Posts made by Crimp On_62210811129

The short answer is, "yes." Reolink WiFi cameras have standard SMA connectors and will accept standard WiFi antennas with SMA connectors.

The long answer is, "It's complicated" for a LOT of reasons.

A different omnidirectional antenna is not going turn the WiFi signal from "one bar" into "five bars". Reolink does not specify the antenna gain on their products. Typical consumer antennas are 3dB, and typical "high gain" antennas are 6-7dB. A difference of 3dB antenna gain results in twice the signal. It also matters whether you are connecting at 2.4GHz or 5GHz. The antenna you get has to support the frequency band you are using. It's won't help to purchase a high gain 2.4GHz antenna if you want to connect at 5GHz.

Antennas with higher gain tend to be longer, which may affect where you can mount the camera. (They are also typically black, whereas Reolink outdoor cameras are white.)

There are "patch" and "Yagi" antennas which have higher gain, but they have to be aimed directly at the WiFi router and mounting them is a chore.

Reolink cameras use two multi-band antennas, whereas most inexpensive WiFi security cams use only a single 2.4GHz antenna. So, replacing Reolink antennas requires two. (I actually run one of my Reolink WiFi cameras with a single antenna because turning it past about 60 degrees to the side made the antenna bump into the mount. I think they "cheaped out" by using the same camera mount for WiFi cameras as they did for regular bullet cameras.)

Sometimes, moving the camera will result in a better signal. WiFi does not penetrate things like refrigerators, AC duct work, metal garage doors, etc. Stucco walls can be a problem.

My next door neighbor found that two of his security cameras did not get good WiFi signal, so he purchased inexpensive extension 2.4GHz WiFi antennas from Amazon that came with an extension cable. He was able to run the cable through his wall. With the antennas inside, he got a better signal inside the house than he did outside.

The alternative to changing camera antennas is to extend the WiFi signal. There are a zillion ways and products that accomplish this. Google topics like "extend WiFi signal" and "Wifi signal booster."

In my own case, I installed an old WiFi access point using PowerLine to improve the signal to three of my cameras.

Sorry if this isn't helpful. Good Luck!

You are correct in your analysis. A bright light or IR illuminator from another camera that is directly visible to a camera will adversely affect the image. Your camera needs to be pointed down and to the right. That will take the other camera out of the picture as well as the reflection from the white eaves. You would not lose any useful coverage, and would actual gain some more useful coverage. I have seen advice from Reolink about how to position cameras for night vision, but (alas) cannot find a link to it right now. There is an excellent article on the web about night vision at https://networkcameratech.com/10-ways-to-improve-security-camera-night-vision.

I also noticed this issue, and how it should be possible to avoid the camera causing a motion event (itself) by switching between day and night modes. Basing motion detection on changes in the actual picture offers significant capabilities over using a cheap PIR sensor (like the Argus models), but it also leads to irritating issues, like this one and those pesky insects flying close to the infrared LED's.

I'm so glad you posted this, because it opens up entirely new possibilities for me. Can you please describe more about the video files? Like, when the camera is recording constantly, does it send one GIANT file for the whole time? Does it break recordings up into set length? The video files I've seen have REALLY ugly names. How do you know which files have motion (and which do not)?

Thanks

My understanding is that FTP (File Transfer Protocol) implies sending a "file". Since the 410 camera has no internal storage, the only "file" it could FTP would be an image. (Other camera models use memory cards to record motion events, which can be played back or transferred later.) So, it doesn't seem like FTP really applies to the 410 as far as motion recording is concerned.

Traditional POE cameras, like the 410 are intended to stream (either constantly, or when they detect motion) to a server that they are constantly connected to. (Such as one of Reolink's NVR models, a NAS system, or software like Blue Iris.)

I don't have an NVR, so I purchased models with SDCards which store recordings on the camera.

Hope you find a way to do what you want.

I have verified that email from Argus does work. One thing that threw me in the beginning was that the Argus needs to have an email "account" it can access to send the message using SMTP. I set up a GMail account named "myhousename@google.com". The camera logs into Google's SMTP server using this account name and password, and sends messages to the email addresses that I specify. (My regular GMail account, for example.)

Another wrinkle is that you have to know which "port" the SMTP server listens to. "Normal" SMTP listens to port 25. Google, however, listens to port 465.

There are other ways that Reolink could have set this up. For example, they could have a BIG email server that the camera would access using credentials known only to Reolink, and that server could send messages to wherever you specified. They could also have made each camera an SMTP server, which runs into issues with a log of ISP's. But, that's not what they did.

The way it works is probably the best solution. I'm on Time-Warner (now Spectrum), and all my cameras send email as they are supposed to.

Hope that helps.

PIR scheduling is obvious, (

once you understand it

).

For row one:
0-5 on the left means the first box is hour "0", i.e. midnight to 12:59am
second box is 1:00am to 1:59am
third box is 2:00am to 2:59am
forth box is 3:00an to 3:59am
fifth box is 4:00am to 4:59am

For row two:
6-10 on the next row, the first box is 6:00am to 6:59am
box two is 7:00am to 7:59am

etc. etc.