G WiFi because that is the only radio in them. When I set up my (first generation) Argus cameras, the setup process had me enter the WiFi name (SSID) and password in my smartphone app and then point the camera at the code that appeared. There is no need to fool around with the router 5G channel, changing channels, etc. Once the camera learns the SSID and password from the app, it looks at the available WiFi networks, picks the one with that SSID, and connects.

Can you relate what happened at each step of the camera factory reset and setup?

This is one of the annoying features of products which detect "motion" by counting how many pixels in the image are different from one frame to another. Moving shadows definitely "change pixels". I opted to keep making (mostly useless) recordings, but no longer send alerts. I also did some minor adjustments to the motion area. i.e. we have some plants near the front door that constantly move in the breeze, so I blanked them out. Did the same thing with the hummingbird feeder. For a while, I blocked out where cars would pass in the street, but then decided we have little traffic and it is kind of interesting to see how many actually do drive down our street. If this annoys you too much, be happy you only invested in two cameras.

Just a note: I saw a new item that Wyze was forced to remove their "person detection" code from their $25 cameras because whoever owned the patent had sold it to somebody (Google? Apple? Nest? don't remember).

There are other cameras with an antenna connector on the outside of the case. It is relatively simple to disconnect the antenna from those and attach an antenna with a long cord. (Argos Eco is one.) The Argus 2 WiFi antenna is located inside the case, and is probably wired directly to the radio chip. Even if someone could get the case apart and locate the antenna, it would take a lot of technical knowledge to connect an external antenna, run the cord through the case, and seal it back up again. Would totally void the warranty.

I suggest deploying the Argus 2 somewhere else and installing an Argos Eco with an external antenna. The Eco needs only a single 2.4G antenna.

"As I try to explain it works within my own network. I can see all cameras etc. Everything is fine. But if I move to another network and try remote access via internet it doesn´t work anymore..."

BatMan is correct. Provided that you have only one router (i.e. not both a modem/router from the ISP and a router of your own) then you must "Port Forward" an external port to a camera port. However, most routers forward a specific external port to ONE computer inside the LAN. So, if you have five cameras you want to access, then you have to set up five forwarding rules. To access the camera web interfaces (HTTP), you would do something like this:

External port 81, forward to (IP of camera 1), port 80
External port 82, forward to (IP of camera 2), port 80
External port 83, forward to (IP of camera 3), port 80

Then, when you want to access camera 1, you would web browse to: http://(your public IP):81

Do a similar thing if port 9000 is the destination. set up forwards from 9001 to 9000, 9002 to 9000, 9003 to 9000, etc.

And... Most of us have Dynamic IP addresses from our internet suppliers. In order to ensure that we always know what our current IP address is, we sign up for a DDNS (Dynamic DNS) service (I use No-IP.com There are lots of them.)

This all gets pretty complicated and tedious, which is why the camera manufacturers have turned to the "cloud" solution. Instead of carrying around a list of "Camera 4 is port xxx4. My public IP is now..." we just open the app and it shows us the "name" of each camera. We click, and we're connected.

I have had good results with questions like this by emailing support@reolink.com. Answering questions is their job. On this forum, most of the participants are "users like me" who have random knowledge and opinions, but no access to engineers.

Depending on the model, I believe the IR lights are controlled by a light sensor. In other words, "It's too dark, so I'll turn on the IR lights now." On some models, there is a setting to prevent the IR lights from every coming on. I actually use that feature because I realized that flying insects are drawn to the IR lights and show up as VERY BRIGHT IMAGES to the camera, which records them as "motion." What I did was purchase separate "IR illuminators" and mounted them at least 5-6 ft. away from the camera. Bugs can fly near them all they want and do not influence my cameras.

For remote access, cameras have to be added to the Windows client app using their UID's, not IP addresses. The UID is the key into Reolink's "cloud" that the app queries to find the camera.