Posts made by Crimp On_62210811129

If you press a paperclip into the reset hole long enough, it will "reset to factory settings" which means you have to set the camera up from scratch.

Not that I have found. It bugs me that it is grammatically incorrect. "The program is shut down. Do you want to continue?" HA. It should read, "Do you really want to close the program?" Obviously, the program is NOT "shut down" (yet).

I agree an option to close immediately without confirmation is something a lot of us would appreciate.

I have not done a firmware update recently, and I just now confirmed that my Reolink RLC410-WS and Argus cameras do not respond to telnet. "Connection refused." No chance to log in or anything. Do not have a C1 camera, so have no idea if there was a vulnerability in that model.

I have never heard of a security camera (Wi-Fi or not) that has a 120v plug. EVERY camera is powered either using a "Wall Wart" adapter or over the Ethernet cable (PoE). This is what makes the battery powered cameras so attractive. (What makes them NOT attractive is the way they eat up batteries, cannot do constant monitoring, and lack many features.)

There are companies making floodlights with security camera built in (not Reolink). If you have not made a huge investment in Reolink, you might want to look around before getting in too deep.

For me, cost of the camera is not the major factor in adding more security cameras. It is "how the heck can I get power/signal to that location?"

I am not 100% certain that the RLC-422W would even mount to a standard electrical box.

My RLC cameras that are mounted externally have the Ethernet and Reset cords hanging inside the wall. ONLY the power cord goes through the wall.

The RLC-410 can ignore motion in areas that have "too much", like passing traffic.
It's the grid under "Sensitivity". If you block out the picture except for right around the mailbox, you should get motion only when someone enters that specific area. The "pre" and "post" record would capture walking up to the mailbox, walking away, etc. I have not had much success reading license plates, although my cameras are 30+ feet away from the street.

You did a great job documenting this situation. I agree that both cameras should detect motion and record. Have you posed this question to support@reolink.com? In my experience, it takes some time to get a response from them (in Hong Kong), but they are pretty good.

Just AMAZING. Thanks for sharing the link to your live feed.

Way cool. And, you have "ant traps" under the hive to keep them away from the honey!

This may not affect you, but I had MAJOR problems with my RLC-410WS cameras recording constantly because the IR LED's would make any insect flying close to the lens look SO BRIGHT that it would trigger a motion event. I wound up mounting a separate IR light six feet away and covering up the IR LED's on my RLC camera. (I guess you can avoid that by setting the recording schedule to "never". NEVER MIND!)

This looks like a question for support@reolink.com, or maybe whoever put up the link that you followed.

Do you have the latest firmware? All of these cameras have the same basic hardware platform, with firmware specific to the camera model. (Reolink's "Support->Download" page)

These are pretty hefty devices to be attaching to a beehive. Is there not a tiny color spy camera that will wire into the Pi that will be controlling the light?

On the "Advanced" options page, under "Email", you can set the RLC camera to send an email notice that motion has been recorded and attach a picture. I am not aware of any method to FTP a single image. This will result in an email every 10 minutes (six per hour).

Frankly, I have no idea if the camera will shift from black & white to color mode before the image is collected. Do the bees care if it is dark or light inside the hive?

This may not be the right product for what you want to do.

My response was perhaps too short. I worked in computers and telecommunications and was responsible for installation of thousands of network outlets as we completely rewired a college campus two times. We also purchased (literally) thousands and thousands of Ethernet patch cords. In all those years, the ONLY time shielded cable was installed was when a contractor wiring a new building "got a good deal" on some shielded cable. We made him pull it all out and reinstall with unshielded cable that met the specifications.

Most Ethernet cable is not shielded. There is no need for shielding because of the "twist" in the pairs of wire.

Ironically, my old Argus battery cameras are NOT recording constantly. The "RLC" and "C1" cameras are build on a single hardware platform (IPC_3816M). They all got a new firmware release. I have been awaiting "progress" in a number of areas and installed the new firmware. Alas, this new development is disappointing.

