Reolink RLC-520A PoE Camera

I don't write a lot of reviews, but if a product performs exceptionally well, (or exceptionally poorly), I like to inform others! We've had this system installed for about a year now, I was able to install it myself (although I detest heights!). Once installed it's relatively easy to set up. I put mine in the loft and connected a router up there. It was just easier to hide the wires. The video quality is excellent and we purchased ours during a Prime Day, so we got great value for money. For four cameras that we have set up on ours, it will save about 1 week of high quality footage for each camera before overwriting itself. More than enough! Highly recommended.

I have had this system for a few months now and it has been exposed to the British weather where I live in quite an exposed location. All working absolutely fine. I had decided to invest in a CCTV system due to harassment we have experienced from a particular neighbour, and also a general security enhancement. My house is a terrace so I only actually needed two cameras, and have ended up now with two spare. After some research I decided to go for a POE system and I am all round very impressed with it, and regardless of the two spare cameras this has been a worth while investment as the kit comes with everything you need. I have installed two cameras one at the front the other at the back of the house. At the front I drilled a 20mm hole through the wall above my front door at the first floor level. This comes through in a bedroom in a fitted wardrobe which was a good place to pull up a floorboard to do this. It was fairly easy to then run the ethernet cable through to where I have the NVR without too much upheaval in the house. Due to the shape of the done shaped cameras and no wires showing I feel this looks quite neat, noticeable but not imposing on the house. At the back however the place I wanted the cameras is right where the incoming electric service line is. After some thought I decided it was not a great place to drill through the wall. I did have a spare junction box and as there is already another junction box for my outside light I've manage to make it look quite neat, the ethernet cable then runs behind a pipe to the basement which was a more suitable place to drill through the wall. After this one does the set up was simply a case of plugging in and turning on. The footage from the cameras is excellent HD quality. I was slightly concerned with them being close to the outside light but this has not been a problem. If the light is off they are on night mode, when it comes on they switch to day mode. I have it set to record at all times however the detection seems to be very good, so I may review and change the settings. I have the NVR plugged into my PC screen, and I also have the app set up. The cameras have been a success in terms of deterring the harassing neighbours, and it feels good to have increased security in general. None of the other neighbours have raised any concerns. I get a good view of my own gardens and onto the street at the front where the are parked cars. This system is highly recommended and I would recommended to household users.

Right, the good bits. Image quality great day or night, setup of reolink cameras are probably one of the best. The android app and pc app work fantastic and easy to use. I use blue iris and can confirm rtsp and onvif work fine. Customer services is probably the best I've had in the past 10 yrs. Now the bad bit: The mounting system isnt good at all, after following the instructions to the T. The camera would rotate super easy my kids 80gram air filled plastic ball moved it without any effort. I did contact reolink customer service who sent me out another before I sent the faulty one back at my request (there was a reason). Unfortunately the replacement was the same. To save messing about with returns etc I asked reolink if I could put a small screw in the replacement through the bracket and just kissing the body of the camera to hold it in place and asked if I did this would it affect my warranty to which I was told it wouldn't. It's pretty obvious this is a design flaw in this particular model (i do have other reolink models and they are all fantastic). Great camera all in all bit cant give 5 stars it loses one for the design and one for me having to use a screw to rectify it, which I shouldn't have to do! **UPDATE After seeing this review Reolink customer services has been in touch apologising. As an apology they have sent me a £5 refund. It's great to see a company actively looking at reviews of there products, once again really impressed with Reolinks customer service. I have given an extra star to reflect the customer service aspect. I know this is a product review but customer services is such an important part of a product too.

