Posts made by md

@reolink-fiona Hi, I don't know how to use community chat. I sent several video clips to Reolink Support. Reolink customer service is great. Thanks for working hard to improve your great products. Regards....

My 823A now returns to guard point. Thanks much for fixing this. The cam can follow people walking by on my sidewalk. It does a good job following them. But when I walk toward the cam and go underneath it at a normal walking pace the cam cannot follow me. It responds too slowly. I must walk very slow for the cam to follow me when I walk close and underneath it. A burglar obviously would not walk so slow. Also, it cannot follow cars driving by faster than about 15mph. Cars just drive by and go out of field of view. I don't expect the 823A to follow fast cars, they are not a security concern for me once they've gone way past my house. At night with vehicle auto tracking on it sometimes sees a parked car and detects it as moving but it's not. It records a false alert. The parked car may be reflecting the IR light and the cam thinks it's moving? Some weeks ago I sent Reolink support videos of all this. It's a great cam for the price even with it's limitations and I'm sure Reolink will improve the firmware. Those who want a PTZ should buy it. I saw on the news China is having a surge in Covid cases. Stay safe Reolink staff.

@reolink-fiona

I've been using the new firmware for the 823A for about ten hours. The vertical tracking is some better. The camera can follow me walking close to it and underneath it as I walk from the sidewalk around the garage corner to the front door. BUT I have to walk very slow. It cannot follow me walking normally. The BAD, I can't get the Return to Guard Point to work. I check the Return to Guard Point, set a time, 10, 20 30 second, push reset guard point and confirm. But after auto tracking the camera stays to far left or right, it won't return to the center. I wonder if the cam sees the parked cars to left/right and it fixates on them wrongly thinking they are in motion. I also wonder if others have this problem. I reset and rebooted the cam but that didn't help. I may go back to the older firmware version or just shut off auto tracking. I think Reolink will fix this eventually.

Also when auto tracking if vehicles drive past my house at say about 15mph or higher the 823A sometimes can't keep up, it just looses the car going by. It's responsiveness is rather slow, but I don't expect it to do much better at fast vehicle speeds. I don't think most PTZ cams can follow very fast. It follows people walking on my sidewalk okay. I like this cam and it will be nice when the bugs are worked out.

@reolink-fiona

Thank you. I will try the updated firmware on the 823A.

Which POE cams have a siren? Some don't show it in the specs.

@ourhalfdzn_493664171921643, It's good you are researching cam systems before buying. Some buy then get frustrated because they don't know how to run them or have they have too high expectations on how they perform. In my opinion Reolink is a great brand in their price range. I've used them for a couple years. There are YouTube videos you can watch about how to set them up and how the apps work. On YouTube type in "Reolink NVR set up, review" etc. Also use the Reolink support pages. Camera systems can be very basic, easy to use, or indepth rather complicated settings. There is a learning curve how to connect them to your router, controlling cam features, etc. but once you get the hang of it it's fairly routine. Some use NVR system, others just use phone app and record to the SD cards in the cams. Two YouTube channels I like are LifeHackster and The Hook Up who have videos about Reolink cams, there are others including Reolink's own YouTube channel.

@robin-thevenet_300768852820175 A couple hours ago I restored the cam again and redid the settings. Got in my truck, drove by the cam several times. It detected/recorded the truck, started to center it in the frame with auto tracking on but didn't follow it left/right even at low 4 mph. Back in the house, the app has been notifiying me of other vehicles passing by. It actually tracked a few times following cars. So it's inconsistant tracking vehicles. I wonder if it's the color of the vehicle, angle of the sun/shadows, whatever. Will let you all know how if performs in the next days/weeks. Reolink replied to my support email. I have confidence they will improve/fix this cam.

@burkm_172321696190677 I use android app 4.28.0.8 and record to SD cards. I have a 823A and installed the new v.3.1.0.804 firmware three days ago. The new firmware is supposed to auto track both horizontal and vertical. I have not tried the object size, detection zone, alarm delay, pet detection settings. They are unused. It works OK with human tracking. The vertical function works as the cam centers a person in the middle of the frame. The cam detects/records a person walking left/right past my house on the sidewalk great. The cam can track a person walking toward my front door up to about 4 feet from the cam then the cam then looses track of the person. The cam can't track someone walking close/directly beneath it. The big problem is I can't get the vehicle auto track to work with the new firmware. The cam detects/records a moving vehicle and tries to center the vehicle in the frame. But it fails to track the vehicle going left/right. My settings: motion detection 41, sensitivity person and vehicle each at 88, auto tracking on for both person and vehicle, camera recording on with schedule on for person vehicle, push notifications on with schedule on for person vehicles. The 823A is about 40 feet from the street. I drove past my house about ten times at 3 mph, 10 mph, 15 mph. The 823A detected the truck and started recording, but it did not follow the truck at all, even at the very slow speed. The old firmware did follow vehicles if they drove by slow, but could not keep up if cars drove by faster like about 15-20 mph. I tried resetting the camera but it didn't change it's inability for follow vehicles.