So, different hardware platform. Almost everything is different between the RLC and battery models (motion sensing, LED control, underlying operating system, etc.).

I actually set my battery cameras to not email me about motion during the day because the constant pings were annoying. Ironically, I have them set to trigger only at night.

Installed the new firmware for RLC-410WS cameras on Feb 3. Starting the evening of Feb 3, and every night since then, my three cameras record almost constantly from about 11:45 at night until about 4:00am the next morning. Each motion file is about 102MB (two minutes). When I watch the motion files, I cannot see ANYTHING that resembled "motion." I am (sadly) fully aware that very small and very quick motions can trigger a recording. i.e. a tiny insect flying past the camera lens at night appears VERY bright because it is illuminated by the LED's. Even 1/2sec is enough. Rain drops falling past the eaves, etc. I am used to counting off five seconds and seeing that tiny flicker which set off the camera. With these recordings, I see NOTHING MOVE.

The only thing that has changed is the firmware. Has anyone else noticed a change in camera behavior? Reolink support obviously was not told to expect questions about the new firmware, so they have no advice except the standard "How to avoid..." I guess now I get to lower the sensitivity setting one notch each day until this behavior quits.

Very annoying.

Reolink's Cloud Service was added for customers who want recordings to be protected. Recordings on an SDCard inside the camera would be lost if someone physically removed the camera. If someone is going to burglarize or vandalize a home, they certainly would not be shy about stealing cameras. Customers with battery cameras clamored for Reolink to create a Cloud Service similar to that of Netgear's Arlo.

Before the Cloud Service was created (and still), Reolink cameras can be accessed through a mobile phone app. The key is that the camera has to be defined correctly in Reolink's data center by the UID. If you are having trouble accessing camera feeds, I suggest contacting support@reolink.com.

You definitely have a problem that needs support. I just installed the latest Windows Client (my machine runs Windows 7). Same interface as before: icons in same place. descriptive labels under each. When I open an icon, same labels and entry boxes as before. (see screen shot below)

Client.jpg

To confirm: The icons in the Settings box are arranged differently than before, and when you click on one of the icons it brings up a box with no labels? Can you post a picture of one of them? (I am thinking about updating, and I still have the previous install file to go back to. But, it looks like waiting for a fix might be prudent.)

Have you contacted support@reolink.com about this? My experience is that they respond reliably and (given the time difference between here and Hong Kong) fairly promptly. I do not know if they actually monitor this community forum.

I would email support@reolink.com The techs monitor that. I do not know if Reolink techs monitor this community forum.

I suspect changing firmware to keep an Argus camera "always on" when connected to electric power (not solar panel) is a non-trivial programming task. There is a very good chance that the electronics inside the Argus line are entirely different than the RLC line of cameras and the software also entirely different. This delay between an event starting and recording plagues battery cameras that are three times the cost of Argus. I had thought about doing one of the "hacks" to bring constant power to my Argus cameras and realized there was no point. I bought a couple to see how they work, and find them cute as hell. But not buying any more.

It is no surprise to me that Reolink is using Amazon Web Services as their cloud platform. Most of the Internet of Things devices that I own seem to use Amazon or one other cloud service. It might be worth considering that EVERY Internet service that does anything at all has "open ports" (email and HTTP/HTTPS being the most common but there are lots more). The majority nowadays seem to use encrypted data paths.

My initial thought is that companies have chosen this design because the hole through the firewall is "one way". i.e. the devices opens a port to a specific IP address. I do not know any method to query a router from the outside and discover that these pathways exist. Messages can come in only from that specific IP. I guess they could hack AWS, in which case I imagine they would go after web commerce sites first, rather than consumer cameras.

Of course, if you get the cameras hooked up to your ZoneMinder, then you can block AWS and security of your VPN is the main risk. My guess is the camera will function without connecting to Reolink's cloud.

Good Luck!