Got a relatively large home CCTV system of 9 cameras, mixed brands, recording 24/7 on a HikVision NVR. Mostly bullet cameras as felt easier to site and point where wanted as typically minidomes can be adjusted pan and tilt only (no twist like a bullet camera, typically…) Due to where the camera was going I opted for a minidome as more discrete. Ordered an alternative cheaper brand initially, but first one unstable (returned no issue), second one glitchy and also unstable so returned too. I’d skipped the Reolink minidome initially as wasn’t the cheapest, but as I already have a Reolink bullet which works like a treat and has rock solid firmware it seemed the obvious choice. Not sure if I had missed it in the description, but opened the box to check and inspect and had a pleasant surprise… Other cheaper minidomes typically have limited flexibility when installing as can pan and tilt (I.e. Left/Right and Up/Down) but that doesn’t always get you exactly where you want. However with this Reolink, it also has a twist ability. That might not sound like a big thing, but it basically means you get the flexibility of where you want to point the camera just like a bullet but in the neat and discrete package of a minidome. 🙂 Win Win! Second very significant point I noticed was that on many other cheaper minidomes, you remove the dome/cover with an allen/torx key, install/fix the camera then re-install the cover. This typically results in allowing moisture/humidity into the camera during install, and also means you don’t have a watertight seal to the elements. I’m turn this increases the chances of having condensation inside the camera which not only obscures the image but can also shorten the lifespan of the camera over time, even if packed with silica gel. The Reolink camera however doesn’t have either of those issues. Reason being is that to install the camera, you have a separate mounting plate which the camera clips onto, and the camera is sealed and doesn’t need to be opened or tampered with reducing or eliminating any issues from moisture/humidity. So, in short, really very impressed with the design and overall package of this minidome. Given that it gives the same benefits of a bullet but less intrusively due to being a minidome I will be looking to use these in the future. On the firmware side, I already have 1 Reolink bullet so was confident on that side but compared to the cheaper alternatives, the Reolink (Not generic IP camera firmware) firmware is responsive, simple and solid. As a mention, whilst there isn’t an option to change the codec from the standard h265 if you check the Reolink website there is a h264 rtsp feed which you can use for older equipment that doesn’t support h265 so this camera should be able to work on almost any NVR or viewer. 🙂 And lastly the one I purchased was a 5MP (All my other cameras are 8mp/4K) but this provides a very clear image for a 5MP in my opinions and there is very little difference in overall image quality vs my 4K cameras. So overall 10/10 and very good value for money, will definitely be buying more in the future. 👍🏻

Have two professionally installed by my son at my house, one front one back. He has the same at his house. Amazed at the clarity and all the different ways you can choose to set it up. Easy to find what you want on playback due to choice of dates and time, symbols for people ,vehicles and animals. Good infrared images at night. Also records and plays back sounds if you want that. Waterproof, survived some terrible weather in the two months since they were set up. You can also black out parts of the picture like your neighbours garden so as not to invade their privacy. I’ve got very good neighbours and I thought it was right to tell them they were there. There were no objections and one is pleased it covers his drive and cars too. Not easy to see from ground level either. Very unobtrusive under the gutter. Amazing for rhe money Patrick

Bought to replace ageing and faulty 4 camera system (not Reolink) I bought the 4cam system, doorcam and 2 extra cameras as prices were reduced. The plan was to phase in all 6 cams and doorbell. As doorbell arrived first it was decided to set this up first. The only problem with it was that the transformer lead with extension was too long and without too short. Not Reolink fault! Advice: if you want to use storage in doorcam do not silicon seal before. My bad. However, it is backup as main NVR can do this too of course. Doorcam excellent for us as we see all front garden, road, cars and visitors. Also freed a camera as a result. The main challenge is camera locations and leads. In our case only one is to be attached to house so the setup required no additional cables. The plan is to bury the other 5. Currently debating Cat 6plus or better at reasonable price but decent. There are a lot of dodgy spec cables out there. Also, crimping is a skill not yet mastered. The DVR setup for using one camera and doorcam for now is very easy. Replicated on 2 phones. The only problem for me is setting up email. The setup instruction book gets you going but points to onscreen instructions and email notices confuse me. However, there are plenty of vids online. Vert happy so far esp. about Reolink DVR ability to mix wireless and POE cams smoothly. We did explore wireless cams all round but did not wish to get into relays since 4 cams will be 35-40m from house. In all a wonderful piece of kit, easy start. Longevity who knows but commonsense suggests extra doses of silicon sealant with good cabling and locations will help. We opted to site DVR by main telly for convenience so sacrificed DVD player for space but it is comfortably petit. Hope above helps someone.