Last night I set the motion detection to 50 and the person vehicle sensitivity to 100. I got a lot of false vehicle detections/recordings where I could not see any movement at all in the clips. There are a couple of neighbhors cars parked in the street, not moving but the IR light is reflected back to the camera by the taillight plastic. I assume the cam thinks its a moving car and starts triggering events even though the cars aren't moving at all? From now on I won't have the sensitivity so high.

But with my 823A the main problem is I can't get the new firmware to track vehicles. I'd rather have the old firmware back that could track vehicles without the vertical tracking feature. I started a support ticket. I really like the 823A. It's a great camera, the best in its price range by far. I trust Reolink will fix the firmware and improve it with updates. Meantime I'd rather have the old firmware back but it's not on the Reolink download page. I'm not the only one with this issue. Another user posted the same problem on Reddit. I'm still a big fan of Reolink.

@metal-me_488723804848306 I doubt it will communicate with a lock. Maybe a future model will.

Just noticed the 823A is in stock and at a discounted price. It's a great camera.

@trrombley_104879498739842 I agree. Even though quality license plate reader cams are expensive, if Reolink made one, I'd buy it. Tell your clients such cams cost big bucks.

@vince_268221728088244 I posted a couple pics on the official Reolink Reddit forum, do a search. There are several videos on YouTube, do a search for 811A there. A good YouTube video is The Hook Up channel and his video "The Truth About Reolink Cameras." He compares Reolink to other brands. If you want color night vision you either need your own floodlights with several thousand lumens or built in white lights in the camera so you don't rely on IR. I don't know of any dome cams that have built in white lights. But please don't expect home security cameras to be clear enough at night to identify a face when someone is moving, like jogging, there will be blurring. By default brands lower the frame rate at night to let more light into the lens which reduces clarity. No brands I know of in the $100-$200 per camera range can capture pics good enough to ID a face beyond roughly 20 feet at night. Color night vision is good to ID vehicle color to help catch a bad guy. Reolink does not have the best night vision, but for it's price, overall value, all the features you get, it's a great brand IMO. I like my Reolinks.

@vince_268221728088244 Reolink has 8MP POE cams with spot lights and color night vision, one is the 811A. It's a great camera, I have two. It's on their product page. It was released last summer.

@beuford318_472950590509208 Lift a bottle, cheers to Reolink, I'll drink to that!

Hoping for new firmware for the 823A with auto tracking both horizontal and vertical so the cam can follow someone walking underneath it. It's a great camera, I really like it!

@rlsbf99_472873731580105 The technology and firmware needed to read license plates is expensive. There are dedicated license plate reader cams available if you want to spend hundreds or over a thousand dollars each. They are used at bank and government facilities, toll booths, etc. but none in the budget price range most homeowners want to spend. You just can't get Cadillac features at cheap car prices. I like my Reolink cams, great value IMO.

Some buy plastic junction boxes for electric wires and use them to hide the cable. You can get them at hardware stores. There is a YouTube video by LifeHackster that shows how to to this.

I have an E1 OD and just got a 823A. The E1 is not capable of looking straight down below itself, the 823A can. The 823A is mounted on my garage corner. It auto tracks left/right, right/left but It cannot track below itself, it stops following someone when they start to walk under it. It seems Reolink is fixing this with a firmware update. The 823A is an amazing camera, very fast and precise guard point, set point movement. I really like it so far. The E1 OD is a good cam for the price too, lots of features for the money, though it could use a firmware update to make returning to set points more accurate.

I've owned a E1 Outdoor for three months. I like this camera and all the features. But I and others are having problems with auto tracking. Mine will track a person but sometimes gets stuck to far left or right and will not go back to guard point. This makes the camera useless being stuck. I have to manually use the PTZ button to get it to go back. It sometimes goes out of alignment, the guard points get off by about 10%-20% and it needs to recalibrate. I don't know if this is a firmware glitch or the plastic gears slip a little. I think the auto tracking function is not on current models.

Does Reolink plan to update the auto tracking feature and fix it or just drop this feature for this camera? The night vision on this camera is not good, blurring with motion. I hope Reolink can improve this.

I plan on buying the 823A when it's released. It has auto tracking. I hope auto tracking is reliable on the 823A, I will be disappointed if it has the same problem as the E1 Outdoor.