Posts made by Neoprimal®_124738003939459

The cameras work fine with Alexa for me.

The main issues have been that the motion detection is not reliable at all and even on the best network connection, at 2.4Ghz the camera clips and even live viewing stutter. 2 identical cameras are on different firmware (not an issue, just an observation) with one working a bit better than the other but no way to get both on the "good" firmware. I've contacted support and just gotten a runaround so I now use the cameras as a backup for other cameras and for their starlight capability which works nicely in my area (color night vision is nice!).

To enable Alexa integration, make sure you have the newest version of the app. Get the Reolink Alexa Skill and log in with your credentials. Once the accounts are linked all you'll need to do is wait for the integration setup (Smart Home) to show up under "Cloud" in the Reolink app. From there you should be good.

Good Luck.

So I've had these cameras for a few months and tried very hard to like them. So far, the issues don't seem to be hardware but more software-based (though I can't prove this). All I can really say is that one camera works a bit better than the other and I notice that the software versions are different. I have tried to find out about getting new updates (I'm even willing to try betas) but still, after all this time, none of the cameras have received a firmware update and no one has contacted me about getting beta updates or whatever. My cameras are almost unusable at this point and I'm ready to switch back to my Blink XTs.

Various issues between all 3 from annoying to what I consider, making the cameras almost unusable and what I've done to try and fix the issue.

Annoying:

White flare when the camera starts recording, no matter what time. (Reset the camera, use different microSD, move the camera)
Camera dropouts, or, I should say, times when I try to live view and it fails for some reason. My wifi network is healthy, the cameras are all getting 90%+ wifi strength and my network isn't saturated. I have other cameras working fine.

Bad, but not a dealbreaker:

Jerky! Oh so jerky. Again, I have other cameras running at 2k that are smooth, but my Reolink cameras at some point will get so jerky. It's as if the software is limiting power to the microSD or camera, I don't really know - Why I suspect power? Whenever the camera is plugged directly into power, I don't see this problem so I'm not sure what's up. They are currently on Solar, so I'm assuming the software should work the same. I have noticed that on battery only, even a foot from my router, the footage is jerky and choppy. I have to plug it in for it to smooth out. I have Samsung Endurance 32GB MicroSDs which run @100Mbps so this should not be happening. I have to put the bitrate all the way down to 7xx for the footage to smooth out and even then at times with lots of movement, it gets jerky again. I can deal with this, it's just bad. I switched to Reolink from Blink, thinking it was my answer because I thought Blink was going to go kaput, but the Blink XT cameras operate so much smoother than my Reolink that now I'm tempted to move them back.
(I have reset, several times, tried a different wifi network that I set up SPECIFICALLY for them, a mesh network, and nothing helps).

The dealbreaker, completely unacceptable:

Motion Detection is really, really bad. I have one Argus 2 in my garage and another outside my garage, viewing the driveway. I got an Argus PT and that is viewing the Front Yard.
The Argus 2 in my garage has missed my wife, walking into the garage, getting into the vehicle, opening the overhead garage door and reversing out, all with a 100w LED light on. This is not something any human can do in the time it would take even a slow camera to miss it. And yet there is no footage captured - the camera was on high sens. at the time. It misses her coming home, parking, getting out of the car, getting our son out and coming inside the home. Again, not a quick feat. This is something that can take 3-5m minimum and yet there's no footage at all. Then, suddenly, the camera will capture a speck of dust floating across the lens or me going into the garage to pick up a ladder in under 30s. Likewise, the driveway camera does the same thing. It misses my niece getting into our vehicle that is not parked in the garage. It's angled in a way to capture people walking out of or toward the home and from/to the vehicle, but it misses this on many, many occasions. It will, however, catch the wheels of vehicles driving by on the road by our home. This happens with equal result during the bright days or dark nights. It's as if the camera at times just refuses to wake up. Keep in mind, the camera inside my garage is plugged into power the one mounted to my home on the outside is plugged into solar power, they are never below 90%, the one in the garage is always at 100% so I don't know why it won't wake up or what's happening. Once they DO wake up, they seem to record OK. The one in the garage is less stuttery or jerky than the one on the driveway.
The Argus PT seems to be much, much better at motion detection, though it has a setting that should stop false detections but still catches trees and leaves moving, I won't complain about that because this is true of most cameras. I know that Human detection is not easy. It is plugged into solar power. Both of my Solar Panels are official Reolink, not a third party brand. (To fix, of course, I have tried resets, multiple times. I formatted the MicroSD cards. I made sure to get fast MicroSD cards, in case they could be to blame somehow. I gave the cameras their own network [mesh], I also tried going to medium to high sensitivity and rebooted several times, nothing helps, detection just seems to be completely random).

