REOLINK Smart 5MP 8CH Home Security Camera System, 4pcs Wired PoE IP Cameras Outdoor with Person/Pet/Vehicle Detection, 4K 8CH NVR with 2TB HDD for 24-7 Recording, RLK8-520D4-5MP

The media could not be loaded. UPDATED REVIEW (3/9/19):After several e-mails to the company, Reolink has updated the firmware for the NVR and it now supports showing motion events only on the timeline with a check box. It is EXACTLY what this app needed and makes it absolutely perfect. Now it is a cinch to find the exact section of video where there was motion. They also added the ability to draw custom motion zones directly on the iPhone app. There is still no fast forward option however that does not affect the app too much. I am beyond happy with the customer service from the company and support staff. Every one of my e-mails was answered and they were true to their estimated timeline for implementing the update. I recommend this system to everyone!ORIGINAL REVIEW:I purchased this Reolink system to replace the Ring Video Doorbell Pro and Ring Floodlight Cam that I had installed at my home. I wanted the Reolink because unlike the Ring and its Wi-Fi competitors, the Reolink records 24/7 and offers a lot more flexibility and user customization. Before I get into the full review I would like to say that I am extremely satisfied with this unit. Unlike other reviewers, my NVR is whisper quiet and makes no sound other than the sound of the hard disk drive writing its data. I have yet to hear a fan noise of any kind.Planning:The most time consuming process of this system (or any wired home video system) is mapping out and installing the wires. I opted not to use the included Ethernet cables which are around 60 feet each. I purchased a spool of Cat5E from the local hardware store for around 60.00 and this proved to be more than what I needed for my installation. After my Ethernet cables were run, hooking up the cameras was quite straight forward. Plug them in, tuck in the wires and snap them to the base. Done deal.Set Up:After running all of my Ethernet cables to the areas where I wanted to mount the cameras, I found that everything hooked up and worked seamlessly. Once a new camera is plugged in, the NVR automatically finds it and adds it. The only configurations I had to make were for custom motion zones and my alert preferences. This system is very much plug-n-play. Because these cameras are POE (Power Over Ethernet), there are no other cables required for use other than one single Cat5 cable per camera.Camera Quality:The cameras are heavy duty and feel well made. Video picture quality is crystal clear and is much better than the Ring products I replaced which were only 1080P and were very dark in my opinion. The Reolink cameras have very good night vision and can light up nearly all of my rear yard (about 75 feet deep). If you have any flood lights or lights near your doors, the Reolink cameras are able to pick up light so well that you can keep them in full color mode even at night. The included cameras all record audio (you can chose to turn this off if desired) and the microphones are crisp and clear. They are quite sensitive and I could pick up my neighbors voice from around 50 feet away.Motion alerts:This is one of the biggest features in the age of home video recording. If I am recording video, I want to be alerted when someone is on my property or at my front door. The Reolink handles this with ease. You can set custom motion zones for every individual camera. Once the zone is set, you can customize the sensitivity and also when and how you would like alerts to be pushed to you (e-mail, push alerts, alarm on the NVR). You can also set custom time blocks where you may want more or less motion sensitivity.. Alerts are pushed instantly and on the iPhone they arrived every time without any delay.Remote viewing from Windows, Mac & iOS:Most people are going to be using this system for real-time alerts on their cell phone or mobile device to know if there is motion at their home. So far this system has shined in this area. The Windows and Mac client offer the full suite of customizations where you can tweak every aspect of the cameras and settings. The iOS app has many of the same features but lack a few abilities such as drawing the custom motion zones. For viewing, the iOS app works great. Upon opening the app, it immediately gives you a live stream of your cameras as well as the audio stream of whichever camera you have selected.Playback and Recording:This took a little time to get used to. Coming from the Ring, I was accustomed to having separate videos for every motion event or every time I pressed Live View. The drawback with Ring was that the videos were not available immediately. They had to be recorded and then uploaded to the Ring server before you could tap on it and view them. Unlike Ring, the Reolink video is a continuous timeline which gets broken down into 1-hour long segments. It is fairly simple to locate the chunk of video you want to view however unless you know the exact time you are looking for, you have to scrub through until you find what you need (I have been told this will be addressed in a future firmware update which will allow going directly to a motion event on the timeline). On the NVR itself, you can easily search by Motion Events and it breaks it down very simply for you. On the remote viewing clients, this is not the case (or at least I have not found the feature as of yet). There is no Fast Forward or Rewind so be prepared to scrub through the videos. Once you know what time you want, saving a video is very simple. On iOS, it saves directly to the camera roll and the videos are crystal clear. While live viewing any camera, you can also tap the record button to make an instant video which will save to your camera roll after you press stop. Overall, I love the ability to remotely view and save video, but I feel it could use some added features to make it better.Conclusion:For the money, this system meets all of my expectations and then some. While it is chocked full of features, I would really like to see the company offer the ability to fast forward and rewind while reviewing video in ALL of the remote viewing platforms. The single feature which absolutely needs to be added to iOS, Mac and Windows Clients is the ability to see any motion events in the playback timeline (again, I was advised this is in the works in a firmware update which will be released soon). This way the user can easily skip to the portion of video that is most important to them. All things considered, I recommend this system to anyone looking to get a good video surveillance system for their home.