So far an excellent cctv system & the app is a joy to use with excellent features. My one minor critique is the dome cameras could do with a way to lock thier final position. They aren't very loose but there is a possibility they could be moved either manually or perhaps in strong winds/heavy rain. But overall really great resolution & night vision at a budget price with easy to use interface & app. Well worth it.

I tested both of these PoE cameras to protect the car on my driveway and decided to return the Reolink. Both cameras were fine in the daytime and recorded onto my Synology NAS. I also used the TP-Link PoE switch to power and network them both via one cable. The main differences were at night-time and understanding what actually triggers a recording event. The Reolink with it's IR lighting would over expose objects leaving them as white silhouettes. Also, if I made changes to the configuration I needed to change and revert another setting to make my intended change stick and say “saved” on the screen. The Hikvision camera is three times more expensive but records in full colour at night and It allows me to see whether a person or car triggers an event. It also supports line crossing and detection areas plus AAC audio. As you can see from my Hikvision image I have three human line crossing detections (in blue) and one animal detection area (in red). The person being detected and their reflection (in the car) are both green so they haven’t triggered an event (which turns the lines red). Finally, I’ve left a detection area running to pick up any wildlife on my driveway. The Hikvision is a nature watch camera.

Muy fácil montaje y configuración. La calidad de imagen es alta . Y las cámaras son robustas. Pendiente de saber si duran muchos años funcionando.

Mycket bra

Fonctionne très bien mais attention elle est réglable manuellement mais fixe.

Prodotto sicuramente non tra i più performanti della marca, ma che fa molto bene il suo dovere sulle brevi distanze. Ottimo prodotto per la videosorveglianza, specie per la visualizzazione delle immagini da remoto. Reolink è sempre una garanzia di qualità e di praticità nell'utilizzo.

J'avais besoin d'un système de qualité, enregistrement et alerte, pour surveiller le domicile d'une personne agée. J'avais essayé un produit concurrent sans fil et avec batterie, mais 2 inconvénients au final, la batterie ne tient que 2-3 jours maxi, et difficile de faire la recharge (accès aux caméras, connecteur micro-usb trop petit pour être manipulé par une personne agée) Je suis donc parti sur une solution cablée en POE afin d'éviter le problème de batterie et de raccordement secteur de chaque caméra. Il faut alors admettre de devoir passer des câbles dans l'habitation... Concernant le système 4 caméras Reolink POE, le produit est de très bonne qualité, emballage très sérieux et boitier et caméra métalliques. Le boitier est raccordé derrière une freebox, et les caméras connectés en essai avant installatiuon finale. Une connexion via cable hdmi (fourni) sur la télé, l'image de l'enregistreur apparait, une souris (fournie) permet de piloter le système très facilement. La documentation est plutot bien faite, les menus clairs, avec des choix très poussés si on veut vraie*ment entrer dans le détail de certains réglages (envoi email, sauvegarde enregistrement vers FTP, définition de zones de détection sur les caméras, etc) Aucun probleme particulier rencontré, l'application IPHONE est formidable, le logiciel REOLINK client est aussi très bien pensé. Je n'ai pas testé la connexion depuis Internet avec un navigateur en ouvrant des ports sur la freebox. Le produit est plus cher que les autres mais pour en avoir installé ou testé plusieurs j'ai finalement trouvé que celui-ci était vraiment le plus performant. Produit tout à fait conforme à ses photos et à ses caractéristiques techniques.