Anyway, I'm at my wits end. I can't return the cameras and I'm not really getting any support. I wanted to know if there is anyone out there super happy with their Reolink Argus 2, so I can get the build/firmware numbers and perhaps find some way to ask support to push that version to my cameras. If not, these things are going to end up at the side or back of my home or used as redundant cameras because there's no way I can depend on them right now for reliability reasons.

0112_262_237_24 drains the batteries really slowly but the video when viewing from my phone or tablet is a bit choppy. This is pretty annoying. There’s no reason for the slowdown since the Wifi signal is high, I’m using a Samsung Pro Endurance in it and the solar panel is plugged in. I’m assuming it’s software related (or am hoping, because otherwise, it’s hardware related). It’s as if the camera is throttling while I’m trying to view whatever is on the microSD card.

0530_94_107_23 drains much quicker. This isn’t an issue because it’s using a solar panel now, it’s just something I’d noticed and was worried about for the rainy season. Now that I’ve seen how quickly they charge to 100% I’m not in the least bit concerned. The panels also charge in general daylight, the sun doesn’t have to hit the panel which is awesome (I’m not familiar with solar so this was a neat surprise). It doesn’t have the choppiness issue of the other.

For the record, they are both using the Samsung Pro Endurance microSD card and both have their solar panel attached. They’re also both using identical settings. I tried formatting the microSD as well as rebooting but it doesn’t help. The recorded video is thankfully not affected. If I download and view the video it is fine.

I have them both set to Auto Update but they haven’t since I installed them. I’ve also tried Manual but they’re both reporting to be on the latest FW.

Carl, this is a message I left earlier in the thread with all the information you asked posted, along with screenshots from the app of both cameras info. Hopefully, this helps. This is why I am concerned about software updates. I bought these at the same time and even with different versions, both are claiming to be the latest. I contacted your support department and was told that the updates are staggered but I've owned the cameras for a month now and they haven't been updated. I eventually want Alexa to work (as promised by Reolink) so if these are "stuck" on older firmware for some reason, I need to know so I can return them to Amazon.
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If you’ve enabled the auto upgrade on the Reolink App, the battery-powered camera will upgrade the firmware to the latest automatically. Please refer to Enable Auto Upgrade for Battery-powered Cameras. If you have problems during operation, you can send an email to support@reolink.com and they will check it for you soon. Thanks.

Carl, Auto Upgrade is enabled but both cameras are still running different firmware and one performs much better than the other. How do I get both cameras to the newest and best firmware available?

Thanks.

Neither of my cameras have received updates. I'm getting frustrated now. I feel as if they will never be updated.

Thank you Carl.

Is there any chance that some Argus 2s will not be able to upgrade? For example, some routers or motherboards when released are Version 1, then the later ones released are considered Version 2 and generally, they don't run the same firmware, Version 2 devices get all the updates.

Is that something that could happen with these cameras or are they all essentially running the same hardware and using the same drivers?

Thanks!

Do you mind me asking what app version you have as there is no cloud in the app beside devices in my app version. Are you based in usa as wondering if the app is geo blocked as cloud is only available outside europe

I am in the U.S. I bound the one camera that I could to the cloud account. I'm still not able to use the Google Assistant/Home as I have not received a FW update.
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I do have the cloud, it's bound to 1 of the cameras.

I'm slowly souring on the cameras.

First, support doesn't seem to speak very much English and it's hurting communication between us. Secondly, a lot of standard features are missing from these cameras and the excuse is that they are battery powered. My Blink XTs have detection zones and can set a notification schedule and they are battery powered. They also have Alexa integration. Arlo 2 cameras can record 24/7 and set up detection zones once they hook up to solar and they give you 7 days of storage for free as well as have Alexa and Google Home integration right out of the box - no need for their sub.

If Reolink is going to bind Google Home and Alexa to their cloud account, that means the second camera I have will never be able to get it because I don't plan on ever getting a sub. That's really sneaky. Advertise future integration and then bind it to their paid offering. So those of us who buy it and don't have a sub are left in the cold? Not cool.

I am still within my refund period on Amazon, it looks like I'm going to have to return these cameras and go with Netgear's Arlo 2 - it is much more expensive but they do way more out of the box. The Arlo 2 is over a hundred dollars more and that's not even with the solar power panels. Oh well. I'm giving these cameras 2 more weeks and then it's back to Amazon they go.