Why did you pick this product vs others?:I was looking at some cheaper ones that were going for like 160 but had some bad reviews so I just spent a little bit more and got these. I'm glad I did. Very high quality. There's some going for so much more. This is all you need. It has 4k video/audio recording. 2tb hard drive. Set up was amazingly easy. You only need to plug one cord into the camera itself and that singular cord (60ft) runs to the NVR. The app is done very well. Night vision is absolutely superb. The cameras themselves look quite stylish. I didn't even have to read any directions it was all so self-explanatory. Now it's only been installed for a few hours so I can't speak on longevity but the other reviews seem to say it works very well in the long term. Which was my biggest concern with going with a cheaper product. If anything ever craps out on me I will definitely come back here and update but for right now I am one happy customer and definitely recommend.

Added this to provide security for my house. We had the house pre-wired with ethernet drops outdoors and these cameras fit the bill nicely. They aren't overly large so they are not big eyesores. The video quality is great and provides a good field of view. The app works well for live viewing or up to a week of previous recordings. The connectors are weatherproof and we have put them through the paces of Texas weather with no issues.

I have just finished setting up an 8 channel NVR with 4 5mp turret cameras. This will be my initial review that I will update after a few months of use.1. Installation and SetupThe hardest part of installation is routing the cables. First thing you need to do is take some time and carefully think about where you want all of your cameras placed. Once you know where you want your cameras, think about a central location in your house where you can route all the ethernet cables to the NVR.The actual setup of the NVR and cameras is incredibly easy. Then first thing you should do is sit down next to your router and test all the cameras and cables and do the initial setup of the NVR. I would also highly recommend that you update the firmware at this point. Mine came with an older firmware version and I immediately updated because there are some excellent improvements made on the newer firmware version. The Reolink website has detailed steps for updating the firmware, and it seems like the company is really committed to improving their product.If you are not tech savy, the setup should not be difficult. The instructions that come with the unit are not very detailed, but their support site has tons of detailed information and walkthroughs for setup.If you are more tech savy there are also some more advanced features like FTP, DDNS, email notifications, which are very cool and straight forward to set up.2. HardwareThe cameras and NVR seem to be of decent quality. They dont seem cheap, but they don't feel like anything special. The camera mounts are easy to install and the cameras are easy to adjust and feel like they will stay in place. My only complaint is that I don't think the cameras need a power input or reset button. They add extra bulk when trying to conceal the camera and they are useless. I think almost everyone is going to be using these with PoE and will feel the same way. You will probably want to somehow weatherproof the reset and power jacks coming off the cameras. I just taped them off with some electrical tape which probably isnt the best.As for the cameras and NVR quality, only time will tell how they hold up under constant use.The cat5 cables that come with the unit are definitely cheaper feeling and it may be worth spending an extra $100 on some more robust cat6 cables. I however went ahead and used the cable that came with the system. I did have to route the cables externally, so once again only time will tell how long they will hold up to the elements. I dont believe they are supposed to be UV or water resistant.One thing that is a really nice addition are the waterproof lids that come with the cables. I especially like that they can be installed without removing the heads of ethernet cable and re-crimping. I believe this was a design update they made to the lids because I saw another review saying that they couldn't be used without removing the rj45 jack. I also wish there were instructions included on how to install the lids, but once again their website does have instructions for this, though they are not up to date.3. Mobile and Desktop and Browser ApplicationsI run the application on both Android,Windows, and web browsers, and I find it to be fairly intuitive and easy to navigate. There are a few quirks but for the most part it does everything I need.There are definitely some improvements that can be made to the mobile app.First, you cannot rearrange the order of the cameras on the home screen in the mobile app. You can do this on the desktop and browser apps, just not mobile. Also it's important to note that the order of you cameras in the app are not dictated by the channels that you have them plugged into the NVR, but the order that you initially set up the cameras. This is just kind of annoying because the first camera I setup was pointing at my backyard, so now this is the first camera that shows up in the app. I would much rather it be the one pointing at my front door.Second, if you have motion detection setup and you receive a push notification, pressing on the push notification just takes you to the live view rather than show you the actual motion recording. This is something that I always liked about my Wyze cams which I replaced with this system.There also appears to be a significant lag in when motion events are available to view on the mobile app. I would often receive a motion detection notification, open the app, navigate to playback and select the option to "show alarm videos only" however that particular video would not be available. This is probably because the camera records in chunks (30mins, 45mins or 60mins) and the actual motion events don't get separated until the entire recording completes.4. Motion Detection and AlertsOne of the major drawbacks of the system is the motion detection. The motion detection on these cameras is pixel based rather than from a PIR sensor. This means that if your cameras are in areas with constantly changing light conditions, the motion detection will not be reliable. You can try to find a balace by tuning the sensitivity and motion zones, but ultimately I was just getting far too many false positives from the motion detection. I ended up keeping the motion detection on however, and just turning off all push and email notifications.5. Durability and ReliabilityUnknown6. Final assessmentThis is an excellent product and well worth the price. I got it at a significant discount so I feel even better about the purchase and I can easily look past its shortcomings. If there were two improvements I would want in this product it would be better quality cables included and PIR motion detection. If they offered a PoE camera with PIR I think it would make the whole system exponentially better. That said, as is, this is a more than adequate home surveillance system, that is dead simple to set up, but packed with some neat features and supported by a company that seems to be driving for improvement.