I was so happy with them when I got them, ah well. Time reveals all.

OK, so I got another response with a link to here.

According to this, the PIR is supposed to be on and triggering. The schedule affects push notif./alerts/alarms, etc. If I am reading and understanding, this means that the PIR should be on and still triggering and recording videos. Then it's supposed to obey the schedule set however I can say with great confidence that this does not work. At least not right now.

Here's what I did.

I set between 8AM and 5PM as disabled (because I don't need notifications throughout the day, I do still want the recordings). I then set PIR to high, just to make sure it would record FOR SURE if it's supposed to.
Since I set it up, not 1 recording has been made. So again, not sure if I'm not understanding those instructions but I still have no way to turn off notifications while still getting recordings.

Any help would be appreciated. Reolink support is just linking me these articles.

Thanks.

What version fw are on each?

0530_94_107_23 and 0112_262_237_24

Both have slightly different issues.

0112_262_237_24 drains the batteries really slowly but the video when viewing from my phone or tablet is a bit choppy. This is pretty annoying. There's no reason for the slowdown since the Wifi signal is high, I'm using a Samsung Pro Endurance in it and the solar panel is plugged in. I'm assuming it's software related (or am hoping, because otherwise, it's hardware related). It's as if the camera is throttling while I'm trying to view whatever is on the microSD card.

0530_94_107_23 drains much quicker. This isn't an issue because it's using a solar panel now, it's just something I'd noticed and was worried about for the rainy season. Now that I've seen how quickly they charge to 100% I'm not in the least bit concerned. The panels also charge in general daylight, the sun doesn't have to hit the panel which is awesome (I'm not familiar with solar so this was a neat surprise). It doesn't have the choppiness issue of the other.

For the record, they are both using the Samsung Pro Endurance microSD card and both have their solar panel attached. They're also both using identical settings. I tried formatting the microSD as well as rebooting but it doesn't help. The recorded video is thankfully not affected. If I download and view the video it is fine.

I have them both set to Auto Update but they haven't since I installed them. I've also tried Manual but they're both reporting to be on the latest FW. I read that there's FW to enable Google Home integration and I'd really like to have that. I'm also looking forward to integration with Amazon and Alexa since I have a Show and a FireTV on my TVs.

Thanks.

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Argus-2-Front-Yard.jpg

I can't edit my post. I got another email from support, this time with the correct information. Apparently, there is such a thing as scheduled notifications but for some odd reason, battery-powered cameras don't get the option. I can't think of a single reason, especially since I have solar panels on them. Can anyone shed some light on this?

Thanks.

Hey all!

I contacted Reolink support but the language barrier is real. I'm either not being clear in what I am looking for or support just isn't getting it.

I want to have my PIR enabled all the time but only get notifications between certain times.

I looked into PIR schedule and it would be perfect for this, except all that does it turn the PIR off.
If they could copy that setting and make it apply JUST to notifications, then that'd be awesome.

Is there any setting in the app where I can adjust the notifiction schedule? I really only need notifications at night and mornings, not all day.

Thanks.

Howdy all,

I'm new here!

I just got 2 Argus 2 + Solar Pack Cameras. They went on lightning deals a few days apart so I pulled the trigger for some savings.

So far so good. I really like the cameras. I do notice however that both cameras are using different firmware and when I try to upgrade, they both say they have the latest version. This wouldn't be an issue, except that I've noticed that one of the cameras is draining much, much quicker than the other and they both are triggering roughly the same amount in terms of motion detection. I charged both cameras to 100% before deploying them and I deployed them both at the same time. They use the same settings across the board. Ironically, the camera I pull up more is using less battery. The battery thing will be almost irrelevant soon enough (when I put the solar panels up), I just find it odd that they're both telling me that they have the latest version but are on different versions and I feel like 1 version performs better than the other with battery life. I'm a bit worried that in the rainy season where we sometimes have a week or so of darker days here in FL, that's when I'll start caring about the battery performance.

Also, I thought that these cameras used thermal for motion detection but they're triggering to plants and trees blowing in the wind, even at the low sensitivity setting. One of the main reasons I put the cameras where they are (knowing that trees and plants are there) is because I thought they'd only trigger for vehicles and people. Again, once I put the solar panel up this will be much less of an issue and more of an annoyance. I just wanted an idea of why they'd trigger to plant and tree movement if they're only supposed to be picking up thermal/heat as a method of motion detection.

Thanks!